Retrospective to Reimagining Possibilities: Student Teaching Supervision, Feedback, and the Building of Feedback Literacy

• In Event: Sunday Roundtable Session 1:15 pm
  In Roundtable Session: (Re)Imagining Literacy Practices for Preservice Teachers (Table 24)

Abstract

Student teachers’ work is characterized by relationships with multiple mentors, including a university supervisor. Through retrospective narrative accounts, this study highlights what current, practicing teachers retain of their supervisors’ feedback from student teaching, and what nuggets of supervisory wisdom continue to resonate throughout their careers.
Using a social constructivist lens, interviews were conducted with eight current teachers to probe their memories of supervision. Findings suggest that supervision is a scaffolded process with immediate, rapidly diminishing utility, and that relationships, positive and negative, are what linger most in teachers’ memories. By honing the purpose and methods of supervision and feedback, teacher education programs can improve stakeholders’ feedback literacy, and powerfully prepare educators for greater success during student teaching and beyond.

Authors

• Beth Clark-Gareca, Binghamton University - SUNY

• Teresa Bruno Warkentin, University of Colorado - Boulder