Studying Teacher Education

A journal of self-study of teacher education practices

ISSN: 1742-5964 (Print) 1742-5972 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cste20

What Do We Supervise for? A Self-Study of

Learning Teacher Candidate Supervision

Mark M. Diacopoulos & Brandon M. Butler

To cite this article: Mark M. Diacopoulos & Brandon M. Butler (2020) What Do We Supervise
for? A Self-Study of Learning Teacher Candidate Supervision, Studying Teacher Education, 16:1,
66-83, DOI: 10.1080/17425964.2019.1690985

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/17425964.2019.1690985

Published online: 14 Nov 2019.

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STUDYING TEACHER EDUCATION
2020, VOL. 16, NO. 1, 66–83
https://doi.org/10.1080/17425964.2019.1690985

What Do We Supervise for? A Self-Study of Learning Teacher

Candidate Supervision
a
Mark M. Diacopoulos and Brandon M. Butlerb
a
Pittsburg State University, USA; bOld Dominion University, USA

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

This self-study of teacher education practices explores an emerging Received 21 January 2019
teacher educator’s development as a supervisor of teacher candidates. Accepted 27 May 2019
The purpose was the development of a rationale for teaching and KEYWORDS
teacher education that reflected his exploration of a personal under- Teacher education; teacher
standing of purpose in social studies teaching and teacher education. candidates; practicum;
With the help of a critical friend, he engaged in a process in which he student teacher supervision;
could reflect upon prior experiences, develop insights into existing critical friend
research, and engage in discussions that helped frame and inform
developing practice. By applying the question ‘What do we teach for?’
the teacher educator developed an emerging context-based rationale
for teacher education practices. In focusing on his development as
a university supervisor, the emerging teacher educator was better able
to assist student teachers in their development of rationale-based
practice. The insights and understandings shared in this article add
to research about the teacher candidate supervision process.

I would hope that my classroom experiences can go a long way to providing enough of
a grounding that I can give good advice to these prospective teachers . . . Here is an
opportunity to really help and make a difference. If I help to create a good teacher, that
will benefit many people in the long term . . . But if I let someone go out there who is not
interested in teaching students, but pushing content, if I maintain the status quo, am I doing
harm to countless students in the long term? (Mark, Journal, 1/12/15)

This extract from the first journal of my (Mark’s) first semester as a student teacher
supervisor expressed how I perceived supervision in today’s high stakes educational
environment. I had just started my first year of study as a full-time doctoral student,
after being a part-time student for two years. As part of my initial exposure to teacher
education, I was assigned to supervise two prospective secondary social studies teachers.
Although I was equipped with over 20 years’ experience as a social studies teacher in
secondary classrooms in both the United Kingdom and the United States, I felt unpre-
pared for the work of teacher education. Foremost in my mind was that this was my first
experience as a supervisor in a teacher education program. I was excited by the possibi-
lities of making a difference in teacher candidate practice while I learned the work of
supervision, I also felt trepidation over the myriad possible negative effects if I faltered in
my responsibilities; moreover, I was particularly anxious about my level of preparation for
a role I personally considered vitally important to teacher education.

CONTACT Mark M. Diacopoulos mdiacopoulos@pittstate.edu

© 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
 STUDYING TEACHER EDUCATION 67

Furthermore, I was acutely aware that my experiences with supervision as a teacher

candidate were not positive. I had been initially supervised by a retired school principal who
was pre-occupied with classroom management and established routines, but not peda-
gogy. I felt that this experience was inadequate when compared to my subsequent
experience of supervision by a faculty member, whose focus was on how I implemented
pedagogy. Consequently, I was determined not to replicate the unsatisfactory practice I had
experienced. For me, supervision was a new challenge in which I had much to consider and
as with any new experience, it raised many questions. How would I navigate the proble-
matic space of teacher supervision? Was my experience as a public-school educator of 20
years enough to help teacher candidates find success? How would my learning of super-
vision affect my emerging practice as a teacher educator? To what extent would I facilitate
teacher candidates’ connection between theories learned in methods coursework to ped-
agogical practices they were expected to enact in secondary social studies classrooms?
To me, this final dilemma was key. The role of supervisors is to help teacher candidates
connect theory to practice and to purposefully learn from their experiences in the field (e.g.,
LaBoskey, 2005; LaBoskey & Richert, 2002). Supervisors adopt the roles of mentor, coach,
listener, and advocate. An effective supervisor coaxes meaningful reflection from teacher
candidates ‘through thoughtful questioning and dialogue, encouraging new ways of self-
expression, offer emotional support and career counselling, and facilitate and mediate the
student teacher and cooperating teacher relationship. They also access and document
student teacher growth and learning’ (LaBoskey, 2005, p. 132). The student teaching
experience is viewed by teacher candidates as a key formative aspect of their development.
However, a consistent problem of supervision is its low status in schools and universities
(Beck & Kosnik, 2002; Cuenca, 2012). Teacher educators often write about their experiences
with learning supervision as ‘sink or swim’ (e.g., Cuenca, 2010; Ritter, 2007). It is a role often
undertaken with little support and allocated to those with the least status within schools/
colleges of education, for example, clinical faculty, graduate students, or retired teachers. It
is not traditionally viewed as valuable as scholarship or teaching campus-based courses,
and so those who supervise are often under-supported (Beck & Kosnik, 2002).
The purpose of this self-study is to examine my (Mark’s) experiences as a novice super-
visor in my first semester of supervision, and to investigate the ways in which I learned to
support teacher candidates in their enactment of effective social studies pedagogy. A large
degree of this learning occurred through a critical friendship with Brandon, the second
author. Brandon was my doctoral supervisor who crafted an independent study in which
we would examine my learning of teacher education, enactment of teacher candidate
supervision, and issues surrounding the teaching of social studies methods. Throughout
our focused investigation of supervision, my intent was to answer the following question:
How does an emerging teacher educator develop a personal pedagogy for supervision?

