Supervisor’s Role and Support

While on practicum, pre-service teachers also receive the support of their university practicum supervisors who help them with many tasks: reflecting on and coming up with solutions to their problems; identifying how their beliefs influence their practices; and becoming aware of how their associate teachers’ beliefs and practices are influencing their own. However, without adequate support, university supervisors could also compromise pre-service teachers’ professional development by inhibiting them from making connections between the theory learned in their teacher education programmes and their practices (Graham, 1997, 2005; Koerner et al., 2002; LaBoskey & Richert, 2002; Zeichner, 2002). Thus, in this section, we will discuss the possible impacts of our participants’ practicum university supervisors on the evolution of their beliefs and practices related to formative assessment. To do so, we compared our participants’ beliefs and expectations concerning their university practicum supervisors in terms of their role and support with what actually happened throughout their fourth year regarding their formative assessment knowledge acquisition. Once again, to avoid redundancy, we will focus only on the findings of four participants (Annabelle, Carlos, Claire and Marc-Antoine). It is important to mention that the author of this study was also the supervisor of two of them (Claire and Marc-Antoine).

Based on the findings, the university supervisors do seem to have an impact on how pre- service teachers’ beliefs and practices related to formative assessment evolve. For instance, at the beginning of her fourth year, Claire believed that supervisors had the role of guides towards helping pre-service teachers become better teachers. When asked during her second semi- structured interview how her supervisor had influenced her assessment practices, she stated that since he was doing a research project on assessment, she felt comfortable with talking to him as assessments were “sort of his expertise.” Claire also mentioned that she appreciated having his feedback on her teaching (during his visits) beside her associate teacher’s and spending some time discussing assessment during their CARDECs. The role of the university supervisor is to provide student teachers with opportunities to discuss and reflect on their beliefs about teaching, including

assessment, during the practicum. When that happens, it can make a contribution to the evolution of pre-service teachers’ beliefs and practices related to formative assessment.

Marc-Antoine also claimed that his assessment practices were positively influenced by his supervisor who would provide helpful feedback since his supervisor was doing a study on this topic. In addition, Marc-Antoine stated that despite not liking the CARDECs in general, he enjoyed the moments during which his university supervisor made him reflect on certain things such as questions that he could ask his students or things that he did not do and should have done. Moreover, Marc-Antoine also claimed to have learned more about formative assessments during his practicum with his university supervisor, as he previously thought they were just “tests that did not count.” He now knows that formative assessment is much broader and includes things like the questions he might ask at the end of an explanation. Thus, based on Marc-Antoine’s statements, we can infer that his university supervisor did positively influence how his beliefs and practices related to formative assessment evolved by providing opportunities to challenge and reflect on the effects of his beliefs on his practices and professional development.

However, that was not the case for Annabelle and Carlos. Annabelle, for instance, stated that her fourth-year university supervisor only provided her with feedback regarding her teaching during her intensive practicum, as before it started, she did not get a lot of comments, explanations or instructions. In terms of her assessment practices, Annabelle affirmed not receiving any feedback as her practicum supervisor did not visit her when she was doing any assessments. Similarly, when asked at the end of his fourth year whether his practicum supervisor helped him improve his assessment practices, Carlos also answered negatively. According to Carlos, his supervisor provided him with general feedback and motivational insights and that he did not mention much about evaluation.

Therefore, based on Annabelle and Carlos’s statements, it seems that their practicum supervisor did not have a major impact on their beliefs and practices related to formative assessment throughout their fourth year. One of the possible justifications for this event is the lack of support given by the university to their supervisor by not making him aware of the courses they had taken and the actual knowledge taught in those classes. As Zeichner (2010) states, university

supervisors often do not participate in decisions about the teacher education programmes. As a consequence, by not being aware of such contents, practicum supervisors could struggle to determine whether their student teachers applied what they had learned (Kissau & Algozzine, 2013) and might not be able to help pre-service teachers bridge the gap between theory and practice. However, similar to what could happen to associate teachers, this event might have also happened due to their practicum supervisor’s own beliefs concerning his role with regards to the student during the practicum. Further research is required to determine the possible reasons concerning supervisors’ lack of support towards pre-service teachers’ assessment practices. Our findings corroborate Borko and Mayfield’s (1995) study in which the majority of their university supervisors had limited roles (influence) on pre-service teachers’ process of learning to teach. Therefore, practicum supervisors must work in collaboration with associate teachers and have an active role in helping pre-service teachers identify and challenge their own beliefs, such as during their feedback sessions during the practicum.

These findings corroborate other studies in which university supervisors still tend to have a limited/discrete role (Allen & Wright, 2014) or struggled to work in collaboration with some associate teachers (Thomas, 2017). In a recent study, Russell (2017) focused on his own role as a university practicum supervisor in terms of helping pre-service teachers navigate between theory seen during education classes and practice (practicum experiences). Among his findings, Russell (2017) highlights the impacts practicum supervisors’ prior experiences have on his or her supervision. The author claims that,

if the university supervisor has a teaching background that focused on telling and the transmission of theory-based knowledge, then the default supervisory behaviour may follow the familiar pattern of tips and tricks rather than understanding the learning experiences of the beginning teacher. (Russell, 2017, p. 204)

In other words, university supervisors’ beliefs and prior experiences also shape pre-service teachers’ professional development. Thus, university practicum supervisors should also be aware of their own beliefs, for instance, conceptions of teaching and learning and formative assessment, as they will guide how they will supervise their pre-service teachers. In conclusion, university

supervisors have an important role in terms of how pre-service teachers’ beliefs and practices evolve. However, university supervisors must receive adequate support from the university (such as by working in collaboration with different teacher educators) in order to help pre-service teachers make connections between the theory learned in their teacher education programmes and their classroom contexts. In addition, they must help pre-service teachers identify their own beliefs and expectations in order to provide adequate support towards their professional development so that pre-service teachers are aware of how to overcome possible struggles they might encounter as newly graduated teachers.