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Transfer of control in instruction and classroom management from the cooperating teacher to the student teacher: The degrees of freedom in decision-making involved in the preservice clinical experience
Abstract
Within the period of each student teaching experience a series of transfers takes place in which responsibility for decision-making in instruction and classroom management is shifted from the cooperating teacher to the student teacher and culminates with the assumption of the role of teacher by the student teacher. The purpose of this study was to investigate the transfer of instruction and classroom control and the degrees of freedom allowing the student teacher to make decisions during the preservice clinical experience. Six categories were used as a framework to discipline the collection of the data: Time Sequence, Readiness, Formal Communication--Conferences, Informal Communication--Cues and Signs, Degrees of Freedom and Proximity, and Legal and Moral Responsibilities. The methodology involved three phases of investigation: oral interviews, classroom observations, and questionnaires. The population in Phases 1 and 2 consisted of ten matched pairs of cooperating teachers and student teachers who were interviewed and observed. In Phase 3 nine cooperating teachers and eight student teachers comprised a different, non-matched population who responded to two types of questionnaires. All participants were from elementary preservice clinical experiences in western Massachusetts. Collected data from the three phases were qualitatively analyzed to identify significant factors relative to the transfer of control. Cooperating teachers and student teachers had no personal explicit time sequence to grant or receive the transfer of control but believed an implicit pattern existed. Student teachers had no personal criteria for readiness to assume control but determined it by personal successes in classroom management, lesson ownership, and pupil respect. Cooperating teachers had an implicit pattern for determining readiness based on these factors. Conferencing varied in length and content; reflective thinking and philosophical discussion were not major components. Cues and signs were important indicators of the progress of the transfer of control. Student teachers needed to experience degrees of freedom to make decisions as they assumed control. They believed the cooperating teacher's proximity affected the mode of instruction and limited the degrees of freedom in their instructional and management styles. Legal questions limited the latitude of the student teacher's risk-taking and decision-making potential.
Subject Area
Teacher education|Elementary education|Curriculum development
Recommended Citation
Daly, Patrick Joseph, "Transfer of control in instruction and classroom management from the cooperating teacher to the student teacher: The degrees of freedom in decision-making involved in the preservice clinical experience" (1993). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI9316637.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9316637