Nancy L.
Zimpher
A Closer Look at University
Student Teacher Supervision
What should be the role of the university supervisor
of student teaching? Is the university supervisor necessary
at all? These questions were asked recently in this journal
(Bowman, 1979). In response, this article has two
purposes: one is to use these questions as a starting point
to re-examine the work of the university supervisor; the
other is to present the findings of a study which bear
directly upon the expanded questions.
Bowman suggested that university supervisors are often
ineffective; that they may suffer professionally because of
the reputation the position of university supervisor has
taken on; that they may affect adversely the quality of the
training a student teacher receives; that they may even
cause the cooperating teacher and the student teacher to
conspire against the university. Although he cites several
studies, Bowman relies mainly on testimony to back his
contentions. He concludes by suggesting that, &dquo;since,
according to some evidence, the supervisor doesn’t have a
significant role in the development of student teachers, the
most sensible plan would be to stop supervising&dquo; (p. 30).
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Gary G. deVoss
Deborah L. Nott
The Ohio State University
Relationships
between student
teachers and
university
supervisors must be
understood within
the context of the
total experience.
Stark photo,
Northern Illinois
University.
Bowman’s question about the present value of
supervision will interest practitioners, but it is not as
important as the more general need to study the student
teaching experience until the interrelationships among
participants are delimited and understood within the
context of the total experience.
The question can then be enlarged and rephrased:
&dquo;Given the university supervisor-student teacher-
cooperating teacher triadic relationship, what are the
antecedents and consequences of one member’s behavior
for all the others?&dquo; The change in focus alters questions
such as, &dquo;Are formal observations by the university
supervisor necessary during each visit?&dquo; to &dquo;Why don’t
university supervisors make formal observations during
every visit, and what are the consequences if they do or
do not?&dquo;
Moving to the expanded discussion, our position here
is threefold. One, student teaching is a common
experience in schools of education, and many assumptions
are made about those going through the experience, those
11

Interrelationships among must be
participants
defined and understood within the context of
the total experience.
supervising it, and those offering their classrooms so the
experience may take place. But assumptions are quite
often unfounded in effect. A case in point: is it true that
supervisor is ineffective if an observation does not take
place when a visit is made to the student teacher’s school?
Bowman argues yes; but evidence from a study we report
in this article suggests that the question is not best
answered by a simple yes-no.
Two, there is no need to use testimony to reach
conclusions about university supervisors. There are well-
Ponder (1975) define as a
&dquo;ecological,&dquo; which Doyle and
&dquo;network of interconnected processes and events which
impinge upon behavior in the environment&dquo; (p. 183), was
borrowed from biology to highlight this fact. The triadic
nature of the student teaching experience surely is an
exemplar. As deVoss has pointed out (1979), interaction
in classrooms often has the flavor of a ballet in which
a initiating cues for behavior are microscopic, activities are
intimately intertwined, and a high degree of synchrony
among participants is present. Such is surely the case with
the interaction between the student teacher, the
supervising teacher, and the cooperating teacher. We will
examine the latter point at length by using examples from
our study. But we wish to make clear that this issue is
more complex that the conceptions or findings of other

executed studies which bear upon the issue. For example,
we find that cooperating teachers are the primary
influencers in the student teaching triad (Yee, 1969;
Seperson Joyce, 1973; Morris, 1974; Chiu, 1975;
& student teaching, but noted the obvious lack of intimate
Karmos & Jacko, 1977).
Boschee, Prescott and Hein (1978) contradict this
conclusion, finding that cooperating teachers do not
influence the educational philosophies of student teachers.
Friebus (1977) concludes that university supervisors
supersede or rank a close second to cooperating teachers
in some areas of influence, such as &dquo;coaching&dquo; the student
teacher, and in &dquo;providing legitimation&dquo; for the student
teacher. And Copeland (1977) documents intervention
necessary to effect a positive influence from the
cooperating teacher on student teachers. Our purpose is
not to review all of the research on supervising, but to
point out that a growing data base is available.
Three, it is extremely dangerous to reduce any
complex activity or setting to a single variable. The term
researchers have ever suggested.
Our study came about as we recognized the
seemingly abundant descriptive data about the nature of
knowledge about what happens to student teachers,
university supervisors, and cooperating teachers. The
study reported here comes from efforts to conduct
longitudinal studies on the effectiveness of teacher
education programs. It applies socioanthropological
techniques in a first-hand observation of the traditional
triad of student teaching to answer Fuller and Bown’s
(1975, p. 52) question: &dquo;What is out there?&dquo;
The emphasis will be on presenting descriptions of
selected experiences as viewed by three student teachers,
Selected experiences as viewed by three
student teachers, three cooperating teachers,
and one university supervisor are emphasized.

