Learning to teach is an intricate, painstaking, time consuming task. There are no easy shortcuts. Like all acts of performance, one learns to teach by teaching. To facilitate this process you will be assigned to an educational situation where you will have adequate opportunity to teach under the guidance of a master teacher. This person was selected because of his or her professional competence and a desire to work with prospective teachers.


Field experiences should be thought of as a time to study teaching as well as practice teaching. It is a time to put untried ideas to the test in a variety of real situations and to evaluate the results. The factors of: what to teach, how to teach it, and why teach it, are equally important and inseparable in the teaching process. You should reflect on these continually as you carry out your teaching assignments. The teacher education program of study is designed to offer a continuously expanding experience with these factors under the guidance of an experienced teacher. Taking full opportunity of these experiences will guide you as you journey to becoming a “competent, caring teacher” who will make a difference in the lives of children.

Saturday, October 1, 2016

Fall 2016: Field Experience Update

Every one of you has made contact with the teacher/mentor, scheduled your time for weekly field placements, and has handed in an overview of the unit and lesson planning requirements you have to complete this semester in all of your methods courses.

The following items are a summary of what we discussed in class yesterday, Friday, Sept. 30:
  • Kilreen and Jen - You will start doing your weekly reflections this next week. I will send you a separate email about the specific requirements.
  • Margaret, Angela, Marlene, Monique & Dakota - You will not be required to submit a weekly reflection yet because you have not started teaching lessons. I'm going to visit with your methods teachers (Leah, Lezlie, Brenda, Theresa and Sheridan) on Wednesday. If they require you to journal, I won't require the emails, only the reflection piece of your lesson plan. The only reason we emailed reflections last semester is because some of you were not in methods courses. You are all in methods this semester. 
  • A reminder again to schedule your Praxis tests. So far Dakota and Marlene have theirs scheduled. As discussed, and posted on the CEDAR blog, you must TAKE these tests before applying for spring semester and you must PASS these tests before applying for student teaching in February, 2017. Except for Kilreen and Jen, the rest of you will be student teaching fall 2017 if you stay on plan.
  • Remember we are not meeting next Friday, Oct. 7 at 10 am. We discussed in class on Friday that we didn't have a need to meet as a group, however, you are always able to meet with me individually during the week. 
  • If you were not in class this past Friday, you are required to create a list of the planning requirements for each one of your classes. Identify the total number of units and lessons you are required to write for each one of your classes and put them all together on one document (list or table). This is a good way for you to look at the "big picture" planning for the semester so you don't gt overwhelmed. Leah wants copies of this assignment from each one of you so I will share them with her. 



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