Student Teaching/Clinical Practice : Oklahoma
Teacher Preparation Policy
Analysis of Oklahoma's policies
Cooperating Teacher Requirements:
Apart from
requiring that cooperating teachers have at least three years of
experience teaching in the area in which they are certified, Oklahoma
has no other requirements for cooperating teachers.
Recommendations for Oklahoma
Ensure that cooperating teachers have demonstrated evidence of effectiveness as measured by student learning.
Cooperating teachers in Oklahoma should be carefully screened for their ability to further
student achievement. Research indicates that student teachers benefit most when
cooperating teachers are selected by the preparation program rather than by the
student teacher or school district staff.
State response to our analysis
Oklahoma indicated that educator preparation programs (EPPs) are required to co-select, prepare, evaluate, support, and retain high-quality cooperating teachers who demonstrate a positive impact on candidate' development and P-12 student learning and development. In collaboration with their P12 partners, EPPs use multiple indicators and appropriate technology-based applications to establish, maintain, and refine criteria for selection, professional development, performance evaluation, continuous improvement, and retention of cooperating teachers in all clinical placement settings.
In a follow-up response, the state submitted the following:
Oklahoma Administrative Code: 218:10-5-1 Educator preparation program accreditation and review process
(e) The OEQA is a performance-based partner with the OSRHE and CAEP. All educator preparation programs shall be expected to meet all CAEP unit and program accreditation standards, State Department of Education competencies, OSRHE teacher education policies as well as all additional standards established by the CEQA.
CAEP Standard 2.1
Partners co-construct mutually beneficial P-12 school and community arrangements, including technology-based collaborations, for clinical preparation and share responsibility for continuous improvement of candidate preparation. Partnerships for clinical preparation can follow a range of forms, participants, and functions. They establish mutually agreeable expectations for candidate entry, preparation, and exit; ensure that theory and practice are linked; maintain coherence across clinical and academic components of preparation; and share accountability for candidate outcomes
CAEP Standard 2.2
Partners co-select, prepare, evaluate, support, and retain high-quality clinical educators, both provider- and school-based, who demonstrate a positive impact on candidates' development and P-12 student learning and development. In collaboration with their partners, providers use multiple indicators and appropriate technology-based applications to establish, maintain, and refine criteria for selection, professional development, performance evaluation, continuous improvement, and retention of clinical educators in all clinical placement settings.
CAEP Standard 2.3
The provider works with partners to design clinical experiences of sufficient depth, breadth, diversity, coherence, and duration to ensure that candidates demonstrate their developing effectiveness and positive impact on all students' learning and development. Clinical experiences, including technology-enhanced learning opportunities, are structured to have multiple performance-based assessments at key points within the program to demonstrate candidates' development of the knowledge, skills, and professional dispositions, as delineated in Standard 1, that are associated with a positive impact on the learning and development of all P-12 students.
Updated: February 2020
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Oklahoma
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Teacher Preparation
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How we graded
1E: Student Teaching
- Selection of Cooperating Teachers: The state should require that all student teachers be placed with cooperating teachers for whom there is evidence of effectiveness as measured by an evaluation system that includes objective student growth measures.
The total goal score is earned based on the following:
- Full credit: The state will earn a full point if it selects cooperating teachers based on evidence of effectiveness as measured by an evaluation system that includes objective student growth measures.
- One-half credit: The state will earn one-half of a point if it selects cooperating teachers based on their evaluation ratings, but the state's evaluation system is not based on measures of student growth.
- One-quarter credit: The state may earn one-quarter of a point if it selects cooperating teachers based on factors approaching effectiveness.
Research rationale
The stakes are too high for student teaching requirements to be left to chance.[1] Student teaching is the final clinical experience of teacher preparation, and teacher candidates have only one chance to experience the best possible placement. Student teaching will shape their own performance as teachers and help determine the type of school in which they will choose to teach.[2] A mediocre student teaching experience, let alone a disastrous one, can never be undone.
