5: Using Online Social Networking to Connect University Supervisors and Student Teachers

Student teaching is the capstone experience, and often the highlight, of programs for preservice secondary mathematics teachers. University supervisors, along with cooperating teachers, are charged with facilitating preservice teachers’ learning during the student teaching experience. Student teaching is an opportunity for the supervisors to use “situational” teaching (Cohn, 1981) to help preservice mathematics teachers bridge theory and practice and implement reform-oriented, research-based mathematics instruction (Borko & Mayfield, 1995; Feiman-Nemser & Buchman, 1987). Yet research examining the supervision of student teachers reveals that supervisors often have minimal impact on student teachers’ development, and may play a limited role in guiding their practices (Borko & Mayfield, 1995; Bush, 1986; Richardson-Koehler, 1988; Slick, 1998).