The Critical Role of University Supervisors: Fostering Belonging and Creating Safe Spaces for Teacher Candidates

• In Event: Pipe Dreams: Humanizing the Teaching Profession and Pipeline Through Liberatory Imagining

Abstract

Objectives. Teacher candidates are overwhelmed during the student teaching experience; student teaching is compounded by ongoing coursework, licensure assessments, varied supports at the school site, and the need to prioritize self-care. One constant during student teaching is the university supervisor. With a stark absence of new teachers entering and remaining in the profession, the role of the university supervisor is critical to restructuring the teacher pipeline. Keeping teacher candidates in preparation programs through purposeful feedback, creating a sense of belonging and safe space, and serving as both an advocate and cheerleader for the candidate, the university supervisor is imperative to the profession's future. Through the lens of supervisors and teacher candidates, this paper outlines the approach one preparation program, housed in an HSI / MSI, took to systematize and engage with university supervisors to foster empathetic supervisor practices.

Theoretical framework. A sense of belonging is vital for teacher candidates. Belongingness can be defined as “personal involvement” in a social system where individuals feel they are a necessary and fundamental part of that system (Anant, 1967). Maslow (1962) recognized belonging as a basic human need. Through an integrative framework for understanding, fostering, and assessing belonging, Allen et al. (2021) identify four interrelated components which foster a sense of belonging. These components include competencies for belonging, opportunities to belong, motivations to belong, and perceptions of belonging. The university supervisor can build and foster these components to support teacher candidates.

Methods. Using initial data collected and distributed on a statewide dashboard, an area of growth identified within the author’s College of Education’s “One Year Out” data included negative perceptions of communication with university supervisors. A grant was written and received to create a professional learning community with the university supervisors during the spring 2023 semester. Weekly meetings were held emphasizing belonging, empathy, safe spaces, and humanizing the student teaching experience. At the conclusion of the spring 2023 semester, 108 teacher candidates responded to an open-ended survey regarding their supervision experience.

Findings. Key findings include:
Best practices used by individual supervisors were shared within the professional learning community to create a systematized way of supporting teacher candidates.
Performance assessment information was shared and modeled with the supervisors' professional learning community, allowing them to increase their understanding and feedback to teacher candidates.
Empathy and belonging were shared, modeled, and emphasized each week. Teacher candidate feedback suggests the majority of candidates were on the receiving end of a humanizing supervision experience that helped to keep them in the program.
Supervisors want to be part of the discussion and included in the dialogue related to teacher candidate preparation.

Significance. Support for university supervisors is often bleak and understated, yet their role within the teacher preparation pipeline is critical. Clear, intentional, and humanizing support for supervisors paves the way for increased retention of teacher candidates who enter teaching feeling a sense of belonging to the profession.

Author

• Karen Escalante, California State University - San Bernardino