A Call to Action: What Student Teachers Can Teach Us

Abstract

This qualitative study uses six years of survey data, collected from student teachers in a graduate level university initial teacher licensure program, to illuminate student teachers’ experiences with their cooperating teachers during their student teaching internship. The data, comments made by student teachers about their experiences with their cooperating teachers, were used to answer this research question: What are student teachers telling us about their experiences with their cooperating teachers? Using the constant comparative method of qualitative analysis (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) the survey data consisting of answers to the open form question “My cooperating teacher could have been more helpful to me by . . .” was analyzed and coded revealing six themes. Examples of student teacher comments are included. The paper concludes with recommendations for using the comments and resulting themes for a cooperating teacher education and development program.