Any teachers who've had a student teacher...

[Aquitane]

Can you give me advice for this year?

I've been teaching for 17 years, but I've never had a student teacher. I've had "pre-student" teachers that came in for a couple of hours a couple times a week, but never a full-time one. I've just been involved in my school and in my district in other ways; I didn't feel I had the time to devote to one, until this coming year.

Any helpful information you can provide will be much appreciated!

FWIW - I've already met my student teacher and I've showed her around the school. She seems very nice. She's not super-young fresh out of college. She's a mom who slowly got her B.A. while raising two kids. She's in her early thirties.

TIA!

[yebos9]

Well I have not had a student teacher, but I was one many years ago!

I was really happy with my experience and how we transistioned over. I was in each classroom for nine weeks. The first week, I just observed. The second week I took over spelling, the next week another subject and so on, adding one subject per week until the last couple weeks I was in charge of the entire day. It was a nice way to ease into it, both for me and the students getting used to me being in charge.

[mom2snugbugs]

What grade/subject? How long do you have her/him? How long does s/he have to solo?

I've been a student teacher and now I am a supervisor. I've found that all the "book" stuff (how to teach a lesson, aligning to standards, pre/post testing, etc.) they are pretty good at (usually, unless you have one that has difficulties in this case.) The stuff that can be hard are management things (time, behavior, classroom, etc)

[Aquitane]

I teach 4th grade. I have a teaching partner who teaches my class Math and Social Studies. I do my own Language Arts and teach her class Writing/Grammar and Science. The student teacher will have opportunities to sit in on my partner's sessions. I have her from September until December.

I have no idea how long she is supposed to "solo." That's one of the issues. I am hoping that the university rep. will sit down with me before we get started, but I'm not sure that will happen. Basically in our district we have an administrator who is the go-between for the district and colleges. I know that my student teacher will have an advisor, but I've been given no instructions. I'm not a fly by the seat of my pants kind of girl, so it's a little frustrating.

More than anything, I want to make sure she has a terrific experience and gets a lot out of it. My student teaching experience was trial by fire. My cooperating teacher's son had to have emergency surgery. This was in an inner city school, so they had me take over instead of getting a substitute. This was my second week! Once my teacher came back 3 weeks later, she just let me handle everything.

I think the management things are the parts of teaching that are difficult for all of us, so I know to focus on those. However, some of those things depend on your personality/philosophy. Bottom line - I don't want to mess her up!

Thanks, for your input! I need all the help I can get!

[spedteacher30]

I used to be a university supervisor as well. Our university has a handbook that the supervisor, the clinical instructor and the student teacher all review at the beginning of the placement. I would recommend that you give her specific things to look for during the observation period. Ask her to notice the response of a specific student to different types of instruction, or ask her to notice how often you give positive feedback or the quality of your questions, etc. you will need to coach her on how you use the cues of the classroom to make spontaneous decisions and corrections and, with support, you can help her learn what to pay attention to and how to reflect on things.

[KCMichigan]

Originally Posted by Aquitane

My student teaching experience was trial by fire. My cooperating teacher's son had to have emergency surgery. This was in an inner city school, so they had me take over instead of getting a substitute. This was my second week! Once my teacher came back 3 weeks later, she just let me handle everything.

I had this experience as well.

I did 2 students teachings (one 3rd grade and one Spec. Education) and can give you what went well and what did not from that point of view if it is helpful.

Student teaching #1

Teacher slowly eased me in-- added a 'new' responsibility each week. I flew solo the last 2 weeks. She had student teachers the past 7 or 8 years.

Plus: I like the structure and easing in of the program- she had an outline of what was expected and what I would be doing so I could prepare. She had the curriculum available to me so I could preview it. I went to staff meetings and was able to observe a few other classes as well to get a 'feel' for the school and staff. I sat in on parent teacher conferences, this was helpful when I had to do them in my own classroom.


Minuses: She was pretty burnt out (she retired later that year) and her discipline style was totally different than mine. She wanted me to do it exactly the way she did---which was a fine way, but went against my nature (I tend to run a noisy- but controlled class---she wanted silence and quiet all the time.) She offered very little feedback and was not very personable or available for questions outside of school hours. My supervisor offered most feedback.


Student Teaching #2.

Pluses: Teacher was very open and involved me in all discussions from the start. She also inquired about my life in general. She was open to letting me try new ideas and lessons (versus doing what she does). She had a very similar style of teaching and that made 'feedback' more relevant and easy to apply. She was very generous with praise/ comments/concerns/ constructive advice. She meet with me before and after school to plan lessons and discuss ideas.


