Field & Student Teaching Experiences

The field experience is a central component of the Teacher Education program and complements the college classroom learning by providing significant opportunities for "hands-on" learning. Field experience begins with the first professional education course. As students progress through the program, they participate in a variety of field experiences in local school settings. With each experience comes increased responsibility and opportunities for growth and reflection.

The student teaching experience is viewed as a synthesis of all previous field placements. This is a full-time, ten-week experience in which the student teachers participate in the entire teaching process. It is the point at which the student begins to make the transition from college life to life as a professional educator. Student teachers are placed in school districts within Wayne County where they are closely supervised in a variety of different classroom activities by a School-Based teacher and a College- Based supervisor. Student teachers may also choose to participate in an overseas or urban student teaching experience after graduation. All members of the student teaching team work in a collegial manner to ensure that the student teachers gain the necessary competence and confidence to be outstanding educators.

One recent student teacher working in an English class at Triway High School, for example, taught a unit on the Scarlet Letter and incorporated her work on this unit into her Independent Study project in English. Another student teacher, while working in the third grade at St. Mary's School in Wooster, taught a unit on family traditions. After reading the children a book about quilts, the student teacher taught the children how to construct their own quilt to represent their own classroom traditions. At the end of the ten-week experience, the children surprised the student teacher with a farewell gift of the quilt they had made.