Practice Makes Perfect
This article describes an experimental program in the School of Education designed to give students more practice in the classroom. This and other articles may be found in the University Archives.
Citation for this article is: Simmons, Karen E., "Practice Makes Perfect," ECU Report, Spring 1989, Volume 20, No. 3.
Laura Blackmon, a senior majoring in early childhood education, is looking forward to her first year of teaching, thanks to an experimental student teaching program ECU implemented last fall.
In lieu of the traditional year of on-campus courses and 10 weeks of student teaching in a public school, Blackmon, along with 17 other early childhood education majors, is spending most of her senior year in a public school.
"I'm not scared about next year," Blackmon says. "If I had been in the 10-week program, I would probably be petrified."
"I've often heard teachers say that they wonder if their students learned anything during their first year of teaching because they didn't know what they were doing," says student Peggy Switzer. "Our first year hopefully will be a wonderful experience because we will know all the procedures. I feel that our students will learn."
Through its Model Clinical Teaching Program, ECU is putting into practice recommendations made by the Task Force on the Preparation of Teachers, approved by the 1986 General Assembly to improve the preparation of teachers in North Carolina.
The recommendations call for the cooperative development of clinical teaching programs in public schools by the use of public school personnel as faculty in the training of teachers.
The program combines classes covering teaching theory and philosophy taught by university professors, with hands-on instruction provided by specially trained public school teachers.
"We're increasing the quality of the student teacher's experience through collaboration with the public schools," says Dr. Beverly Swanson, program director."We are giving teachers the opportunity to help train teachers."
The program was funded by the 1987 General Assembly at ECU and eight other state universities. According to Dr. Charles Coble, dean of the ECU School of Education, each of the nine university-funded projects addresses a different certification area.
"Early childhood education was the most difficult certification area ECU could have chosen," Coble says. "Early childhood education teachers have the child all day long, so they must be educated in many different subject areas and teaching strategies."
Once each university perfects its particular model -- which could take several years -- "We'll examine ways in which we can extend what we have learned into other program areas," Coble says."Hopefully the end result will be much more clinically-based programs and a closer partnership with public school teachers and administration in the important task of preparing future teachers."
ECU began its program last summer with a course to prepare the 18 clinical teachers selected for the program. The following fall 18 seniors were matched with a clinical teacher, and during the semester spent every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning, as well as all day Tuesday and Thursday, in one of four Pitt County schools.
The remaining three afternoons were spent at the university in lab instruction."In those lab instructions they had their course content for the whole semester," Swanson says.
Instead of teaching, most of the students' time last fall was spent observing and learning how to do other duties teachers are responsible for.
"They have to know how to computerize their grades and attendance reports; they have to know how to identify a learning disabled child," says Kathryn Lewis, assistant director of the program. "Most of the first semester the students spent shadowing a counselor, going into an exceptional students' room, learning how to write lesson plans and how to access film from local and state resources."
The students were able to concentrate on teaching techniques during the spring semester by spending every weekday in the public school classroom. Weekly seminars were held after school with clinical teachers and university personnel for the student teachers to reflect on their classroom experiences.
"Because they spent so much time in the schools, they were able to ease into the teaching process by starting with one class and adding another one and another until they had been through the entire curriculum," Lewis says. "After they rotated all the way through the curriculum, they taught half days and eventually full days. But the teacher was there with them in the classroom up until the very last observing, making suggestions, building on their strengths."
In comparison, the traditional student teaching program, which is still in use at ECU, involves 14 to 18 hours of course work during a senior's fall semester with only 10 hours of field experience in a public school classroom.The first five weeks of the spring semester are spent in a university classroom, followed by 10 weeks of student teaching in a public school.
"There are few opportunities for them during those 10 weeks to do any of the other experiences it takes to make a teacher," says Lewis. "They're limited pretty much to observing, then starting to write their lesson plans, unit plans and starting to teach."
Students like the new program because they have the whole year to learn how to teach."We don't have to go from zero to 10 in 10 weeks," says student Heather Bachmann. "We have a lot more time to perfect our teaching."
In addition to taking on twice the amount of work than their counterparts, the 18 clinic students had to provide their own transportation to and from their respective schools for the entire year, convert a college wardrobe of jeans and t-shirts into one suitable for work, and acquire a taste for school cafeteria food. None were paid for their efforts.
"I'm proud to say that they've all stuck with the program, and their grade point averages are all fine," Swanson says. "As a matter of fact, some of them were able to raise their GPAs."
"We've learned and experienced much more than the traditional students," says student Kirstin Peterson."I wouldn't trade this for anything because next year I'll know what I'm doing."
The students' enthusiasm for the program became evident at Christmas when the university semester ended before the public schools."They wanted to know if they could keep going," Lewis says. "Due to family vacations, we knew that all of them couldn't continue, so to prevent some from appearing more dedicated than others, we decided that they had to go home when the semester ended.
"They were angry about that; they wanted to go back to their schools."
The students' enthusiasm is shared by the principals. "These people will be much better prepared to walk into a classroom setting," says Selma Cherry, principal of Pactolus School. "They're not sitting in class all day getting theory; they're out here seeing theory put into practice."
Stella Chambliss, principal of Elmhurst School, says one of the biggest problems she's had with new teachers is that they have no idea how to start off in the fall. "These students have been here since September, so they've been through all that," she says. "They are coming in here head and shoulders above the regular student teacher."
Beth Ward, principal of G.R. Whitfield School, says she would hire a graduate of the experimental program sight unseen. "And I'm very picky about who I hire," she says.
Teachers also support the program.Karla Lloyd '77, '82, a first-grade teacher at G.R. Whitfield School, says her student teacher, Kirstin Peterson, will be a much better first year teacher than she was.
"Kirstin is going to know a lot more than I did my first year; the more experience you have in the classroom, the better teacher you're going to be," Lloyd says.
Despite the support and enthusiasm of everyone involved, the program will be evaluated at the end of the spring semester to determine its efficiency."Outside evaluators will come in and rate the experimental students as well as 18 that went through the traditional program to see if they differ in terms of performance," Swanson says. "We're also going to compare both groups on the National Teacher's Exam."
Next fall, the same program -- albeit a more refined one -- will be offered to early childhood education seniors. "We had some rough spots this year, but I am confident that we will implement next year's program in a much smoother way," Coble says. "Once we have all the bugs worked out, we'll start increasing the number of students and eventually apply the knowledge we have learned in this program to other certification areas."