Cons: She was gone the first two weeks on my student teaching with emergency surgery. Luckily she had an aide that was wonderful in explaining the routine. It was crazy since they had a substitute teacher, but I basically did a lot of the classroom stuff from the start. My supervisor was not very clear on expectations/communicate (different than 1st supervisor) and that made for a few mix-ups on observed lessons. She was a bit unorganized about what I needed to do and what I could participate in, it made it difficult to plan ahead on my part. BUT she was open about it and we hammered out a schedule together.

Dont know if that helps. Have FUN! Involve your student teacher as much as you can in 'routine/rhythms' of school.

The hardest adjustment from 'student teacher' to 'teacher' was all the bookkeeping, paper chasing, and classroom management. Some of those things are district/school dependent- but they teach very little of how to set up a classroom, keep track of papers/IEPs/record keeping/etc, communicate with parents, work with other staff members in college.

[St. Margaret]

I had one but it was for 9th grade English. It was funny, she was decades older than I; it was my first year of tenure. Anyway, I think having an eased transition helps, and providing the first lesson plans, too. It sounds like you are committed to being really supportive, so she'll have it made I liked how my master teachers made their expectations really clear and walked me through the first few rounds of planning.

I think knowing when a student teacher SHOULD do things differently is good, too. I could run a class discussion with just a few stickies in my copy of the book, and the kids were all over it. The student teacher, not so much-- she wasn't as good (yet) and posing open questions and giving off a vibe of receptive wait-time, and the kids weren't sure about her yet So she would watch me teach one period but then for hers, I'd suggest more time on the group work to facilitate discussion and a quicker overview.

[stlmomof2]

I was a student teacher for high school English not too long ago and by the end it was a very positive experience. However, one thing that was really tough: the kids absolutely adored the CT. This was an inner city school with major behavior problems and a 66% attendance rate and this guy had classrooms full of perfectly behaved kids. So it was a double edged sword. He was great to hang out with and I learned a lot from him but when I first took over his classes, some of the kids were just livid. They got used to it, started to like me, and it all worked out, but probably the CT should have made more of an effort to prepare the class in a straightforward clear way. I think he didn't really want to believe that he was losing his classes and so he was hanging on until the last minute. Also, a lot of the time, I would be leading a discussion and then he would be in the room and he would get so interested in the topic that he would start joining in. That was totally benevolent and even admirable that he was so into the literature or whatever, but it sort of undermined me as the teacher, making the kids start defaulting back to him. So I'd recommend staying out of the classroom during the student teacher's instruction time (though I know that's not always allowed, depending on the school). And remember that the reality of it is that you won't be doing much to assist the student teacher. The student teacher is providing free labor that you will benefit from. So it's like a little vacation for you. It annoys me very much that ed schools think that CTs are doing some additional work by taking on student teachers.

[shelbean91]

I currently teach 4th and I did my student teaching in 4th as well. I was student teaching for 15 weeks, the whole last semester. It was suggested we have 3 weeks to phase in, 3 weeks to phase out, and 9 weeks full time on our own - from what I remember. So, the first week - just observe. Take notes, ask questions, learn procedures. The next week - help around the room, teacher taught, I'd help with student questions during independent work time, help grade, start to help plan lessons. 3rd week, I'd teach a few subjects, 4-13 weeks, I'd basically do everything. She was in and out of the room and I'd ask any questions any time I needed. Week 14-15 was phasing out, getting time to observe in other grades and other classrooms - to give the students time to adjust. We could adjust this a bit as needed, but that was our basic outline.

For me, it was an amazing experience b/c my cooperating teacher and I have very similar personalities and worked very well together. It was a seamless transition, in and out. She let me take over as I was ready and seemed to know when was a good time to leave and for how long and when I'd need the extra help.

[ecoteat]

I had a student teacher 6 years ago in my 6th grade science class. He and I hit it off so perfectly it was like we were total equals after a few weeks. It was awesome. We had 5 class periods a day. He gradually took one over until he was doing them all. It gradually shifted from me being the primary teacher and he was my assistant to the other way around.

As far as advice, be really clear with your and the students' expectations. Don't asssume she knows anything about how your classroom is actually run.

[Aquitane]

Thanks for all of the great replies, you all have given me a lot to think about!

I started to make up a phase in-phase out plan. From what I hear from other teachers who've had a ST in my district, it is not guaranteed that I will get a schedule from the university. I'm also going to go through the basic classroom management plan I use and go over it with her.

I'm thinking about changing my room around. I might ask her to come up to the school when I do it to see if she has any ideas.

Again, thanks for all of the suggestions and stories. As my experience wasn't the best, it has been really helpful to hear from all of you about what you liked or didn't like about your student teaching time.