Standard 3: Field Experiences and Clinical Practice
The unit and its school partners design, implement, and evaluate field experiences and clinical practice so that teacher candidates and other school professionals develop and demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and professional dispositions necessary to help all students learn.
3a. Collaboration between Unit and School Partners
Both unit and school-based faculty are involved in designing, implementing, and evaluating the unit’s conceptual framework and the school program; they each participate in the unit’s and the school partners’ professional development activities and instructional programs for candidates and for children. The unit and its school partners share expertise and integrate resources to support candidate learning. They jointly determine the specific placements of student teachers and interns for other professional roles to maximize the learning experience for candidates and P–12 students.
3b. Design, Implementation, and Evaluation of Field Experiences and Clinical Practice
Field experiences allow candidates to apply and reflect on their content, professional, and pedagogical knowledge, skills, and professional dispositions in a variety of settings with students and adults. Both field experiences and clinical practice extend the unit’s conceptual framework into practice through modeling by clinical faculty and well designed opportunities to learn through doing. During clinical practice, candidate learning is integrated into the school program and into teaching practice. Candidates observe and are observed by others.
They interact with teachers, families of students, administrators, college or university supervisors, and other interns about their practice regularly and continually. They reflect on and can justify their own practice. Candidates are members of instructional teams in the school and are active participants in professional decisions. They are involved in a variety of school-based activities directed at the improvement of teaching and learning, such as collaborative projects with peers, using information technology, and engaging in service learning.
3c. Candidates’ Development and Demonstration of Knowledge, Skills, and Professional Dispositions To Help All Students Learn
Candidates work collaboratively with other candidates and clinical faculty to critique and reflect on each others’ practice and their effects on student learning with the goal of improving practice. Field experiences and clinical practice facilitate candidates’ exploration of their knowledge, skills, and professional dispositions related to all students. Candidates develop and demonstrate proficiencies that support learning by all students as shown in their work with students with exceptionalities and those from diverse ethnic/racial, linguistic, gender, and socioeconomic groups in classrooms and schools.