Theoretical Perspective
Emerging Teacher Educator and Supervisor Development
Emerging teacher educators often undergo individualized learning experiences (Labaree,
2004), potentially because the act of learning teacher education is viewed as self-evident
(Zeichner, 2005). Thus, the experience of learning to teach teachers is commonly seen as
68 M. M. DIACOPOULOS AND B. M. BUTLER

a private struggle (Berry & Loughran, 2005). In contrast, multiple researchers have com-
mented that the process of becoming a teacher educator is both complex and challen-
ging (e.g., Butler et al., 2014; Ritter, 2007; Williams, Ritter, & Bullock, 2012). In learning to
manage these complexities, emerging teacher educators form identities described as
‘multiple, fluid, always developing . . . influenced by any number of relevant contexts’
(Dinkleman, 2011, p. 309).
The identity formation of emerging teacher educators, particularly in the context of
supervision, is described by Williams (2013) as a ‘challenging and sometimes confronting
experience’ (p. 119). She notes how the context of supervision enables emerging teacher
educators to closely examine their prior professional experiences and evaluate the
relevance of these experiences in this new context. Erickson, Young, and Pinnegar
(2011) describe this as the tension of ‘the lived experience of teacher educators who are
continually attempting to reconcile their identities as teachers and as teacher educators’
(p. 105). This is particularly relevant in the context of supervision where emerging teacher
educators’ transition from insiders, familiar with schools and classroom practices to out-
siders, where they must fulfil a different purpose, with minimal guidance in representing
the values and aims of teacher education (Cuenca, 2010; Ritter, 2007).
When teacher education is considered a self-evident process, it follows that supervision
too is ‘regarded as simplistic and believed to require relatively little skill’ (Butler, Cuenca, &
Elfer, 2012, p. 70). This leads to insufficient attention paid to the pedagogy of teacher
candidate supervision (Burns & Badiali, 2016, 2018), with novice supervisors often adopt-
ing what Cuenca (2010) termed as in loco paedagogus, a default state of practice where
novice teacher educators focus on the replication of their personal practice as former
classroom teachers. Indeed, it is only when researchers like Cuenca (2010) and Williams
(2013) reflected upon their supervisory practices through methods like self-study, that
they perceive a necessity to adapt their practice to consider the needs of their teacher
candidates (in Cuenca’s case) or perceive that a re-conceptualizing of the supervisor role is
necessary (in Williams’ case). Similarly, Bullock (2012) acknowledged a lack of preparation
for supervision in his evaluation of supervisory practice through his use of self-study.
Furthermore, he connected the process of learning to teach to the learning of teacher
educators where the problem is the enactment of research into practice.

Problems of Supervision and Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices

Recent research outlines how engaging in self-study of teacher education practices helps
teacher educators uncover previously unresearched problems of supervision. For exam-
ple, Dillon (2017), by examining his program’s practices alongside his own, uncovered
a problem of supervisory enactment in which there is a disconnect between field place-
ment and coursework institutionally. His framing of the problem helped begin the process
of aligning coursework and practicum experiences. Martin (2017) also described how the
use of responsive listening when in discussions with teacher candidates revealed they
were unable to connect theory to practice and unsure of what questions to ask. Likewise,
Thomas (2017) used self-study to identify and challenge her assumptions about the
supervision process and how teacher candidates learn to teach during their practicum.
Reflecting on five years of data collected as part of a study of teacher candidates’
 STUDYING TEACHER EDUCATION 69

understanding of the practicum experiences, she identified an assumption that candi-

dates’ learning in her methods classes would translate into their practicum.
Forgasz (2017) used existing self-study research on reframing program structure to
reflect on her arguments in previous papers for a rethinking of the role of cooperating
teacher and supervisor. She found that using self-study ‘opened up powerful and new
insights’ (p. 218). Arndt (2016) made a case for using reflective practices, and self-study, to
focus on relationship building and support growth as a supervisor. She stated the process
of reflection ‘allowed me to transform not only my platform of teacher education, but my
teaching practices as well’ (p.195). She added that self-study highlighted instances of
discomfort, which ultimately helped her to grow as a teacher educator. Self-study
researchers have added much needed research revealing problems of practice with
teacher supervision. In this article, we aim to build upon the growing literature by
addressing the need for a support space to produce better supervision practices in
general (Butler et al., 2012; Butler & Diacopoulos, 2016; Ritter, Powell, & Hawley, 2007).

