Moving From Periphery to Center: How Relationships With Cooperating Teachers Shape Novices' Identity Development

• In Event: Lives of Novice Teachers

Abstract

Pre-service teachers (PSTs) learn to teach at the intersection of two worlds: universities and PreK-12 schools. These two worlds are rarely aligned, which complicates the learning experiences for new teachers. Drawing from situated perspectives on learning this multi-site comparative case study examines how PSTs move from the periphery towards the center within their community of practice. Participants in this study fell into two different trajectories of experience. Some experienced a tension between the kind of teacher they wanted to be and the kind of teacher they felt that they needed to be in the educational contexts they were occupying; others did not. Analysis reveals that relationships and skills of cooperating teacher’s had a significant impact upon the PSTs’ identity development.

Authors

• Rebecca Buchanan, University of Maine

• Karen L Robbie, University of Maine at Orono