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skills and abilities varied between the two preservice teachers. She felt the need to
conduct separate meetings to ensure that each preservice teacher’s privacy was
maintained:
I needed more time to give feedback, time for individuals. In my class I had the experience
that one was weaker.
In contrast to this another supervising teacher commented: ‘they were able to
observe each other, we worked in a three way situation ...’, however I gave indi-
vidual feedback for personal privacy.
While preservice teachers who apply and are successful in gaining a paired
placement often extol its advantages, the time commitment is also a barrier in Model
B. Preservice teachers needed to commit to 2 days a week for a whole semester, not
just for a 4-week block in the semester. This program is highly promoted on the
university website as well as the internal learning management system. It is not
mandatory, however, and at most only 10–15% of preservice teachers nominated to
be part of it.
We have found when we promote Model B that some principals are reluctant to
accept paired placements of preservice teachers. We present the following comment
to illustrate the tension that universities encounter when changing a traditional pat-
tern of preservice teacher supervision. For example, a principal said:
I know the university want it so that they [the preservice teachers] can reflect with each
other, but they kind of reflect with each other and build up their relationship without build-
ing up a strong relationship with the teacher because they don’t need the teacher so much.
Another principal questioned how crowded a classroom would get with three
adults in it.
Trust between the supervising teacher and the preservice teachers, and likewise
between the pair of preservice teachers, is key in Model B. One preservice teacher
commented on how she felt fully trusted by her supervising teacher:
There is more room for collaboration and team work. Unlike being on prac for a couple of
weeks, preservice teachers in the teaching school program are able to get up at any point,
during any lesson, or on any day, without disrupting the class environment/flow.
While this relates partly to the 2 days a week nature of the model, it also empha-
sises how the preservice teacher’s professional agency is enhanced in this model
and how the supervising teachers develop a trust in the abilities of the preservice
teachers in their classrooms. The trust that develops between the pairs in the class-
room is evident in their feedback, for example:
I think I was lucky that I had a partner that I’d never worked with before but we had similar
interests and we got along really well so I felt like I could go to him no matter what. I would
ask anything anytime and he would be the same, even if we were doing team teaching we’d
both be standing out the front bouncing off each other teaching and then meanwhile we’d
be whispering things to each other like ‘let’s do this’ or ‘should we do this?’, we’d be reas-
suring each other the whole time. So that was awesome.C. Lang and H.T.M. Nguyen