Development of a Rationale for Teaching Social Studies

In teacher education, the concept of a vision for teaching has also been termed a teaching
philosophy, purpose, rationale or platform. We use teaching rationale in this article as that is
how our social studies disciplinary area has generally used the term. Darling-Hammond et al.
(2005) suggested that teacher candidates might develop a vision for teaching by asking the
question, ‘Why am I teaching what I am teaching?’ (p. 193). Dinkelman (2009) later framed
the idea of purpose in the question ‘what are you teaching for?’ He contended that all
teachers have a rationale that informs their practice. Rationales may change as teachers
develop, yet it is the basis for pedagogical decision-making. Dinkelman argued that it is
when teachers can define and embrace their rationales that they begin to enact purposeful
pedagogy. Articulating a sense of purpose is complex, even for experienced teachers
(Hawley, Pifel, & Jordan, 2012), but teachers who make meaningful connections between
students and content through rationale development and self-reflection are more likely to
be powerful practitioners (e.g., Hawley & Jordan, 2014).
According to Hawley et al. (2012), research of rationale development in social studies is
typically focused on the work that teacher educators conduct with teacher candidates (e.g.,
Conklin, 2010; Dinkelman, 2009; Hawley, 2010; Ritter et al., 2007; Ritter, Powell, Hawley, &
Blasik, 2011). This research provides insights that help social studies teacher educators
better prepare future teachers. Hawley and Jordan (2014) developed and extensively use
the question ‘What do you teach social studies for?’ in their methods instruction. They
argued that the development of a rationale for teaching social studies creates the potential
for ongoing revision and further development of purpose for social studies teachers at all
stages of their careers (Barton & Levstik, 2004; Dinkelman, 2009; Hawley, 2010). Specifically,
Hawley (2010) found that although rationales were not necessarily an overt consideration in
the practice of new teachers, they used them to focus on instructional intent. In later work,
teachers’ curricular decision-making and enactment were assisted by the development of
rationales (e.g., Hawley & Jordan, 2014). Hawley et al. (2012) viewed teachers as curricular
gatekeepers, and as such have an ethical responsibility to position their rationale develop-
ment as suggested by Dinkelman (2009). Hawley and Jordan’s work (2014) echoed this
sentiment. They re-emphasized rationale development that provided structure for
70 M. M. DIACOPOULOS AND B. M. BUTLER

pedagogical decision-making, afforded an opportunity to connect purposes with teaching

practice, and improved teachers’ sense of professional self.

Methods
Self-Study
Self-study of teacher education practices research often emphasizes teacher educators’
collaborative learning about their practice (Berry & Loughran, 2005). The sharing of
practice during the self-study process, along with the production of scholarship about
teacher educators’ collaborative learning provides beneficial insights, support and
a methodology for exploring the area of supervision. This was self-initiated and self-
focused on how I (Mark) used my supervision experiences to inform my understanding of
supervision. It was aimed at improving my practice, interactive in that it occurred in the
context of a critical friendship (Schuck & Russell, 2005), involved qualitative methods,
and provides an exemplar for other investigators to rely upon (LaBoskey, 2004). By
sharing and unpacking personal texts, autobiographies and journals, my critical friend
(Brandon) and I generated a dialogue that encouraged critical reflection, which involves
‘thinking, refining, reframing, and developing actions’ (Loughran & Northfield, 1998,
p. 15). This is a basis for making meaning, promoting deliberative reflection, and taking
action, which are goals of the self-study process (Kitchen, 2010; LaBoskey, 2005).

Context
As I shared previously, at the time of the study I had taught secondary social studies for
approximately 20 years in the United States and England. During that time, I had been
a classroom teacher, department chair and school technology specialist. Prior to my
initial supervision experience, I was a part-time doctoral student for two years in
curriculum and instruction with an emphasis area of social studies education. My
supervisor, Brandon, taught secondary social studies for four years in the southeastern
United States. During his doctoral studies, he supervised secondary social studies
teacher candidates and had conducted scholarship on the topic during his studies. At
the time of the study, Brandon was in his fourth year as an assistant professor at Old
Dominion University (ODU), a research-intensive university, where he had supervised
teacher candidates and primarily taught social studies methods. Brandon created an
independent study in which I could learn about teacher education and teacher candi-
date supervision, and we could discuss issues surrounding the teaching of social studies
methods through a co-teaching and co-planning experience. I was assigned weekly
readings, wrote critical summaries and weekly journals, and we met weekly. Engaging in
this independent study fostered a critical friendship. Brandon and I viewed this as an
avenue through which we could ‘challenge and support each other to ensure that
relevant perspectives are brought to bear’ (Schuck & Russell, 2005, p. 120). Berry and
Crowe (2006) note that engaging in critical friendship not only produces a more
rigorous study, but also addresses the ‘research teaching nexus’ in which research can
genuinely influence practice while the approach to practice is also developing (p. 34).
Our learning of supervision within the context of this critical friendship, our prior
 STUDYING TEACHER EDUCATION 71

experiences, the role of the critical friendship, and how insights in the moment helped
us both learn more about supervision can be found in previously published research
(Butler & Diacopoulos, 2016).
At ODU, student teaching follows the traditional model of a culminating experience in
a mentor teacher’s classroom while supervised by a university representative, predomi-
nately retired teachers and administrators. Student teaching is a 12-week experience during
which teacher candidates are observed by supervisors five times. The observation process
consists of pre- and post-observation meetings, and observation reports. For my reports,
I took a reflective approach, providing initial feedback and asking teacher candidates
specific questions that would assist in their development. As I developed expertise through
my guidance from Brandon, this process became iterative as the teacher candidates and
I engaged in continuous dialogue around their teaching. Additionally, I met bi-weekly with
teacher candidates in breakout sessions which occurred in a space separate from the school
and university (Cuenca, Schmeichel, Butler, Dinkelman, & Nichols, 2011). Finally, as part of
the student teaching experience, teacher candidates journaled weekly, and regularly met
their mentor teachers to reflect upon their growth and completed assessments such as
a culminating portfolio. Although teacher candidates periodically wrote teaching rationales
in their teacher education coursework, these documents were more reflections on educa-
tion broadly rather than deep considerations of a specific rationale within their discipline
that links to pedagogies which help the rationale be actualized in classroom teaching. That
a distinct rationale for teaching in a discipline is not taught throughout the teacher
candidates’ programmatic experience plays an important role in the implications of this
article.

