Browsing by Subject "ohjaava opettaja"

The growth towards class teachership – what kind of a teacher one is as an individual and in relation to others and what one strives to achieve – continues throughout teachers’ whole career. Teaching practice and related supervision which are part of teachers' education have a significant effect on their growth. Cooperative teacher supports and advises the student teachers and prior studies have discovered that cooperative teacher's conceptions are easily transmitted to the students. The purpose of this thesis was to examine how cooperative teachers’ conceptions affect their supervision, what significance they perceive their supervision has towards students' growth towards teachership and what kind of challenges they experience in supporting the growth of their students. Data was collected by interviewing eight cooperative teachers from one official training school as well as municipal schools. The interviews where analysed using phenomenography with a data-driven approach. Answers to the research questions were explored by constructing categories from the conseptions of the cooperative teachers. Theoretical framework consisted of the concepts of teachership, teacher practice supervision and cooperative teacher. Cooperative teachers perceived that class teachership consists of diverse duties of a class teacher and that teachership is a profound phenomenon. The teachers' conceptions of class teachership were similar to their conceptions of a good class teacher. The cooperative teachers did not seek to transfer their conceptions of teachership to the students but they acknowledged that they transfer nevertheless. Teachers strove to improve their students and teach them that there is no one correct way to be a class teacher. There was variation in the cooperative teachers’ perceptions of the significance of their supervision in students' growth towards leadership. The cooperative teachers did, however, believe that they had several ways of supporting the students' growth. The experienced challenges in supervision were difficult students, problems in supervision relationships and challenges rising from the practice environment. Attention should be paid to the selection and further training of the cooperative teachers in order to guarantee equal and qualified supervision of the students in their growth towards teachership during their teacher training.