I A. - OVERVIEW AND GOALS

Welcome to the world of teaching! In making the decision to enter the teaching profession, you have committed yourself to a challenging process of preparation. In addition to your coursework at the University of Northern Iowa, a critical component of your professional preparation as a teacher will be learning from the many accompanying field experiences in which you will participate in. The purpose of this handbook is to describe and assist you with your Level II Field Experience placement at the Price Laboratory School.

The Teacher Education Faculty at the University of Northern Iowa wish you continued success as you pursue your exciting journey to become a teacher. We stand ready to help and advise you as you explore the field of teaching, develop knowledge and understanding of the responsibilities of the successful classroom teacher, and gain first-hand experience working with children and youth.

200:128: Teacher as Change Agent is a 25 hour field experience you will complete at the Price Laboratory School (PLS) on the campus of the University of Northern Iowa. There are two key features of this field experience that make it a unique and powerful learning opportunity. First, by being placed at the PLS, you will have the opportunity to work with and receive supervision from a master teacher. With rare exceptions, the minimum criteria for employment on the PLS faculty include a master’s degree in appropriate areas, and several years of successful teaching experience. Among the characteristics that set your 200:128 PLS supervising teacher apart from their public school counterparts is their active involvement with professional organizations, research, publishing, and consultant work - not to mention their work with university classes and students. Thus, you have an opportunity not only to watch a teacher perform instructional activities in the classroom, but also to observe other non-teaching professional activities that make up the identity of a highly accomplished teacher.

A second key feature of the 200:128 field experience is that it was designed to be taken concurrently with 200:148: Learning and Instruction in Classroom Contexts during Level II of the professional education sequence. The purpose of taking 200:128 and 200:148 at the same time is to enhance your learning from each of these experiences. That is, both your field experience and your coursework can vitally inform each other. You should actively seek to make connections between what you read about and discuss in your 200:148 course and what you see and do in you 200:128 field experience. You will have structured opportunities to make these connections between 200:128 and 200:148 through journaling, reflection papers, discussions, and other assignments in your 200:148 course. We strongly urge you to take advantage of these unique opportunities to build connections for yourself between theory and practice.

The primary focus of the 200:128-200:148 field experience is to both broaden and deepen your understanding of classroom processes through active observation and participation in a classroom. Although you will undoubtedly learn countless things from this intensive experience, there are three major areas of focus that the 200:128-200:148 courses emphasize:

In your 200:148 coursework, you will have the opportunity to examine each of these topics separately and in depth by engaging in readings and discussion that focus on: ways of thinking about them, the theoretical rationales behind related classroom strategies, and what research tells us about the topics and the effectiveness of related classroom strategies. In your 200:128 field experience, you will have the opportunity to see these three elements interwoven and working together to make up the quality and feeling of a live classroom learning environment. In addition to having the opportunity to notice how a PLS supervising teacher addresses issues related to teaching/learning processes, student motivation, and classroom management in their classroom, you will also be expected to utilize your developing understanding of these topics in your observations, in the design of lessons you plan, and ultimately teach during your field experience.

 

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