Academic Departments
 Teacher Education
Centers and Projects |
Student Information
 Alumni Information
Faculty and Staff |
| Academic Departments
Teacher Education
Centers and Projects |
| Student Information
Alumni Information
Faculty and Staff |
|
As a student in this program you will begin your clinical experiences early in your program of study. As you progress toward more complex learning assignments in these school settings you will expand your classroom skills and gain confidence in your ability to become an effective teacher. The table below summarizes these clinical experiences:
|
|||||||||
| |
Fall Semester |
Spring Semester |
|
Years 1-2 ("Volunteer") |
Total of 60 hours of pre-approved
volunteer |
|
|
Year 3 ("Tutor") Year 4 ("Participant") Year 5 ("Intern") |
2 hours per week 5 hours per week Full-time |
2 hours per week 14 hours per week 135 contractual hours |
Before completing Professional Inquiry (EDUC 100), students are required to complete sixty hours of volunteer experiences that involve working with children. Many students have found that the volunteer experience helped them to decide if working with children was really the career they wanted to pursue.
This volunteer experience must have prior approval by the Chair of Educational Theory and Practice or by the Director of the HR&E Student Advising Center. Students may complete the volunteer experience near their homes or during the academic year in the Morgantown area. Students document their completion of the required number of volunteer hours and write a reflective paper on teaching and working with children based on the experience.
At the beginning of your clinical experiences you will be assigned to a professional development school (also known as a PDS). Most of your clinical experiences will be at this same school. For most students, the stable, familiar environment of a PDS creates a comfortable atmosphere to develop and refine planning and teaching strategies, management techniques, and evaluation skills.
Tutoring will be your first clinical placement in your assigned professional development school. During this year you will work with children in one-to-one and small-group settings. You will spend two hours each week for a full-year in your professional development school while you are also taking the Learning courses (EDUC 101 & 102).
This weekly time in the school provides introductory classroom experiences as you begin to establish a more professional relationship with students. You will be asked to observe individual differences in children and in their learning styles. You will also have opportunities to experiment with the teaching and learning strategies that are being presented in EDUC 101 & 102.
This will be your second part-time, full-year clinical experience. During the fall you will be in the schools five hours per week. During the spring semester you will spend fourteen hours each week in the schools.
During this time you will be asked to reflect on the things you are learning in your subject area courses and the courses that relate more directly to teaching skills and to apply your growing knowledge in a clinical situation. Activities usually extend beyond the one-to-one tutoring done the prior year to include whole-class lessons and projects.
The professional internship, formerly known as "student teaching" takes place in the Fall term. You will have the unique opportunity to "open the school year" in your professional development school. The internship is a full-time, semester-long experience. The extended placement in a single classroom, which follows the PDS school schedule rather than the WVU schedule, also allows you to focus on the long-range planning and student evaluation which are essential to effective teaching.
During this final semester, referred to as the professional development semester, you will remain involved in the professional development school. You will develop an individual contract with your professional development school that specifies the school-based activities in which you will participate this semester.