Identifying the Dilemmas of Practice Faced by University Field Supervisors

• In Event: Addressing Beliefs and Notions of Preservice Teachers

Abstract

Although university supervisors perform a critical role in the development of teacher candidates, their work is largely unexamined within the field of teacher education. In this research we invited university supervisors to share their backgrounds and contexts for supervision, as well as to identify dilemmas of practice they encounter in their work. Distilling responses from approximately 100 supervisors a variety of teacher preparation program areas across the US, we found that their concerns relate to work with their teacher candidates, their schools, and the home institutions of higher education. Our findings also revealed that supervisors’ individual backgrounds significantly shaped the types of situations they identified as problematic, providing insight into the future professional development of supervisors.

Authors

• Laura Baecher, Hunter College - CUNY

• Alexander Cuenca, Saint Louis University