Data Collection
Much of the data was collected from a critical friendship focused on my first semester as
a university supervisor. Data collected included our shared, written autobiographies related
to supervision and social studies teacher education (approximately 4000 words). There were
16 reflective journals (approximately 9,600 words) written collaboratively. As I wrote an
initial entry, Brandon responsed, and I added additional responses. Five written responses
to readings on supervision and rationale development (approximately 4,600 words) also
followed the same dialogical process as the journal entries.
We met weekly on campus to discuss readings and scholarly articles about the supervision
process and social studies teacher education more generally. Additional meetings occurred
directly after field visits attended by both of us, which provided opportunities for immediate
reflection and feedback. All meetings were recorded and transcribed. There were 25 meetings
for a total of 12 hours and 52 minutes. Email communication provided additional data, as did
data from the student teaching experience. These data included correspondence with teacher
candidates, Katrina and Steve (pseudonyms), their student teaching journals and lesson plans,
and my pre- and post-observation reports and reflections.

Data Analysis
Kitchen (2010) stated that when practitioners engage in acts that stimulate analytic rigor,
then the potential of personal reflection and thinking is more likely realized. With this
72 M. M. DIACOPOULOS AND B. M. BUTLER

intention, we began the process by focusing on our educational biographies. These were
used to frame our respective positions regarding experiences and feelings toward the
supervision process, while our thoughts and motivations were examined within our
transcribed discussions and journal responses.
Autobiographies provided a baseline from which to make meaning of pedagogical
practice, and helped connect practice to theory (Kitchen, 2010). Critical incidents, ten-
sions, and epiphanies were identified, analyzed and revisited as part of the ongoing
investigation. Mark acted as primary researcher, developing initial codes that were agreed
to by the Brandon. These initial codes, like the focused codes and three themes we
identified later, aligned with the theoretical perspectives at the core of research – teacher
educator development, supervisory learning, and rationale development. Repeated read-
ing and discussion of the data were an ongoing process through constant comparative
analysis (Coia & Taylor, 2006). Meanings were developed by both researchers in subse-
quent cycles and agreed upon through discussion. Once patterns were identified, we both
returned to the data to check for consistency with existing literature and to investigate
further how our past informs present and future professional practice (Charmaz, 2014).
This process of repeated critical analysis of lived experience in a conscious attempt to
understand it affords the process authority (Ham & Kane, 2004). Table 1 provides samples
of our initial and focus codes used to construct our findings.
From the focus codes, we identified three themes that pertained to the learning of
student teacher supervision by a novice teacher educator. They were used to frame the
findings section. Although authorship is shared in this paper, given the focus on my learning
and development of my supervision practice, we found it best to construct the findings and
the article through my voice as the novice supervisor. Table 2 provides an overview of the
three findings categories and the repeating themes associated with each finding.

Table 1. Examples of initial and focused codes.

Sample initial codes Sample focused codes
How to learn best practice? Development as teacher educator
Concerns of worth Influence of prior experience on practice
Supervision as doctoral student learning Rationale for social studies
Feelings toward mentor teachers Pedagogical concerns
Navigating relationship with mentors Student teacher pedagogy
Importance of rationale for teaching Pedagogy of supervision
Rationale for teaching social studies Rationale for supervision
Personal rationale for teaching
Values of teaching and teacher education

Table 2. Categories and repeating themes in the data.

Category
What am I teaching for?
What are they teaching for?
What am I supervising for?
Repeating themes
Development of a personal rationale for teaching
Development of a personal rationale for social studies
Critique of previous personal practice
Development of preservice teacher rationale
Reasoning for pedagogical decisions
Impact of teaching on students
Tensions of supervision practices
Focus on preservice teacher development
Development of rationale for supervision practice
 STUDYING TEACHER EDUCATION 73

Findings
As my journal entry in the introduction illustrates, I took my supervisory responsibilities
seriously. I was motivated to avoid replication of the unsatisfactory experience I had when
student teaching 20 years’ previous, I was determined to provide a focus on developing
the pedagogy of my preservice teacher candidates. This focus led me to adopt a rationale-
based approach to supervision, with three subsequent outcomes framed by three ques-
tions: What am I teaching for? What are they teaching for? And ultimately, What am
I supervising for? These questions are not distinct entities. Instead, they are three over-
lapping components of what is essentially the same problem: How does an emerging
teacher educator develop a personal pedagogy of supervision? As such, there are over-
lapping elements to each of the findings. I begin with how I developed a general under-
standing for a need to define my own rationale for teaching and teacher education.

What Am I Teaching for? The Need for a Personal Rationale for Teaching and
Teacher Education

I think it took me about seven years of being in the classroom to really have any sort of vision
in who I wanted to be as a teacher. (Mark, Journal, 4/7/15)