Central to the quality of the student teaching experience is the classroom teacher who serves as the teacher candidate's mentor, or cooperating teacher.[3] Only strong teachers with evidence of their effectiveness, as assessed by objective measures of student learning and by their principals, should be able to serve as cooperating teachers.[4] Yet placement is much more likely to be the luck of the draw. Reports by NCTQ, including Student Teaching in the United States and the Teacher Prep Review,
found most teacher preparation programs fail to require that cooperating teachers must be effective instructors.[5]
[1] For evidence on the importance of the selection of the cooperating teacher, particularly the benefits of selection by the preparation program as well as the importance of congruence between the student teacher's placement grade and her first teaching assignment, see Boyd, D. J., Grossman, P. L., Lankford, H., Loeb, S., & Wyckoff, J. (2009). Teacher preparation and student achievement. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 31(4), 416-440. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED509670.pdf
[2] Further evidence and discussion surrounding the impact of student-teaching on student achievement can be found in NCTQ's report: Greenberg, J., Pomerance, L., & Walsh, K. (2011). Student teaching in the United States. National Council on Teacher Quality. Retrieved from http://www.nctq.org/dmsView/Student_Teaching_United_States_NCTQ_Report; To explore additional studies published in peer-reviewed journals on student teaching, see Anderson, N. A., & Radencich, M. C. (2001). The value of feedback in an early field experience: Peer, teacher, and supervisor coaching. Action in Teacher Education, 23(3), 66-74.; Brink, B., Grisham, D. L., Laguardia, A., Granby, C., & Peck, C. A. (2001). Who needs student teachers? Action in Teacher Education, 23(3), 33-45.; Boyd, D. J., Grossman, P. L., Lankford, H., Loeb, S., & Wyckoff, J. (2009). Teacher preparation and student achievement. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 31(4), 416-440.; Bullough Jr, R. V., Young, J., Erickson, L., Birrell, J. R., Clark, D. C., Egan, M. W., ... & Smith, G. (2002). Rethinking field experience: Partnership teaching versus single-placement teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 53(1), 68-80.; Cochran-Smith, M. (1991). Reinventing student teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 42(2), 104-118.; Connor, K. R., & Killmer, N. (2001). Cohorts, collaboration, and community: Does contextual teacher education really work?. Action in Teacher Education, 23(3), 46-53.; Daane, C. J. (2000). Clinical master teacher program: Teachers' and interns' perceptions of supervision with limited university intervention. Action in Teacher Education, 22(1), 93-100.; Freese, A. R. (1999). The role of reflection on preservice teachers' development in the context of a professional development school. Teaching and Teacher Education, 15(8), 895-909.; Grossman, P., Hammerness, K. M., McDonald, M., & Ronfeldt, M. (2008). Constructing coherence: Structural predictors of perceptions of coherence in NYC teacher education programs. Journal of Teacher Education, 59(4), 273-287.; Hopkins, W. S., Hoffman, S. Q., & Moss, V. D. (1997). Professional development schools and preservice teacher stress. Action in Teacher Education, 18(4), 36-46.; Lesley, M. K., Hamman, D., Olivarez, A., Button, K., & Griffith, R. (2009). "I'm prepared for anything now": Student teacher and cooperating teacher interaction as a critical factor in determining the preparation of "quality" elementary reading teachers. The Teacher Educator, 44(1), 40-55.; Justen III, J. E., McJunkin, M., & Strickland, H. (1999). Supervisory beliefs of cooperating teachers. The Teacher Educator, 34(3), 173-180.; Kent, S. I. (2001). Supervision of student teachers: Practices of cooperating teachers prepared in a clinical supervision course. Journal of Curriculum and Supervision, 16(3), 228-44.; Knight, S. L., Wiseman, D. L., & Cooner, D. (2000). Using collaborative teacher research to determine the impact of professional development school activities on elementary students' math and writing outcomes. Journal of Teacher Education, 51(1), 26-38.; Knoblauch, D., & Hoy, A. W. (2008). "Maybe I can teach those kids": The influence of contextual factors on student teachers' efficacy beliefs. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24(1), 166-179.