Without the
motivating presence
of the supervisor,
student teaching
would simply be an
experience in which
the student tried, as
quickly as possible,
to duplicate
everything the
cooperating teacher
did without
analysis. Stark
photo, Northern
Illinois.

12

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Although cooperating teachers questioned
many student teaching requirements, they
rarely suggested replacement activities.
three cooperating teachers, and one university supervisor.
The field data were gathered by two observers who were
not officially involved in the student teaching experience.
These multiple perspectives were documented in these
ways: a) taped interviews by the observers of each student
teacher (to document pre-entry expectations and
characteristics), a description of the 11-week experience
using social, psychological, economic, and life gestalt
perspectives; b) taped interviews with the university
supervisor on a regular basis; c) recordings of each
conference held among any of the three parties; d) records
of classroom observations of each student teacher by the
university supervisor and observers; and e) additional
written documentation of the student teaching experience.
Since multiple perspectives were investigated, specific
questions were developed which related to each of the
three primary actors in the student teaching setting.
The reported data represent a sampling of the
findings, including those which illuminate the question of
influence (that is, the effects of the construction and
maintenance of the interrelationships among participants
within the context of the total experience) of one party
upon the others.
Selected Findings
Supervisor’s Formal Role
The orienting question was, &dquo;What do supervisors do
during student teaching, and to what end?&dquo; In our study,
one of the supervisor’s chief activities appeared to be that
of defining and communicating the purposes and
expectations to be fulfilled by the student teacher and the
cooperating teacher. Although cooperating teachers
questioned many of the requirements associated with
student teaching, they rarely suggested replacement
activities. This point was further verified by the kinds of
behavior stimulated by the university supervisor. Nor did
the student teachers take the initiative to redefine their
own student teaching experience. When the supervisor set
low (or few) expectations, those were the exact
expectations the student teachers fulfilled. Both
cooperating teachers and student teachers explicitly left
this task to the university supervisor.
A second activity of the supervisor related to phasing
the student teacher into the classroom’s on-going
instructional activity. Neither student teachers nor
cooperating teachers placed much value on observation
time; rather, they sought to move the student into full-
time teaching in less than a week. The university
supervisor’s authority in the phasing-in process was
accepted, but was not appreciated either by the student or
the teacher. ____________
When the supervisor set low (or few)
expectations, those were the exact expectations
the student teachers fulfilled.
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From these two findings, one could conclude that
without the motivating presence of the university
supervisor, student teaching would have a rather flat
profile. It would be simply an experience in which the
student teacher attempted, as quickly as possible, to
replicate all that the cooperating teacher did without
analysis or reflection about the teacher’s role.
Cooperating teachers claimed that they did
critique lessons, but actually were careful not
to mention negatively evaluated areas.
A third and extremely powerful activity of the
university supervisor had to do with evaluation and
constructive criticism. Cooperating teachers did not
provide critical feedback to student teachers. Rather, they
tended to assume a buffer role defending the student
teacher against the university supervisor. Observation and
detailed matching of respondents’ accounts showed that
cooperating teachers claimed that they did critique lessons
but actually were quite careful not to mention negatively
evaluated areas. Criticism took the form of pep talks.
Also, since our study showed that student teachers almost
exclusively modeled the teaching of the cooperating
teachers, criticism by the supervisor implied criticism of
the teacher. Moreover, the limited number of observations
that the university supervisor was able to make during the
experience gave the student teachers and cooperating
teachers grounds for doubting the validity of the
supervisor’s criticism. Such familiarity between the
student teacher and the cooperating teacher no doubt
stems from the daily interaction of the two. The
university supervisor, who interacts less frequently,
probably will always be considered the outsider. But
apparently it is just this position that allows the
supervisor the personal freedom to be more analytical and
constructively critical.
Extra-formal University Supervisor Activities
A more covert activity of the university supervisor
was to act as personal confidante to the cooperating and
student teachers. Cooperating teachers tended to share
both their personal lives and the personal lives of their
student teachers (almost as if they had no one else to tell).
This tendency seemed to help the supervisor time the
introduction of critical comments to the student teachers.
That is, when something went awry in the student
teacher’s personal life, the teacher would say to the
supervisor, &dquo;Go easy on my student teacher today.&dquo; The
student teachers also shared personal information about
themselves and their teachers, but not always what the
cooperating teacher wanted to tell the university
supervisor. The conclusion is that direct personal
communication (as opposed to informational professional
communication) between cooperating teacher and student
teacher is not usually possible, which may be one of the
major reasons why the triadic relationship is necessary.
Negative Influence and Non-influences
Two important areas remain to be considered: what
negative influence, if any, does the supervisor have; and,
13