During my 20 years as a school-based educator, I was not challenged to define my

rationale for teaching. Granted, I was driven by some vague defining values, but I was
not asked by external forces to explore them as a means through which I could construct
my educator identity. Through interaction with my critical friend at the outset of my
supervision experience, I realized that my early years as a classroom teacher were guided
by a set of underlying values: self-discipline, fairness, equality and democracy. I viewed
social studies as a means to teach for social justice and equip students to become critical
consumers of information. Through my classroom experiences, I formed an opinion that
good social studies teaching was vital to prepare students for life as citizens in
a globalized, technologically connected twenty-first-century world, but this was not
framed through an explicit vision for teaching, rather it consisted of a set of practices
I intuitively enacted based upon context and experience.
This set of underlying values defined my pedagogical approach to teaching. For
example, in my early years, I focused on developing student understanding and critical
thinking because I believed that if students could think beyond the traditional narrative of
textbooks, then they could transfer that thinking into other aspects of life. As I did not
want students to blindly accept what textbooks said at face value, I became a proponent
of encouraging students to become critical consumers of information. Much of my
teaching experience was in challenging, urban schools, with high levels of poverty and
social deprivation. From this experience came insight into the problems faced by my
students and my approach to teaching adapted accordingly. I began to use the content to
develop useful life skills like decision-making, cooperation and tolerance of alternative
views.
Through our critical friendship, I began to better reflect on my teaching career. It
became apparent to me that I did have a burgeoning rationale at the beginning of my
career, but I was somewhat ignorant of my intent and therefore could not fully realize its
74 M. M. DIACOPOULOS AND B. M. BUTLER

enactment. Had I been encouraged through my professional development as a beginning

teacher to develop one, I may have been more mindful in my instruction and likely would
have taught social studies with more purpose. This epiphany greatly affected my transi-
tion from teacher to teacher educator. I felt that if I was to become an effective teacher
educator I needed to develop a rationale for this role too. I wrote in my journal, ‘The one
thing I am going to have to do is work out what my rationale is. It is something that I was
never asked to do but is something I am working on alongside my teacher candidates’
(Mark, Journal, 2/12/15). The lack of a clear rationale as a teacher educator led me to
question myself as I made the transition from classroom teacher. Had I been in possession
of a more overt rationale as a classroom teacher, the process of developing a rationale for
practice as a teacher educator would have perhaps been an easier one. Indeed, at the
point at which I ended my K-12 career and became a university-based teacher educator,
I should have reflected upon my purpose for teaching. However, this was not the case and
it was through self-study that I considered what my rationale for teacher education might
become.
One of the earliest pieces of advice Brandon gave was that ‘the most important thing is
thinking about what kind of teacher you want to be and how that reflects your intent.
Intent matters a lot’ (Brandon, Meeting, 1/16/15). Through re-examination of my prior
teacher education training, I had become aware of the tacit importance of intent in my
teaching career (Zeichner, 2005). This realization prompted me to want to develop
a rationale for my teacher education pedagogy. I noted in a critical summary that, ‘I
want to see if they have an idea of the sort of social studies teacher they want to be. If they
do, how are they going to realize it?’ (Mark, Critical Summary, 2/2/15) This fermenting
rationale was further developed a week later, when after reading Hawley (2010) I wrote:

I’ve been telling my teacher candidate that they should be aiming to bridge the gap between
what they are teaching for in principle and what they are teaching for in practice . . . my
purpose as a social studies teacher educator is to help the students develop ways to bridge
this gap. (Mark, Critical Summary, 2/9/15)

Interestingly, Brandon responded, ‘But if you don’t have [a rationale] yourself, how can
you get your students to find and enact theirs?’ (Brandon, Critical Summary Response, 2/
9/15). This was my dilemma.
Still trying to fully define my rationale, while encouraging it in teacher candidates,
I noticed potential teachable moments were left unattended. I wrote that I felt teachers
should embrace those moments, reflect upon their rationales and find ways to include
such issues in practice. This was an epiphany in my rationale development. I noted how
my rationale was still ‘under development’ and Brandon pointed out that similarly the
teacher candidates had not adequately developed theirs. He commented that ‘they have
no “big picture” idea for why they are even teachers.’ (Brandon, Meeting, 1/26/15).
Brandon’s comment was accurate. My initial lack of a rationale for teaching did not help
my students develop and enact their rationales for teaching. However, I realized that to
become a better teacher educator, I needed to come to terms with Dinkleman’s (2009)
question of ‘What are you teaching for?’, adapted to my new circumstances.
 STUDYING TEACHER EDUCATION 75

What Are They Teaching for? Teacher Candidate Development of a Personal

Rationale for Teaching

Rationales will be a topic that we will need to explore in our future sessions. (Mark, Journal, 2/
12/15)

As I considered my experiences as a beginning teacher educator, I came to understand the

value of developing a rationale to guide my supervisor practice. I realized that, if I valued
rationale-based teaching, my practice as a teacher educator and supervisor should focus on
my teacher candidates to better frame their pedagogical practices. Up to this point in my
growth I had viewed my teaching career as an ongoing internal conflict between good
teaching and teaching for survival in challenging school environments where success was
measured by student performance on standardized tests. After our initial meetings,
I recognized that teacher candidates sought to navigate their internal conflicts about
teaching in the age of standardization. I noticed that the development of a purpose for
teaching was largely absent in their prior educational experiences. I observed their default
approach to teaching was to follow the instruction of their mentor teachers. When
I challenged my two teacher candidates to define the purpose of their instruction, they
were unable to frame a response that went beyond the value of learning content.
This dialogue set the tone for most of my subsequent observations and meetings with
the teacher candidates as we explored their basic understandings of teaching and learning
and juxtaposed those with the positions of their mentor teachers. I saw similarities between
their developing practices and mine when I was a beginning teacher. Not having a defined
purpose for my practice meant that I could not reflect successfully on whether there was
value in what I taught. Similarly, my teacher candidates liked social studies for the content,
found it interesting and assumed their students would as well. When I asked why content
knowledge was important, they struggled to provide an answer.
With the establishment of rationale as a topic of dialogue I looked forward to seeing
how they might implement their burgeoning ideas. In my journal, I noted how
I anticipated seeing how soon they might ‘put their personal theory into practice:’

