University Supervisors' and Mentor Teachers' Evaluations of Teaching Episodes

University Supervisors' and Mentor Teachers' Evaluations of Teaching Episodes

Melissa M. Goldsmith, Janice A. Dole, Mary D. Burbank
Copyright: © 2019 |Pages: 24
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-6249-8.ch022
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Abstract

Teacher candidates receive mentorship and evaluations from university supervisors and cooperating teachers, qualified educational professionals and stakeholders performing two different roles. The study examined to what extent university supervisors and cooperating teachers agreed and disagreed on effective teaching. University supervisors and cooperating teachers were asked to watch three videos of teaching episodes and rate them using a 20-question observation instrument. Follow-up focus groups were held to discuss reasons for the ratings. Results indicated that these groups generally agreed on many aspects of quality teaching, but substantive differences existed as well. Raters varied by role when rating facets of language development for language learners, instructional strategies and assessment. Differences in ratings between these groups were explained by the way they view their roles and responsibilities in the classroom as well as the way they interpreted the components of the observation instrument.
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Background

Teaching is complex and multifaceted. Students, teachers, curriculum, leadership, and assessment are among the many variables that contribute to the tapestry of teaching. These variables mediate what is taught in classrooms and how it is taught. Importantly, teaching is also mediated by school and community cultures as well as by the past histories of each.

Activity theory serves as a useful framework for understanding the complex relationships and interactions involved in schools and classrooms and the university supervisors, cooperating teachers, and student teachers who work in them (Grossman, Smagorinsky, & Valencia, 1999; Valencia, Martin, Place, & Grossman, 2009). Activity theory has its roots in the cultural and historical school of psychology (Vygotsky, 1978; Leont’ev, 1978), as well as constructs in anthropology and sociology, which foreground cultural and historical pasts in understanding current behavior (Engeström, 1993). It is the social context that is the unit of analysis in activity theory, a fact that makes it appropriate for analyzing and understanding pre-service teaching in classrooms (Grossman, Smagorinsky, & Valencia, 1999).

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