Teaching and learning are the keys to citizenship in the world today. They are the focus of the School of Education's conceptual framework and cause us to strive to meet our seven standards and eight dispositions. We desire that our secondary teacher candidates will become "premiere" students who will lead our 7 - 12 grade students into citizenship through public schooling. It is our job to ensure that our students become teachers who have a deep understanding of content, possess teaching and learning skills, and hold dispositions that are worthy of a professional.

We, the unit of faculty who teach future secondary teachers, strive to uphold subject-centered classrooms--places where ideas have such power that they become the great subjects that all want to study! In subject-centered classrooms, neither the teacher reigns supreme nor is the student perceived to do no wrong. Instead, all work together to create a picture that is vivid and real, where facts are not inert but alive. In this classroom, students puzzle over the subject to develop a clear picture about its nature and are encouraged by their teacher to ask, "What is happening here?" In Palmer's (1998) words, "This is why students describe great teachers as people who "bring to life" things that the students had never heard of, offering them an encounter with otherness that brings the student to life as well" (p. 120).

As faculty within the School of Education, we hold a professional ethic to help our students develop into excellent teachers. We honor the content, skills and dispositions that need to be learned and we honor the time that it takes to learn the content, skills and dispositions. This is why our Secondary Teacher Education Program contains the equivalent of two majors- a content major and minor in education (32 credit hours). Through the secondary program, we expect our students to learn how a practitioner in a content area and in education would question, investigate, generate data, analyze data, apply the data and share the results and conclusions with others. We agree with Palmer when he states, "Each discipline has inner logic so profound that every critical piece of it contains the information necessary to reconstruct the whole" (p. 23). In other words, we think each of the content areas has an internal consistency.

Those of us who advise in the secondary education program know how full your schedule is going to be if you are going to graduate in four years. We recommend the following sequence for the education component of your program. We also invite you to visit us regularly for advising to make adjustments as needed. You will also need to spend time with your content area advisor to ensure that your major's requirements are met in a timely fashion.

• Biology
• Chemistry
• English
• French
• Latin
• German
• Math
• Physics
• Social Studies
• Spanish

To gather information about these highly rewarding and exciting fields in secondary education, please contact any of the following faculty for assistance and advising.

Unit Wide Policy Statement on External Relations and Field Experiences

PREAMBLE

The community of professionals who prepare future teachers believes that teaching is a highly complex profession. Teaching involves the weaving of extensive knowledge and skills into on-going interactions that result in learning. The following five sections: the field experience, relationship to the learning settings, the students, the faculty, and clinical practice begin to describe the series of associations needed to optimize effective teaching based on College of Charleston, School of Education teaching standards.

I. THE FIELD EXPERIENCE

Field experiences include opportunities for the refinement and development of teaching knowledge and skills, as well as opportunities to work with students of different ages and cultures. Experiences in applied settings provide information for reflection on practice. This reflection enables the student to clarify his/her thinking about teaching by identifying the connections between theory and practice. Field experiences are designed to assist in learning about functioning in a variety of learning settings. These experiences serve to develop an understanding of the politics, cultures, and policies of the various learning settings and the integration of these settings to the community.

Il. RELATIONSHIP TO LEARNING SETTINGS

The quality of the relationship that the School of Education has with the agencies that provide practica settings is critical to the effectiveness of field experience. Collegial relations are sought in the belief that the preparation of teachers is a broad based responsibility, resting in part with the college, and in part with the professionals in the learning settings in which our students work. To this end, practica programs must be mutually beneficial to people in both settings.

III. TEACHER CANDIDATES

Teacher candidates are the primary stakeholders in field experiences. They engage in a diverse array of multidisciplinary, multicultural learning opportunities. They will have the opportunity to:

1.) conduct reflective dialogue about these experiences with peers, teachers, other field supervisors and college faculty ,

2.) analyze the connections between theory and practice,

3.) articulate contrasts and comparisons across experiences,

4.) engage in collaborative practices that embrace consensus-building, and

5.) extend the rigor of academic study.

Teacher candidates will participate in practica that take place in varied sites. They need to develop understandings and practices in addressing the individual needs of the learners across age, gender, ability levels, (including exceptionalities or special needs), cultures and socioeconomic strata. Through these varied field experiences, teacher candidates will also become familiar with a broad array of learning settings. They will learn to navigate various educational systems and shape a teaching model based on a belief that teachers are contributors to their students and the community.

Over time and through multiple learning settings, teacher candidates will come to an understanding of the dynamic relationship between teaching and learning. They will become knowledgeable about the complexity of classroom management and leadership skills, the operation of school systems, and the issues surrounding curriculum and instruction. Field experiences that include reflective dialogue are vehicles through which the complexity of these issues can be addressed.

IV. FACULTY

Faculty view experiences as an integral part of teacher preparation. They take responsibility for providing feedback to students and participating in dialogue to encourage student reflection. They use field settings to provide data that help students bridge theory and practice. The data that emerges will be derived by faculty in the field because they are working and/or observing learning settings to continually enhance the field experiences of the preservice teacher. Reflection will be addressed by the students in situations in which either faculty members, cooperating teachers, graduate students or peers are involved in the process. A faculty member will be accountable for the feedback and observations of each student and his/her reflections in a field experience. As ambassadors for our College and School, faculty become partners with principals, cooperating teachers and other learning setting liaisons in the complex process of guiding students as they become teachers.

