Chapter 1 - The Long Haul
Who knows who your student teacher will be? Perhaps it will be your new best friend. Perhaps it will be a person on the opposite extreme of the political spectrum as you. Accepting a student teacher into your classroom means understanding that you will keep a professional relationship, aimed at benefitting the student teacher's future performance in his/her own classroom, with any student teacher placed underneath you. Of course, this is a two-way street, but it is in your best interest, and the student's best interest, to provide the best education you can to your student teacher.
It is likely that you will be spending more time with your student teacher during the student teaching semester than you spend with your wife/husband/significant other. This can create a strain between any two people, so as you can imagine, it could certainly strain a relationship between two strangers. The following chapters will help guide you into a successful relationship with your student teacher, as this is not only important for the education of your student teacher, but also for the well-being of your classroom.
Chapter 2 - The Essentials
Often times, the logistical needs of a student teacher can be over-looked. Perhaps, a CT would never direcly think, "My student teacher can get by without having all of the classroom amenities that a regular teacher has." Nonetheless, red tape and other shennanigans can stop a student teacher from being able to acquire the basic things they need to do their job successfully. A few of these are: reliable internet connection, a desk/workspace which is consistently available, and the ability to connect to a printer network. If a first attempt to make sure a student teacher has internet goes sour, don't stop at "Sorry, we can't give you internet." In the modern age, visual media teaching is essential - often required. How can we ask this of our student teachers without allowing them some sort of internet while in the classroom? The same goes for connection to a printing network. If a student teacher is required to be printing, they should not be doing it outside of school. It might be difficult to make these amenities available to a student teacher, but they are a must, and a student teacher who lacks these things may be forced to over exert themselves to accomplish basic tasks. Essentially, if you, as a CT, would find the conditions and accomidations for your student teacher to create an unaccecptably unproductive work environment, consider that the student teacher may feel the same. After all, during student teaching, the student teacher has directly inherited a large portion of the job.
Chapter 3 - Feedback
Feedback should be regular. If you give your student teacher advice, and you don't think he/she follows it to the "T," remind him/her what you meant. This means you may have to give the same feedback more than once. In fact, you might expect this. It is common that a person might think they are furfilling a requirement when they are not. It is best to deal with this upfront and directly as opposed to assuming that the student teacher is intentionally defying your expectations.
Take time to listen to the student teacher's reasoning for his/her decisions. There are mental processes that one goes through to in order to reach any outcome. Thoughtful patience concerning a student teacher's explanation of their thought processes may help both the CT and the student teacher to understant why the original goal was not met, and what specific elements need to be changed. Furthermore, make sure that you are physically present in the classroom for the lessons you are providing major feedback for. If you are giving "big picture" advice for lesson fluency, and you were out of the room for a large portion of the class period, your analysis might be omitting important details. This can cause frustration between CT's and student teachers. Make sure that in the scenario where you do not have a full-lesson-viewpoint, you are granting feedback and advice pertianing to what you did see, not what you didn't see.
Chapter 4 - Interactions with Students
Genuinely encourage your student teacher's involvement with students. If you have problems with being territorial with student emotions, then having a student teacher is not for you. Surely, this quality exists to some degree in most teachers, but you need to be able to logically override - your student teacher needs to create bonds with students in order to learn how to implement this effectively in their own future classroom. Also, if a student teacher reprimands a students, you must support your student teacher. If you negate consequences pertaining to a student which has been reprimanded by your student teacher, your student teacher will cease to have any authority in the classroom, making them unfit to lead, which is the opposite of what you want to accomplish.
Chapter 5 - Communication
Professional communication between the CT and student teacher should be direct and clear, and should avoid hinting or subjective tones. State what you mean and what you want to see, and your reasoning. Transparency is the key. Also, make sure feedback is constructive. Blaming, or taking credit, does not help anyone if it is not tied to constructive feedback. For example, if a lesson by your student teacher goes particularly well, telling them "That went well because I established [concept, idea, or skill] previously," does not do anyone any good. This is not feedback, it's establishing credit. You may be totally correct in why the lesson went well, and the student teacher may not be aware of this and thus, takes the classroom environment forgranted. Nonetheless, discrediting or establishing blame is not, in itself, a form of feedback.
