Interns' Lived Experience of Mentor Teacher Supervision in a PDS Context.

This study explored how interns in an elementary Professional Development School (PDS) learning community experienced supervision through collegial interactions, conversations, co-teaching, and collaborative reflection with multiple mentors. Each intern was supervised by a Professional Development Associate who provided supervisory support for the professional development of the interns and mentor teachers during the internship. Data collection involved participant observation, field notes, document analysis, and four semi-structured individual interviews. Data analysis revealed that multiple mentor teachers directly shaped the supervisory experience of the interns over the course of the year. Diverse mentors offered interns different ways and differing perspectives on learning to teach. In response, interns filtered, interpreted, and negotiated these complex interactions. The synergistic power of emerging supervisory relationships between the PDS community members afforded interns spaces to shape and reshape their provisional understanding of learning to teach. Findings depicted a supervisory process that entailed multiple opportunities for collaborative relationships between those who were planning to teach and those inducted into the profession. Participants' deep commitments enabled interns to feel connected and cared for. (Contains 70 references.) (SM)