Opportunities
The purpose of the student teaching experience is to learn about teaching. You'll have ample opportunity to develop and practice the knowledge and skills required in the Ohio Standards for the Teaching Professions.
Cooperating teachers provide mentorship by incorporating a co-teaching model during your student teaching experience. This approach will allow you to have a gradual increase in responsibilities with consistent monitoring, feedback and support from the cooperating teacher.
Sixteen-Week Placement
During the first two weeks of your placement, you are normally expected to observe and assist your cooperating teacher. You should begin co-teaching in a supportive role during the third week.
Co-teaching involves a sharing of instructional duties between two teachers in the same classroom with the same group of students. Roles are coordinated in a variety of ways. One teacher may give instructions or demonstrate while the other circulates to provide assistance to students. One may explain a concept while the other demonstrates, or one teacher may work with a small group of students while the other supervises an activity with the rest of the class.
Beginning in the fourth week, you'll begin taking the lead—at first, by teaching one class period per day. In subsequent weeks, you'll gradually expand to leading more class periods as you become more confident in your instructional skills.
During the last six weeks, you should have the lead instructional role in a minimum of four instructional areas. During the time you have the lead role, the cooperating teacher is encouraged to support you. The support of your cooperating teachers is extremely beneficial. Cooperating teachers are there to model best practices and help you make timely adjustments in your teaching strategies.
Eight-Week Placement
You'll begin your eight-week placement shadowing the cooperating teacher in all activities and then shift to a co-teaching approach in a support role during the third week. Within the co-teaching experience, you'll progressively move from a support instructional role to a lead instructional role by the end of the student teaching experience.