Our teacher candidates, although exposed to some powerful ideas, tend to think in terms of
teacher-led content delivery first. This is likely because, as they are members of the NCLB [No
Child Left Behind] generation, they are replicating what they were exposed to as students:
lots of teacher-led content delivery. This makes our role as teacher educators even harder as
we must not only build bridges between theory and practice but gulf an ever-widening
chasm between their experiences of school and our demands for good teaching. (Mark,
Journal, 3/24/15)

For me, it became apparent the teacher candidates had to determine what they were
teaching for before I could help them bridge the gap between theory and practice.
This understanding was instrumental in helping me define my rationale for
supervision.
Soon after my initial observations, it became apparent that the teacher candidates’ lack
of a clear rationale impeded their development. My journal noted disappointment after
observing lessons that were teacher-centered, lecture-based, and with their students as
passive receivers of information. I wrote that the teacher candidates were unable to
address student questions or make the most of teachable moments. I noted ‘Katrina is
76 M. M. DIACOPOULOS AND B. M. BUTLER

so engrossed in the content and delivery that she shut down questions (about the events
in Ferguson, Missouri), even though the lesson was about the Bill of Rights.’ (Mark, Journal,
2/3/15). Likewise, ‘Steve is going to need help to develop his persona and rationale and
start thinking about the process for himself. He is in the shadow of his mentor teacher and
he is not yet ready to step out of it.’ (Mark, Journal, 2/3/15). My struggle at this point was
how to move them away from a pedagogical approach that emphasized content delivery.
Brandon’s responses to my journal helped frame an appropriate approach, ‘[T]he key, as
you have said, is in helping [teacher candidates] see alternatives and encouraging them to
step outside of their comfort zones from time to time.’ (Brandon, Journal Response, 2/6/
15). This response was crucial in helping me better understand how to frame my approach
to this problem and maintain a student-centered, rationale-based strategy. My inexperi-
ence had turned my disappointment into a search for an effective solution, whereas
Brandon’s perspective gave me a chance to reflect about how I might help teacher
candidates look at alternatives and develop their rationales further.
The need for teacher candidates to consider their developing rationales was evident when
they had to deal with questions about potentially controversial issues. These were opportu-
nities in their instruction where I observed missed teachable moments when the teacher
candidates, following the lead of their mentor teachers, ‘. . . shut down those questions for fear
of entering a realm of controversy. I really feel that as social studies educators we should be
asking the rationale question more often – what are we teaching social studies for?’ (Mark,
Critical Summary, 2/23/15). It was apparent that the teacher candidates’ lack of a cohesive
purpose to teach, beyond the value of social studies content, had diminished their ability to
embrace instruction that dealt with issues that were relevant to students. I took Brandon’s
advice and discussed this concern with them in one of our seminar sessions. I challenged
them to reinterpret these teachable moments to make their content relevant and interesting.
By contextualizing these interruptions as a vital part of the content, I encouraged them to
reconsider their instruction in the context of their emerging rationales.
Steve and Katrina’s understanding of their pedagogical purpose was taking shape, but
still needed assistance in its development. In conversations with Brandon, he highlighted
my need to address this as a crucial part of preservice teacher development. He explained
that, ‘The problem [with rationale development] is the enactment phase (i.e., the transition
from theory to practice) as an important component of teacher candidate learning.’
(Brandon, Journal Response, 2/25/15). This again is an illustration of how Brandon’s experi-
ence framed the problem in a different way to my understanding of it. I was content for
teacher candidates to verbalize a rationale for teaching social studies. He wanted to see
them put it into practice. Although it was early in their teaching career, Brandon’s higher
expectations of them helped me understand that rationale development and enactment
would be evidence of a growing understanding of the teacher candidates’ pedagogical
purpose. What they taught for was not a vague concept but had to be enacted upon.

What Am I Supervising for? Development of a Rationale for Student

Teaching Supervision

I think the overarching theme has to be bringing it back to their rationale . . . everything we
see has to be in that context. (Mark, Meeting, 1/22/15)
 STUDYING TEACHER EDUCATION 77

It was apparent that teacher candidates needed to determine what they taught for
before I could help them bridge the theory/practice gap. This understanding was
instrumental in helping me develop my rationale for teacher supervision. I had the
advantage of participating in a critical friendship with Brandon whose encouragement
and exploration of self-study practices demonstrated that this was not to be a ‘sink or
swim’ experience (Butler & Diacopoulos, 2016). We had both experienced poor or non-
existent supervision in our own careers and were determined not to replicate that
practice for our teacher candidates. Brandon was motivated to do better for his teacher
candidates than his supervisors did for him. Although different from Brandon’s, my
experiences brought me to the same place as I had limited positive interactions with
one of my supervisors (Butler & Diacopoulos, 2016). Neither of us felt that the ‘sink or
swim’ approach was good for teacher candidates, and we both cared about how we
developed our teaching rationales.
I was also determined to avoid making my pedagogical practice the exemplar for
teacher candidates (Cuenca, 2010). Rather, my aim was to skillfully navigate the complex
relationship between teacher candidate, supervisor and mentor teacher, and go beyond
providing only technical feedback and advice about classroom management. The devel-
opmental needs of teacher candidates must be at the center of my supervision. This
prompted me to frequently ask the question: ‘Will I be the supervisor that I want to be?’
(Mark, Journal, 2/12/15). I was worried about balancing the bureaucratic and adminis-
trative requirements with what I considered the more important requirement of helping
teacher candidates teach good social studies.
Brandon summarized my dilemma: ‘The struggle to being a university supervisor is that
there’s always the question of worth.’ For me, this statement rang true. Cuenca (2010)
described the doubts and anxieties of a supervisor, which provided me with some
reassurance. I felt better able to focus on my purpose for enacting strong teaching in
teacher candidates. As such, I considered a rationale for supervision based on supporting
the development of teacher candidates’ individual rationales for teaching. Observations,
advice, planning and feedback would all be grounded in the context of enacting teacher
candidates’ rationales. I realized my role was not to compare their practice with mine, but
to help them develop purposeful and powerful practices of their own. For example,
Katrina struggled to incorporate big, or ambitious, questions into her teaching, even
though she expressed a desire to do so. She was conflicted between her desire to follow
her mentor teachers’ instruction and her own sense of purpose. In our conversations,
sensing her frustration I asked her ‘Why are big questions so important? If you can answer
that, you have the makings of a rationale for your teaching.’ (Mark, Response to Katrina
Journal, 2/26/15). This prompted Katrina to put her use of big questions at the forefront of
her planning, thereby growing her sense of purposeful pedagogy. So, my rationale for
supervision grew around the desire and need to shape a rationale in teacher candidates,
but also in the desire to empower them to enact their rationales in practice.
However, because my teacher candidates’ rationales were still in their developmental
infancy, I often struggled to supervise around their purpose, especially as that purpose
seemed so ill-defined. For example, when I noticed that both teacher candidates’ lack of
rationales affected their classroom management, I struggled with how much I should
intervene, if at all. I had met with Katrina’s mentor teacher to discuss strategies and we
agreed that using big ideas might be productive. Steve struggled because his focus on
78 M. M. DIACOPOULOS AND B. M. BUTLER