[3] For information about the role and importance of quality cooperating teachers, see: Slick, S. K. (1997). Assessing versus assisting: The supervisor's roles in the complex dynamics of the student teaching triad. Teaching and Teacher Education, 13(7), 713-726.; Tellez, K. (2008). What student teachers learn about multicultural education from their cooperating teachers. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24(1), 43-58.; Tillema, H. H. (2009). Assessment for learning to teach: Appraisal of practice teaching lessons by mentors, supervisors, and student teachers. Journal of Teacher Education, 60(2), 155-167.; Valencia, S. W., Martin, S. D., Place, N. A., & Grossman, P. (2009). Complex interactions in student teaching: Lost opportunities for learning. Journal of Teacher Education, 60(3), 304-322.; White, S. (2009). Articulation and re‐articulation: Development of a model for providing quality feedback to pre‐service teachers on practicum. Journal of Education for Teaching, 35(2), 123-132.; See also Levine, A. (2006). Educating school teachers. Education Schools Project. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED504144.pdf
[4] Houston, W. R. (1990). Handbook of research on teacher education: A project of the association of teacher educators. New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Co.; For additional information on the impacts of field experience and its role in teacher preparation programs, see: Knudson, R. E., & Turley, S. (2000). University supervisors and at-risk student teachers. Journal of Research and Development in Education, 33(3), 175-186.; Korthagen, F., Loughran, J., & Russell, T. (2006). Developing fundamental principles for teacher education programs and practices. Teaching and Teacher Education, 22(8), 1020-1041.; McNay, M., & Graham, R. (2007). Can cooperating teachers help student teachers develop a vision of education? The Teacher Educator, 42(3), 224-236.; Greenberg, J., Pomerance, L., & Walsh, K. (2011). Student teaching in the United States. National Council on Teacher Quality.
Retrieved from http://www.nctq.org/dmsView/Student_Teaching_United_States_NCTQ_Report; Mewborn, D. S. (2000). Learning to teach elementary mathematics: Ecological elements of a field experience. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 3(1), 27-46.; Mule, L. (2006). Preservice teachers' inquiry in a professional development school context: Implications for the practicum. Teaching and Teacher Education, 22(2), 205-218.; Nguyen, H. T. (2009). An inquiry-based practicum model: What knowledge, practices, and relationships typify empowering teaching and learning experiences for student teachers, cooperating teachers and college supervisors? Teaching and Teacher Education, 25(5), 655-662.; Pence, H. M., & Macgillivray, I. K. (2008). The impact of an international field experience on preservice teachers. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24(1), 14-25.; Peterson, B. E., & Williams, S. R. (2008). Learning mathematics for teaching in the student teaching experience: Two contrasting cases. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 11(6), 459-478.; Putman, S. M. (2009). Grappling with classroom management: The orientations of preservice teachers and impact of student teaching. The Teacher Educator, 44(4), 232-247. ; Richardson-Koehler, V. (1988). Barriers to the effective supervision of student teaching: A field study. Journal of Teacher Education, 39(2), 28-34.; Ridley, D. S., Hurwitz, S., Hackett, M. R. D., & Miller, K. K. (2005). Comparing PDS and campus-based preservice teacher preparation: Is PDS-based preparation really better? Journal of Teacher Education, 56(1), 46-56.; Rodgers, A., & Keil, V. L. (2007). Restructuring a traditional student teacher supervision model: Fostering enhanced professional development and mentoring within a professional development school context. Teaching and Teacher Education, 23(1), 63-80.; McDuffie, A. R. (2004). Mathematics teaching as a deliberate practice: An investigation of elementary pre-service teachers' reflective thinking during student teaching. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 7(1), 33-61.; Sandholtz, J. H., & Wasserman, K. (2001). Student and cooperating teachers: Contrasting experiences in teacher preparation programs. Action in Teacher Education, 23(3), 54-65.
[5] Greenberg, J., Pomerance, L., & Walsh, K. (2011). Student teaching in the United States. National Council on Teacher Quality.
Retrieved from http://www.nctq.org/dmsView/Student_Teaching_United_States_NCTQ_Report; National Council on Teacher Quality. (2017, May). Landscapes in teacher prep: Undergraduate secondary. National Council on Teacher Quality's Teacher Prep Review. Retrieved from http://www.nctq.org/dmsView/Landscapes_-_2017_UG_Secondary