Candidates explore why we teach through short field clinical experiences embedded in introductory education courses.

Candidates explore how students learn as they begin specialized coursework toward the area/content they wish to teach.

Planning effective instruction becomes the focus as candidates explore the learning cycle and how student engagement is critical to the overall success of P-12 students.  

Candidates begin the year long journey as they explore how to become an effective teacher in two critical clinical field experiences: the practicum and the student teaching field experiences. This year concludes their preparation to become a highly effective first year teacher!

Our candidates begin freshman year with short field experiences. Candidates are provided with opportunities to develop, demonstrate and evaluate their professional knowledge and skills in the major areas of teacher responsibility. Typically, candidates participate in 10 hours of short field clinicals in the first year, 20 hours in the second year, and 30 hours in the third year. The practicum precedes student teaching, typically during the fall semester, and is supervised with regular visits from the college supervisor and monitored by the clinical teacher. The Student Teaching experience is designed to allow candidates opportunities to translate the theoretical concepts learned in on-campus classes to real life experiences in public school classrooms. The Student Teaching Clinical Field Experience lasts the entire semester.

Candidates within our program explore the unique student populations through discourse within each of the education courses. In addition, each of the clinical field experiences require candidates to not only observe, but to discuss with experienced educators the different student populations and the approaches schools use to support all learners. Through honest and transparent explorations of data results, school climate/culture walkthroughs, our candidates are able to develop problem-solving skills to determine effective and meaningful ways to serve the student populations they encounter. More importantly, our candidates are required to create effective lesson plans that draw on students’ varied experiences to design meaningful and engaging learning activities.

The Professional Education program works closely with each local education agency to secure placements with experienced teachers who are designated as highly successful and willing to work with teacher education candidates in a supervisory role. Through collaboration with these school districts, our candidates are placed in a variety of classrooms where clinical teachers represent a broad range of backgrounds and experiences. Many of our adjunct faculty members are also highly experienced teachers. All of these teachers are trained in the supervision process and provide excellent constructive feedback to our candidates.

The Teacher Education Program is nationally accredited by the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP). This accrediting body requires evidence based measures to ensure continuous improvement throughout our teacher education program. Through bi-annual stakeholder meetings with local school officials and educators, including the College of Arts and Sciences faculty involved in our secondary programs, program data is analyzed to determine necessary improvements within our various programs. Feedback is solicited continually throughout our program. The feedback provided through surveys of graduates of our programs, as well as students currently enrolled in our programs and administrators who hire our students, add a voice to this data analysis and allow for targeted improvements. The student organization within the Professional Education Department allows faculty to gather student input throughout their enrollment in our program. Our program has developed a Problem Based Learning approach to determine the next best steps toward improvement.