Tough transitions? Mediating beginning urban teachers’ practices through coteaching

• Published in: Cultural studies of science education Vol. 4; no. 2; pp. 409 - 432
• Main Authors: Wassell, Beth, LaVan, Sarah Kate
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.06.2009; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Beginning Teachers; Cooperating Teachers; Education; Ethnography; Original Paper; Practicums; Preservice Teachers; Science Education; Secondary School Teachers; Sociology of Education; Student Teachers; Student Teaching; Teacher Collaboration; Teaching Methods; Teaching Models; Team teaching; Urban schools; Urban Teaching; Coteaching; Induction; Beginning urban teachers; Shared responsibility
• ISSN: 1871-1502; 1871-1510
• DOI: 10.1007/s11422-008-9151-8

The coteaching model for teacher preparation has emerged in recent years as an alternative to the traditional student teaching or practicum experience. Several studies have investigated the process of coteaching and its impact on participants during the actual experience; however, few depict participants’ experiences once they obtain positions and begin to teach independently. This collective case study explored two urban high school teachers’ (Jen and Ian) practices during the induction period after taking part in the coteaching model for student teaching. Using a sociocultural analytic framework, we found that the participants’ agency as beginning teachers was not constrained by their coteaching experiences. Rather, they were able to continue to draw on some of the successful practices they had in coteaching, such as shared reflection, shared responsibility, cogenerative dialogues, and building relationships with students. In addition to describing the coherence and contradictions between Ian’s and Jen’s practices during coteaching and in their beginning years of inservice teaching, we also discuss the ways that they became collaborators in our ethnographic research.