V. CLINICAL PRACTICE

The clinical practice experience is the culmination of the preservice preparation program. During this experience, students demonstrate what they know related to the College of Charleston teaching and learning standards. Assisting, Developing, and Evaluating Professional Teaching (ADEPT), a state adopted assessment system, provides a process and instrumentation to guide the student, the supervisor, and the cooperating teacher in assessing the quality of the student teacher's performance. The ADEPT standards are aligned to the School of Education teaching and learning standards.

The secondary practicum experience is provided for pre-service teachers currently enrolled in EDFS 455 and 456 at the College of Charleston as a precursor to clinical practice. This practicum of 50 hours in the public school classroom is designed to give the pre-service teacher an opportunity to observe several inservice teachers in action, to assist the inservice teacher in the daily activities involved with teaching, and to prepare and teach a minimum of three lessons approved and supervised by the inservice teacher. Through these activities, the students are allowed to experience the classroom from a teacher's perspective prior to engaging in clinical practice.

I. THE FIELD EXPERIENCE

The Secondary Program has three levels of field experiences:

A reflective journal must be completed for each assignment. The journal must include the following:

1. teaching practices observed;

2. lesson plans used;

3. management/leadership of students;

4. laboratory or classroom use and safety, and;

5. your reaction to each of the above.

The final journal entry should state the patterns you observed the following:

1. teaching strategies;

2. how the teaching strategies relate to the content;

3. what you thought was effective and why;

4. how it made you feel;

5. how you perceived the way the students felt, and;

6. what it means to your personal teaching style and future classroom practices. 

Il. RELATIONSHIP TO LEARNING SETTINGS

Because we value our partnerships with the public schools and view these relationships as essential to the growth and development of teacher candidates, the faculty at the College of Charleston will make the initial contact with the schools and gain permission to speak with the teachers who will be accepting the teacher candidates into their classrooms. The faculty who teach EDFS 455 and 456 actively seek excellent teachers through the local school districts and other resources (e.g. Charleston County Math and Science Hub, etc.) for placement. To ensure the high quality of this final practicum placement, the college faculty member will make the final selections for practicum placements for the candidates.

The practicum placement information is then forwarded to the clinical practice office so that the teacher candidates will receive a placement for their clinical practice that is different--diverse from their other placement(s) (e.g. rural, urban, minority, grade level, etc.)

The teacher candidate in the practicum experience is expected to:

1. recognize that s/he is a guest in the school and classroom of the cooperating teacher.

2. understand that the authority for classroom procedures and decisions are made by the cooperating teacher.

3. volunteer to assist the inservice teacher in daily classroom activities and to ask questions when instructions are not clear.

4. demonstrate a professional manner in punctuality, confidentiality, behavior, and dress.

5. adhere to these guidelines. Failure to meet any of these expectations will result in the termination of the practicum experience and loss of credit for the courses for which the practicum is a part. Termination of the practicum can originate from the professor, the inservice teacher, or any other school personnel.

The teacher candidate activities involved in the practicum are to:

1. obtain the telephone numbers of the cooperating teacher.

2. complete 35-40 hours of observation and participation in the assigned content specific class*.

The remaining 10-15 hours will be with an ESL teacher and will be placed by the EDFS 455 professor.

3. plan classroom visits at least one a week in advance that meet with the approval of the cooperating teacher. In the case that the student is unable to be in the classroom at the scheduled time, the student will call the cooperating teacher in advance.

4. record activities in a practicum log according to the instructions of the profession in either EDFS 445 or 456 (see attached description).

5. prepare three typed lesson plans according to the instructions of the professor in either EDFS 455 or 456 prior to teaching them in the classroom.

6. design the content and teaching strategies for a minimum of the three lesson plans with the approval of the inservice teacher.

7. teach the three lessons to the class under the supervision of the inservice teacher; the lessons may be taught to individuals, small groups, or the whole class. The classroom teacher will determine to whom the lessons are taught.

III. TEACHER CANDIDATE

Because it is important to link theory to practice, the teacher candidate is to perform in the practicum setting as a professional. This means that all assignments and personal comportment will be exemplary, timely, and show a depth of understanding about their students, the content, and how and why to teach the content effectively to the students. To this end, students will complete and repeat all field placement assignments until all the criteria with regard to excellent performance are met.

IV. FACULTY

Faculty in the secondary field placement courses take responsibility for providing feedback to students and participating in dialogue to encourage student reflection. They use video tapes and journal entries from the field settings to provide data that helps students bridge theory and practice. Comparisons of field work across the program will be used to enhance the field experiences of the preservice teacher. Reflection will be addressed by the students in situations in which either faculty members, cooperating teachers, graduate students or peers are involved in the process. A faculty member will be accountable for the feedback and observations of each student in a field experience. Public school teachers and principals have the secondary faculty members' phone numbers so that continuous communication between the supervising faculty about each student can be thorough and meet all needs in an on-going manner.