Building Collaborative Partnerships in Teacher Education based on Perceptions, Experiences, and Insights from Mentoring Teachers and Teacher Candidates
Abstract
Student teaching and pre-clinical field experiences are an instrumental component of teacher education programs within most universities nationwide. A successful pro- gram must have two essential parts: effective clinical placement settings and highly quali- fied mentoring teachers. With the new CAEP (Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation) standards surrounding the edu- cation field for building effective partnerships and creating high-quality clinical programs, many are taking notice that there is a gap in the literature surrounding the perspectives of mentoring teachers in partnering school districts where our teacher candidates spend vast amounts of time to complete the require- ments to receive teacher licensure (Torrez & Krebs, 2012; Clift & Brady, 2005; Veal & Ri- kard, 1998; Graham, 2006). To better develop coherence across clinical and academic com- ponents of preparation of teacher candidates, all voices must be heard; all perspectives need to be outlined in current literature to form a shared responsibility and accountability. For this article, the perspectives of mentoring teachers and teacher candidates 33 from early childhood placements were collected and analyzed to determine the cur- rent state of collaborative partnerships per- taining to student learning and development, implementation, assessment, and continuous improvement of a teacher education program. The overarching research question, “How do universities and partners begin to form a collaborative partnership to develop and establish mutually agreeable expectations to create student success within teacher educator programs?” guided this research to examine the perceptions, experiences, and insights of mentoring teachers in early childhood classrooms to strengthen current teacher education programs. The ultimate goal of this research was to gain an understanding of the current thinking of more stakeholders and to use the information to begin the process of mutually designing the programs to en- sure sufficient depth and breadth, reflection, pedagogical skills, and increased vigor for our teacher education programs.
Recommended Citation
Ratican, Crystal
(2015)
"Building Collaborative Partnerships in Teacher Education based on Perceptions, Experiences, and Insights from Mentoring Teachers and Teacher Candidates,"
Ohio Journal of Teacher Education: Vol. 29:
No.
1, Article 7.
Available at:
https://www.exhibit.xavier.edu/ojte/vol29/iss1/7
