Improving the Quality of Practicum Learning: Self-Study of a Faculty Member's Role in Practicum Supervision

• In Event: Collaboration on Research on Practicum Learning as Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices

Abstract

Perspectives
Practicum supervision immerses each supervisor in the familiar tension between theory and practice, between what is taught explicitly in education classes (typically grounded in texts and research findings) and what is learned in practicum schools (from experienced teachers and from first-hand personal experience). In Schön’s (1983, p. 43) words:

"There are those who choose the swampy lowlands. . . They speak of experience, trial and error, intuition, and muddling through. Other professionals opt for the high ground. Hungry for technical rigor, . . . they choose to confine themselves to a narrowly technical practice."

This self-study focuses on a central challenge: Can the practicum supervisor help to improve the quality of practicum learning, specifically by helping teacher candidates manage and learn from the tension between education classes and practicum experiences?

Methods
Familiar methodologies of self-study of teacher education practices are used in this research. As LaBoskey (2004) indicated, self-studies are self-initiated and focused, improvement aimed, interactive, use multiple and primarily qualitative methods and use examplar-based validation based on trustworthiness. The interactive aspect of this methodology typically involves one or more critical friends who know the researcher well enough to assist in analysis and interpretation of data. Two critical friends participated in this study, one a former colleague now at another Canadian university, and a colleague outside Canada with whom the author frequently discusses issues associated with the preservice practicum.

Data Sources and Results
Data for this study include the author’s personal notes of university classes (taught to candidates who would be supervised) as well as visits to schools, email messages exchanged with the candidates, notes taken during classroom observations. Additional data come from on-going discussions with two critical friends during and after the practicum supervision periods. As a result of this self-study I have raised the bar for my own activities as a practicum supervisor. In a practicum of six weeks, candidates became more aware of the disconnect between the ideas of foundational courses and the much greater demands of everyday life in school. Having increased my attention to developing one-on-one relationships before the practicum begins, I was struck by the powerful payoff in my sense of the candidates’ seeing value in my supervisory visits and in the trust they show in their messages to me about practicum experiences.

Scholarly Significance
Beck and Kosnik (2002) offered the following conclusions to a study of faculty participation in practicum supervision:

"Involvement of faculty in the practicum is necessary to establish a basis for dialogue with student teachers about teaching and learning; faculty need to be familiar with the contexts in which student teachers are working and with the challenges they face. Finally, we believe involvement in the practicum is a key part of modeling a sound teacher-student relationship." (p. 16)

This self-study concurs and goes further by providing not only illustrations of these conclusions but also interpretations that illustrate strategies for helping teacher candidates make sense of the significant learning differences between education classes and practicum placements.

Author

• Tom Russell, Queens University