Making the Most of Student Teaching

Three individuals play key roles in the student teaching experience: the student teacher, the cooperating teacher, and the college or university supervisor. For the student teacher, the student teaching experience presents opportunities to demonstrate accumulated knowledge and to acquire new, practical skills. The cooperating teacher (also called mentor teacher) hosts the student teacher in his or her classroom and provides on-the-spot guidance. The college or university supervisor provides guidance from the teacher education perspective. The relationships among these three individuals can determine whether the student teaching experience is successful and ultimately whether the student will be successful as a teacher or, indeed, whether the student will enter the profession at all. The purpose of this short guide is to put into perspective these three key roles.Carlette Jackson Hardin is the author of 'Making the Most of Student Teaching', published 2005 under ISBN 9780873678612 and ISBN 0873678613.