Valerie Triggs

Cooperating Teacher Participation in Teacher Education: A Review of the Literature

Student teachers consider cooperating teachers to be one of the most important contributors to their teacher preparation program. Therefore, the ways in which cooperating teachers participate in teacher education are significant. This review seeks to move conceptions of that participation beyond commonly held beliefs to empirically supported claims. The analysis draws on Brodie, Cowling, and Nissen’s notion of categories of participation to generate 11 different ways that cooperating teachers participate in teacher education: as Providers of Feedback, Gatekeepers of the Profession, Modelers of Practice, Supporters of Reflection, Gleaners of Knowledge, Purveyors of Context, Conveners of Relation, Agents of Socialization, Advocates of the Practical, Abiders of Change, and Teachers of Children. When set against Gaventa’s typology of participation, the resultant grid highlights the importance of negotiated or invited spaces for cooperating teacher participation and provides a new way of thinking about, planning professional development for, and working with cooperating teachers.

The Mentoring Profile Inventory: an online professional development resource for cooperating teachers

We report on the origins, development and refinement of an online inventory to help cooperating teachers focus on selected dimensions of their practice. The Mentoring Profile Inventory (MPI) helps quantify important features of both the motivating and challenging aspects of mentoring student teachers and provides results to respondents in a graphic, easy-to-understand and immediate feedback report (14 sub-scales and 3 summary charts). Psychometric properties of the MPI are shown to be robust. Results can be used individually or collectively to facilitate cooperating teacher professional development by providing the opportunity for dialog around a set of common issues.

Richgate: Transforming Public Spaces through Community-Engaged Art

Our research involves community-engaged arts practices that explore issues of identity, place, displacement, community, and the changing nature of geography within the city of Richmond. It focuses on the expansion of processes and events that give landscape a sense of place in ways that resonate with lived experiences and cultural traditions.

Features of Place Making Curriculum

Ellsworth, E., & Kruse, J. (2005) EarthShapes art studio. http://extrememediastudies.org/earthshapes/index.html