Clinical experiences in the education of teachers¹

This paper presents the argument that the two views of appropriate clinical experiences most commonly held by teacher educators are both limited and lacking vision and are, therefore, ineffectual in shaping the training experiences of beginning teachers. After an examination of relevant research in the areas of teacher effectiveness, behaviour acquisition, classroom characteristics, instructional supervision and concept acquisition an augmented view of clinical experiences is offered. This view suggests the importance of the potential effect of the clinical setting on the beginning teacher and the need to provide the novice with the opportunity to develop a conceptual framework which will allow meaningful interpretation of events observed in clinical settings.