Students and teachers appeared to be unable
to deal with each other directly and needed an
interlocutor’s assistance.
in what areas, if any, does the supervisor have no
influence at all?
In our case study, one instance of negative influence
resulted from the first impressions made by one student
teacher on the university supervisor. This caused
interpersonal friction that lasted throughout the
experience. Our data showed that the initial impressions
of the supervisor often influenced the supervisor’s
treatment of the student throughout the experience. Much
criticism by the supervisors stemmed from the supervisor’s
own personal, often scientifically unwarranted, biases
about teaching. Being common-sense criticisms, some
probably were accurate, but nevertheless impeded the
students in developing their own teaching style.
In what respects does the university supervisor have
little or no influence on the student teacher or the
cooperating teacher?
First, both student teachers and cooperating teachers
believed the classroom experiences (&dquo;the real ones&dquo;) that
students had were far more effective than were the
didactic components of the students’ programs. Therefore,
both students and teachers tended to discount or ignore
much of what they learned in methods courses.
Second, students tend to model cooperating teachers
closely, at least in the area of classroom management.
Students went with &dquo;what worked,&dquo; and what worked
was what their cooperating teacher did in the same
classroom. The supervisor’s attempt to quiz students on
why things worked was an uphill battle. Neither students
nor their cooperating teachers were even slightly
analytical in this dimension of classroom life. Third,
students presented a whole series of false barriers about
why they couldn’t currently be the real teacher they knew
they would be in their own classroom-they had to do
things the way their cooperating teacher did. This may
have been a part of the gamesmanship that students
engaged in to survive student teaching successfully; in any
case, trying to encourage student teachers to take a risk,
to teach creatively or experimentally, which may be the
supervisor’s ultimate contribution, was a difficult task.
Supervisor-Principal Relationship
A final area of influence is included here to
the complexity argument. We have dealt with only the
university supervisor-student teacher-cooperating teacher
triadic relationship. But our study also touched on the
relationship between the supervisor and the building
principal. No matter how great or small the involvement
of the principal in the student teaching experience,
principals do form perceptions about student teachers and
Conferences confirming satisfactory progress
gave students a signal that behavior and
attitude changes were not necessary to pass.
14
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do act on these perceptions. In our study, the principal, at
times, held student teachers accountable both for
classroom management and day-to-day planning for the
class. Since the principal had ultimate authority over the
cooperating teacher (and, apparently the student teacher),
the university supervisor’s involvement with the principal
was not by choice but by necessity. The principal’s
expectation for one student teacher was too stringent on
one occasion (according to the university supervisor’s and
the student teacher’s accounts). It appeared (to the
university supervisor) to be the supervisor’s role to
intervene, since the principal’s expectation for the student
teacher exceeded the university’s expectation. It is
apparently the role of the university supervisor to attend
to the principal’s interaction in the student teaching
experience and to influence the direction of that
interaction.
Summary
First, at least four of the findings suggest that if the
university supervisor were not directly involved in the
student teaching experience, there would have been no
direction set for requirements, evaluation, or assessment
of the student teacher’s experience in the school site.
Second, informational communication among participants
appeared to be enhanced because of the presence of the
university supervisor. Students and teachers (and the
principal) appeared unable to deal with each other very
directly and needed interlocutor’s assistance-in this case
the university supervisor. Third, though the
even
university supervisor in our study appeared to be
frustrated by a lack of direct influence on the teaching
style of the student teachers, the supervisor seemed to be
the only one making any critical contributions to the
student teachers’ progress.
These findings lead the researchers to some more
general conclusions about the nature of the university’s
influence in the student teaching experience. University
supervisors appear to do more in their role than the topics
of research reports would indicate. They must survive in
many worlds and be many things to many different
persons. They talk only infrequently about the traditional
aspects of student teaching, such as student teacher
problems with classroom management, planning, and
unit-building. They talk rather frequently about
illustrate
commonplace issues. The supervisor is the watchdog for
the completion of university requirements during student
teaching, the facilitator of relationships among students,
teachers, and principal, and the personal confidante of
anyone in the triad who chooses to confide.
To restate our opening argument, the role of the
university supervisor cannot be limited to observation;
rather, the role constitutes the totality of the supervisor’s
presence in the student teaching experience.
Finally, probably the most poignant report of the
supervisor in our study related to the supervisor’s
reflections at the end of the 11-week experience. Only
then was it clear that the student teachers weren’t
understanding the criticisms noted by the supervisor,

