Reconstructing a supervisory identity: The case of an experienced physical education cooperating teacher

Cooperating teachers’ teaching perspectives and participation in initial teacher education have been frequently considered as ways to understand teachers’ learning trajectories and professional identity at workplace settings (Clarke and Jarvis-Selinger, 2005; Clarke et al.2014; Lave and Wenger, 1991). A case study approach was employed to examine the challenging supervisory experiences of a highly experienced physical education cooperating teacher that led to the reconstruction of her professional identity. Data were collected throughout a one-year school placement and included three semi-structured interviews with the cooperating teacher and the cooperating teacher’s daily journals entries. Analysis was informed by grounded theory coding procedures. Themes included: (i) the challenge of changing entrenched teaching and mentoring practices to connect with pre-service teachers; (ii) reconfiguring mentorship to expand pre-service teachers’ limited teaching ideias and range of teaching tools; and (iii) the possibility of practicing different mentoring strategies for different ‘types’ of pre-service teachers. We infer that contextual factors and teaching perspectives play a role in the cooperating teacher’s legitimate peripheral participation in teacher education and constitutes elements of her professional identity development.