As with previous coursework and practicum experience, the overarching goal of this semester is to facilitate the learning of practical teaching skills in addition to life-long learning as an educator. In other words, your professional preparation culminates in this demanding yet rewarding semester. In many ways, this semester will prepare you to continue to learn and improve as you embark on a career in teaching. The student teacher must approach this semester with a flexible mindset. The incredible variety of teaching situations, programs, age-levels, and classroom demands will require each student teacher to adapt and cooperate with his/her specific classroom teacher. This experience will provide a foundation for future successful teaching in schools. Your ability to provide positive learning experiences for students over an extended period of time and under the realities of daily classroom teaching must show gradual improvement during this semester.

You will work with a cooperating teacher who has opened his/her classroom to you to offer you an opportunity to learn teaching while teaching. Observations of four (4) other classrooms (preferably of other content areas) in the building in which you teach will give you some perspective on the school and the student population. It is also intended to provide you with the opportunities to carefully notice, appreciate, and describe various classroom dynamics. For those of you with an eight-week placement, you will be required to complete two observation reports of other content areas/classrooms per placement. Your supervisor will also observe you in your teaching 3-4 times throughout your student teaching experience. You will be expected to maintain a weekly on-going journal to document your professional growth and development gained through this experience. Lastly, a professional portfolio will be developed that includes your philosophy of teaching (second languages), which should reflect growth through what you have gleaned over the semesters and experiences in the teacher preparation program at the University of Iowa.

Supervisory visits and conferences

Your supervisor will visit your classroom and write up a report on the observations made of your teaching, approximately three times during your placement.

After each of the formal observations there will be a conference between the supervisor and the student teacher. The cooperating teacher may chose to take part in these conferences, though, as long as it is not midterm or final, he/she is not required to take part. A conference involving yourself (the student teacher), the cooperating teacher, and the college supervisor will be held following the midterm and final observation.

It will be the intent and goal of the supervisor to provide written feedback on the observed lesson and post-observation discussion within one week of the observation/conference, by way of e-mail or during another observation/conference. The lesson during supervisor visits/observations should be of typical classes, i.e. don't plan a special lesson just for the observation. Always submit a typed copy of your lesson plan to the supervisor just prior to the observation.

Professionalism

It is vital that you be ultimately responsible for yourself as a professional this semester. You are expected to follow the school's calendar for this experience except for the midterm day off. Arrive early to school; leave when a teacher would leave after school. Notify the school, your cooperating teacher, AND your supervisor when you will be absent from school this semester.