Many functions require input from someone
a role outside the school.
weren’t able to make any changes in their teaching styles,
and weren’t willing to do anything but satisfy the
cooperating teacher. It took a competent supervisor 11
weeks to assess both the teaching and the attitudes and
values of the student teacher and discover the sources of
influence in these areas. In essence, time went too fast for
the diagnosis and the prescription of strategies for change.
This activity is further complicated by the supervisor’s
report that mid-quarter conferences with students
confirming satisfactory progress tended to give the
students a signal that changes in behavior and attitude
were not necessary in order to pass student teaching. The
end effect tended to be a continuation by student teachers
of initial teaching styles.
OBSERVATION cannot be the only facet of the university
supervisor’s role. He/she facilitates relationships between
students, teachers, and principals. Barry Stark photo
courtesy of Northern Illinois University.
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These conclusions, though data-based, are somewhat
in speculative. Perhaps the strongest conclusion that can be
drawn at this state in our research is related to the
extreme complexity of the supervisor’s role. Removing the
supervisor from the student teaching triad means that
those functions reported by the supervisor in our study
either would not be done at all, or would be done by
someone else, either the cooperating teacher or principal.
Yet many of the functions noted require input from
someone in a role outside the school setting.
So, as Bowman (1979) suggests, this is definitely a
time to reconsider, but not in the way he meant. It is a
time to reconsider the reflexive influences inherent in the
student teaching situation, and to note how changing one
aspect will affect the others. This is a rather complex
matter indeed.
Zimpher is coordinator of undergraduate programs, deVoss is
professor of educational administration, and Nott is a doctoral ,
student, all in the College of Education, The Ohio State
University, Columbus.
References
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teachers influence the educational philosophy of student
teachers? Journal of Teacher Education, March-April 1978,
(2), 57-61.
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Bowman, N. College supervision of student teaching: A time
to reconsider. Journal of Teacher Education, May-June
(3), 29-30.
1979, 30
Chiu, L. H. Influence of student teaching on perceived
teaching competence. Perceptual and Motor Skills, June
, 872-874.
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1975,
Copeland, W. D. Some factors related to student teacher
classroom performance following microteaching training.
American Educational Research Journal, Spring 1977, 14
(2),
147-157.
deVoss, G. G. The structure of major lessons and collective
student activity. Elementary School Journal, September
1979, 80
(1).
Doyle, W., & Ponder, G. Classroom ecology: Some concerns
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Friebus, R. J. Agents of socialization involved in student
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Fuller, F. F. & Bown, O. Becoming a teacher. In K. Ryan (Ed.),
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