Associate Teachers’ Role and Support

While on practicum, pre-service teachers are expected to be able to test, reflect on and apply theories and methods they have learned during their courses. Therefore, in this section, we will discuss the possible impacts of three of our participants’ associate teacher’s influence on the evolution of their beliefs and practices related to formative assessment.

Claire and Marc-Antoine seem to have been positively influenced by their associate teachers. For Claire, her associate teacher was a positive influence on her assessment knowledge as the teacher would give Claire feedback on the many evaluations and grids that Claire was able to build. Despite feeling a bit exhausted at the end of her practicum, as she had to create all of her teaching material, she was feeling more prepared to teach than some of her classmates who had an

easier practicum. Morever, while on practicum, Claire had to follow her associate teacher’s assessment approach, which was mainly summative assessments and that did not match her assessment beliefs. However, despite this mismatch, Claire’s associate teacher’s role and support positively influenced her beliefs and practices related to formative assessments, mainly due to the opportunities that Claire was given to create and test some of her own assessment tools while on practicum. As mentioned in chapter one, mismatches between the pre-service teachers’ beliefs and their assessment practices could lead to severe consequences such as a low self-esteem and a burnout (Sikka et al., 2007). In other words, by being obliged to follow an assessment practice that she does not believe in, there could have been negative consequences on Claire’s professional development. Fortunately, Claire’s beliefs were flexible and context-independent (Fives & Buehl, 2012; Hermans et al., 2008), as they remained unchanged after the end of her practicum since she adopted assessment practices that matched her beliefs in her own teaching contract that started after her practicum.

According to Marc-Antoine, his associate teacher’s support also positively influenced his assessment practices as he helped Marc-Antoine build grids and gave feedback when Marc- Antoine was creating tests. Marc-Antoine’s associate teacher’s role and support also matched Marc-Antoine’s fourth and final practicum expectations to be guided when performing tasks that he was not comfortable with (such as assessments) and to learn about techniques for assessment that he had not seen in his university classes through observing his associate teacher’s practices. In terms of his associate teacher’s role and support, some associate teachers believe that their role is only to focus on transmitting techniques and tips associated with what they believe to be effective practices (Zeichner, 2005). We believe that this was Marc-Antoine’s case. During our second semi-structured interview, Marc-Antoine claimed not having had many opportunities to test his own grids or to create important assessments. The main problem with this approach is that pre-service teachers are prevented from testing his own activities (and assessments) learned at the university while on practicum. As a consequence, pre-service teachers are not able to reflect on their beliefs and practices as they are only required to reproduce/mirror their associate teachers’ ones. Furthermore, pre-service teachers will have to wait until they have their own classes (once they graduate) to test what they learned during their on-campus classes. Therefore, Marc-Antoine’s

associate teacher’s role and support partially affected the evolution of Marc-Antoine’s beliefs and practices related to formative assessment.

However, for Annabelle and Carlos, their associate teachers’ role and support in their professional development did not seem to have a major impact on their beliefs and practices related to formative assessment. According to Annabelle, her associate teacher did not impose any of his own practices on her and he would let her choose her own teaching methods and approaches and would provide support only when requested. As a consequence, Annabelle chose to test some of her associate teacher’s practices (e.g. peer evaluation and correction) and she mainly reflected on her practices by herself. As a consequence, the lack of support given by her associate teacher did not seem to have had an impact on the evolution of her beliefs and practices related to assessment throughout her fourth year.

Despite also being free to teach on his own, Carlos’s practicum outcome was not the same as Annabelle’s. As presented in our previous chapter, Carlos claimed to have received very little support from his associate teacher and as a consequence, he was not influenced by his teacher’s perspectives on assessment. Based on Carlos’s statements, his associate teacher did not have the same vision of her respective roles as she chose not to interfere and let Carlos teach on his own. Therefore, he chose to follow his own approach to teaching, which was based on his prior beliefs and practices, meaning that he felt he did not learn anything new while on the practicum. This has been identified in the literature as a situation where a student teacher reaches a certain level of teaching competency, enough to feel reasonably successful, but in fact has hit a plateau because they are unable to envisage any changes that could lead to improvement (Dillon, 2016). This situation is usually a result of a combined lack of communication and support from the associate teacher and an inability to reflect on one’s practice on the part of the student teacher. In terms of his assessment practices, Carlos felt that his associate teacher also seemed to lack knowledge of what to do with the students’ assessments, which did not help him improve his own practices. Finally, Carlos also acknowledged that his daily reflections (reflecting on his own) did not help him improve his teaching skills as he believed the only way to reflect effectively is either in teams or in a group or by discussing with other people. Therefore, due to a mismatch between Carlos and his associate teacher’s beliefs and practices related to formative assessment, and the lack of

appropriate support that he was given, Carlos relied on his previous experiences of teaching and learning languages and the knowledge taught in his fourth year ended up being ignored. In other words, Carlos’s prior beliefs and knowledge acquired while teaching adults (before he started university) prevailed over the knowledge taught in his courses.

These findings also have important impacts on teacher education programmes. Many associate teachers believe that the best approach in terms of their supervision is to leave their pre- service teachers alone believing that they will be able to reflect and improve their teaching on their own. However, that is not a recommended approach as it might not fit every pre-service teacher’s profile. Two possible reasons for the above-mentioned inadequate support might have been the lack of information about her role and instructions on how to mentor new teachers given by the university and a misconception that her role as an associate teacher was only to focus on transmitting techniques and tips associated. Associate teachers must try to identify what kind of support the student teacher requires and to communicate with their student teacher to learn more about their expectations for the practicum and their beliefs about learning to teach from the beginning of the practicum. As recommended by many authors, through small group discussions or meetings, associate teachers should help pre-service teachers challenge and reflect on the impact of their beliefs on their practices (Borg, 2003; Hollingsworth, 1989; Nias et al., 1992). Although pre-service teachers at our university already have opportunities for small group discussions during their practica (CARDEC28 _{meetings), we believe that associate teachers could also provide similar} opportunities during their feedback sessions at the end of the day or after a teaching period. However, in order for this practice to be effective, firstly, associate teachers must be made aware of the content being taught at the university. Secondly, they should receive more instructions and support from teacher educators and university supervisors in terms of how to help pre-service teachers reflect on their teaching beliefs and practices. Finally, associate teachers could also encourage our pre-service teachers to work more collaboratively with other pre-service teachers to develop each other’s reflection skills, which would foster learning communities (Le Cornu & Ewing, 2008). We are aware that associate teachers and pre-service teachers have extremely busy schedules and many other commitments, and it is difficult for them to understand the importance of taking the time to discuss what happened in class and to guide and support the reflection process.

However, it is extremely important that all of the partners understand that these feedback and discussion sessions are an essential part of the practicum.