Although this course develops skills useful for the analysis of teaching
of all subject matters, the focus so far has been on mathematics teaching
due to the need in this particular program to improve pre-service teachers’
ability to teach mathematics. Collaboration skills are also developed in the
context of fieldwork experiences as follows. A sub-sample of pre-service
teachers participates in a paired-fieldwork model, whereby two pre-service
teachers are placed in the same classroom with one cooperating teacher.
The program includes two fieldwork experiences. The first experience
involves observing a classroom one day a week for three months, followed
by student teaching in the same classroom for ten weeks, four days per
week. The second fieldwork experience places pre-service teachers in a
second classroom five days per week for ten weeks. These paired placements
serve as the context for the study presented here.