content did not engage his students. I advised him to look beyond the content and ‘look
at the standards at elementary level, ignore the content stuff and look at the themes and
skills. Even the standards for US Government have some really good social studies
concepts that are more than the content.’ (Mark Response to Steve Journal, 2/26/15). In
this way, I tasked both Steve and Katrina to re-engage with the standards and look for the
broader themes they could apply to their teaching. But I was worried that I was crossing
the line between in loco paedagogus and trying to help them shape their practice.
Additionally, I questioned in my journal the extent that my own learning experiences
contributed to teacher candidate learning.
My journal reflected this dilemma:

This has affected how I think about my own rationale for supervision. As much as I want to shape
teacher candidates around their own vision for powerful teaching, there are times when my
experiences are drawn in to help create a reference point. This may be a reason that experienced
educators are given supervision roles, because they have their own practice that they can draw
on and insert if necessary. The trick is to know when to draw on it (Mark, Journal, 3/26/15).

Brandon responded:

I don’t think it’s about NOT inserting your experiences but limiting and thinking about how
you insert yourself. If you are trying to make links to larger ideas, it is helpful to provide insight
from personal experiences. But don’t use that personal experience to assume practice on
their end that reflects that teaching (Brandon, Journal response, 3/26/15).

Brandon then provided more contextual advice, stating:

You must define your role as a supervisor. Is it to be a managerial kind of approach of just
making sure that they know how to manage a classroom? Or are you worried about learning
good pedagogy and practice? Or are you of a truly reform mindset which is worried about the
big idea of what they’re teaching for – and trickling down into the pedagogy . . . . You should
think about that. I’m not telling you what to do. We all develop differently. Everybody
develops their own attitude toward supervision. (Brandon, Journal Response, 3/26/15)

Brandon issued a challenge for me to find my context for supervision. There was no
prescription I could follow. The development of my understanding of what I supervise for
would have to be the basis for my approach. My purpose for supervision was centered upon
developing rationales that would go beyond a love of content and instead foster an
awareness of greater aims for teaching. I resolved to challenge teacher candidates to
address the question of ‘What do we teach for?’ and assist them in the enactment of their
own rationale. This would become the foundation for my approach to teacher supervision.

Discussion
Adopting a self-study approach to researching university supervision revealed a need to
uncover a personal response to Dinkelman’s (2009) question of ‘What are you teaching
for?’ This investigation prompted me to make sense of who I am as an educator. Starting
with my autobiography first and foremost, and framing it in the reflective actions of self-
study, caused a level of anxiety and tension. However, while participation in a critical
friendship made me aware of the type of teacher educator I wanted to be, this awareness
made me impatient for success and caused me to second guess my practice and beliefs at
 STUDYING TEACHER EDUCATION 79

times. I wondered whether this self-doubt emanated from a natural lack of experience as
a teacher educator, or whether it emanated from engaging with research and dialoging
about teacher education. This is an area of ongoing investigation.
Although new to university supervision, I found some success from adopting a focus
on rationale development in my practice as a novice supervisor. Once teacher candidates
began to think more purposefully about their rationales there was some evidence of
instructional growth. However, the adoption of rationales by teacher candidates is no
panacea. There is often a disconnection in the enactment phase (Hawley, 2010). Even
when teacher candidates identify a rationale for practice, they often miss opportunities to
attempt to enact it. Moreover, teacher candidates often follow the approach of their
mentor teachers (Bullough & Draper, 2004). For example, Steve found it difficult to liberate
himself from the shadow of a mentor teacher, which limited his ability to enact his vision
for teaching. Similarly, Katrina only explored the enactment of her rationale when her
mentor teacher was on extended leave. My own experiences as a teacher did not prepare
me to adequately assist them in their personal teaching contexts. It would have been
counterproductive to have teacher candidates teach how I taught. They had to become
empowered to find their teaching voice and classroom persona. Thus, I consciously
adapted my role to assist them in better enactment of their evolving practice. This
study provides evidence that by shifting the focus of supervision pedagogy from specific
practices to larger visions of teaching held by teacher candidate and supervisor helps
both develop personally and professionally in powerful ways.
Specifically, framing my practice around the question ‘What do we teach for?’ has
forced me to reconsider my ever-developing practice in multiple contexts and became
a question I considered parallel to developing an answer in teacher candidates. Self-
study and critical friendship provided a framework through which I could grapple with
this question in the context of supervision. It ensured I had a chance to think about,
enact, reflect upon, and develop a pedagogy of practice that I otherwise would not have
been able to do. Understanding the importance of rationale development in teacher
education has been a transformative process for my emerging teacher educator prac-
tice. Although my contextual rationales are ever-evolving, engagement with
Dinkelman’s question in the context of a critical friendship with Brandon placed ratio-
nale at the core of my practice as an emerging teacher educator. The interactions
between Brandon, an experienced faculty member, and myself, a doctoral student,
provided the context from which these findings emerged. Considering the context of
supervision early in the semester, I wrote that:

By doing the readings, journaling, and discussing the pedagogy of supervision with my advisor,
I can see myself developing a set of values at this early stage of the process. I have had to think
about some of the concepts and ideas that I otherwise would not have considered if I was not
involved in a self-study. (Mark, Journal, 3/3/15)

Fundamentally, the process of self-study, along with the support mechanisms provided
by the critical friendship with Brandon provided a context to reflect upon practice with
the aim of improvement. Having read about other researchers’ problematic supervision
experiences I was glad to have the guidance of a critical friend. This ensured the
experience would not be ‘sink or swim’ for myself or my teacher candidates.
80 M. M. DIACOPOULOS AND B. M. BUTLER

Typically, university supervision is conducted by retired educators, or by doctoral

students with minimal training and support. It is concerning how this important part of
the teacher education process is regarded as a self-evident learning experience even
though recent scholarship has proven otherwise (e.g., Arndt, 2016; Bullock, 2017; Forgasz,
2016; Martin, 2017; Thomas, 2017). Student teaching is a complicated and challenging
experience for teacher candidates, and as this study shows, equally so for supervisors. This
understanding is consistent with other research that explores the value of support
mechanisms for novice university supervisors (Butler et al., 2012; Butler & Diacopoulos,
2016; Ritter et al., 2007). Therefore, this study adds value to the notion that support is
necessary to successfully do the work of supervision. It also provides insight into the level
of preparation and consideration necessary to supervise teacher candidates.
More importantly, this study also speaks to the necessity for clear visions for teaching
and learning within teacher education programs in the expectations set for teacher
candidate experiences and supervision of those experiences. Consistent with the use of
self-study by Arndt (2016), Bullock (2017) and Haberlin (2019), it became evident that
I needed a platform from which practice is developed. Whether it be a focus of relation-
ship-building (e.g., Arndt, 2016; Bullock, 2017), strength-based coaching (Haberlin, 2019),
or in my case developing teacher candidates’ capacities for rationale development, a clear
rationale for teaching and supervision was at the center of the problem. Moreover, like the
experiences of recent researchers, it was through engaging in self-study practices, in my
case using a critical friendship, that I was able to understand the problem, articulate it
through dialogue with my critical friend, and begin to implement solutions through my
practice. We found that critical friendship was instrumental in helping me develop my
supervisory practice. Using self-study to examine my supervision of social studies teacher
candidates through critical friendship was helpful in how I developed an understanding of
how I should approach supervision. We argue that teacher educators from multiple
disciplines may also benefit from participating in a critical friendship, adopt reflective
practices and impact their work as supervisor. Furthermore, we argue that although my
experience was in a social studies context, the challenges of enactment that emerged
from this study are not confined to that content area and occur in other areas of
education.

Conclusion
According to LaBoskey (2004), one aim of self-study is an intention to improve the
practice of the participants. In this context, I chose to adopt a considered approach to
supervision based around how teacher candidates defined their growing practice. The
process of reflection and my dialogue with Brandon went some way to defining how
I would practice my supervision. Indeed, by focusing on the development of my
rationale as a supervisor, I could supervise with a purpose that went beyond ‘sink or
swim’ or ‘in loco pedagogus’ (Cuenca, 2010). In my last meeting with my students, when
asked what they thought of my developing approach to supervision, Steve commented
that, ‘compared to other supervisors we hear about, you know what you are doing.
What you are doing this for.’ That endorsement went a long way in providing encour-
agement to continue asking myself the question, ‘What do I teach for?’ and attempt to
apply it in all the contexts applicable to my development as a teacher educator.
 STUDYING TEACHER EDUCATION 81

Furthermore, this study further supports the role of critical friendship which afforded an
opportunity for exploration of a rationale for the supervision of teacher candidates. We
hope this study highlights the need to provide similar support spaces for other emer-
ging teacher educators.
Moreover, it is intended that in examining my experiences as an emerging teacher
educator and my learning of supervision, this study offers opportunities for other scholars
and teacher educators to derive some pragmatic meaning from my experiences and
perhaps investigate and share their own in similar contexts. By adopting a self-study
approach to learning supervision, we have provided an example of how difficult and
complex supervision can be, especially to the emerging teacher educator. As my experi-
ence illustrates, complexities lead to tensions and anxieties that have the potential to
adversely affect practice (Butler & Diacopoulos, 2016). Through the development of
a critical friendship, and the adoption of a rationale-based approach to student super-
vision, complexities and tensions were somewhat lessened. This was a benefit to myself as
an emerging teacher educator and to my teacher candidates as they navigated their
practicum experience.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID
Mark M. Diacopoulos http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1861-8787

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