by Diane Rose

Online videos and Web-based discussions of real teaching dilemmas are adding a powerful new dimension to the relationship between the college’s pre-service teachers and the cooperating teachers who work with them. Each year, the college collaborates with about 550 teachers from K–12 schools in the Twin Cities metropolitan area who invite licensure candidates into their classrooms to gain practical experience. But while the student teachers consistently highlight the importance of this support, it can be logistically difficult and time-consuming for cooperating teachers to come to campus for meetings.

Misty Sato, assistant professor of teacher development in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, has developed a virtual solution using the latest in Web communication technology. With the help of a $10,000 University Technology-Enhanced Learning grant and in-kind matching funds from the college, Sato and Robert Utke, clinical experiences coordinator in the college’s Educator Development Office, are putting videotaped student-teacher cases online for easy access by cooperating teachers. Six of the videos will be completed by this fall.

The college students talk about some of the toughest real-world situations they have faced during their student-teaching experiences. “The case dilemmas we’ll be presenting are likely to be complex and powerful,” Sato says. “They are usually morals-based situations that focus on issues such as racism. These are the situations where it is most important for cooperating teachers—who’ve invited the student teachers into their classrooms—to act as mediators, to provide support, and to model behavior.”

The cooperating teachers are then encouraged to discuss the cases online. Sato is planning to work with 40 cooperating teachers during the 2007–08 school year. She is also recruiting student teachers to provide additional cases.

When Sato has used videotaped cases for teacher professional development in the past, participants commented that facilitated discussions of the cases helped them understand alternative responses to difficult situations. Sato believes that the use of online case discussions in the new study will improve understanding and communication between cooperating teachers, student teachers, and the college.

Cooperating teachers play a vital role in helping new teachers learn how to work with diverse student populations, manage the classroom learning environment, and develop relationships with parents and communities, she says. The participating teachers will receive CEU credits, and the impact of the program on both groups of teachers will be measured next spring via interviews and questionnaires.