Abstract:

In accordance with current trends in teacher training (Quebec Government, 2001), future teachers must be prepared to implement the new curriculum. In this respect, cooperating teachers, whose role with regards to student teachers is as crucial as it is complex (Gervais & Lepage, 2000), are encouraged to possess new concepts well enough to introduce them in their teaching (Snoeckx, 2002; Portelance, Gervais, Lessard & Beaulieu, 2008). Moreover, in accepting to train student teachers, they commit themselves to supporting student teachers in their linking of knowledge related to action to that gained through research in education (Altet, Paquay & Perrenoud, 2002; Thornley, Parler, Read & Eason, 2004). We also know that student teachers find it difficult to give meaning to theory (Portelance & Legendre, 2001). It is therefore advantageous for cooperating teachers not only to help them come to an understanding of teaching’s theoretical basis, but also to use such theory by coming up with innovative teaching practices.

Researchers interested in this question recognize that the implanting of any major change in education requires that teachers make conceptual changes (Legendre, 2002; Durand, 2000), and that these changes come about progressively and selectively (Inchausé, 2000; Pelletier, 1996; Tyack & Cuba, 1995). Nevertheless, researchers insist on the necessity, for the cooperating teacher, of integrating pedagogical innovation both in his own teaching and in his role as teacher trainer (Paquay, 2000). We know that a teacher’s knowledge includes, in particular, formal knowledge altered through experience and through reflection upon professional acts, knowledge that the teacher generally expresses by subjecting it to pedagogical transposition (Perrenoud, 1996). Ideally, the cooperating teacher should be in a position to give specifications and to discuss on the basis of his knowledge (Fenstermacher & Richardson, 1994) with the purpose of better filling his role as trainer of future teachers (Brau-Antony, 2000; Correa Molina, 2005). We have studied the contribution cooperating teachers make to student teacher’s training in relation to the creation and to the carrying out of teaching-learning situations. The data analysed was taken from individual interviews and conversations between teacher and student teacher. Six dyads participated in the 2006-2007 study. The results indicate the nature of the teacher’s contribution to the student teacher’s training, considering the perception of each participant. They also pertain to the dynamics that control the mediation of the teacher’s knowledge and the conditions under which a fulfilling contribution can be made towards the student teacher’s formation.