Overview
The professional teaching year is the culminating experience for UMBC teacher candidates. Candidates are engaged in an extensive 100-day internship experience and related professional education courses. Most UMBC teacher candidates arrive at their internship with multiple field experiences in diverse settings, many of which require students to interact with students and plan and conduct lessons.
UMBC designs the internships to provide the intern with a rich, practical teacher-training experience, with multiple opportunities for support and feedback. The intended objectives of the internship are for the interns to put into practice what they have learned/are learning in their university courses, while making positive contributions to the operation of the school. Each intern has a team consisting of a mentor teacher, a university assigned supervisor and the program coordinator. An array of faculty and administrators from the school and the university are also part of the intern’s support team.
The internship covers two semesters, with Phase I (20 days) occurring in the fall semester and Phase II (80 days) in the spring. Ideally, this experience takes place in a Professional Development School (PDS). A PDS is a collaboratively planned and implemented partnership between an institute for higher learning and a local education agency. The PDS offers academic and clinical preparation of interns, as well as the continuous professional development of on-site faculty.
Phase I
The internship experience begins the week that teachers return to schools in August. Typically this is around the third week of August. During this week, interns are oriented to their school and classroom where they receive clear guidelines and expectations of their eventual primary teaching role. Days that the intern attends during this week (as well as all days prior to the start of the UMBC fall semester) may count toward fulfilling your minimum 20 day (40 half days) Phase I requirement.
Interns should be actively involved in the classroom during Phase I so that they gain as much experience as possible. Interns should be actively involved and interacting with students in the classroom as early as possible during Phase I, beginning with observing and assuming classroom routines and procedures. When implementing a co-teaching model, the mentor and intern share the lead teacher role with the intern serving as lead teacher during the full teaching stage.
Observing and discussing lessons taught by the mentor teacher during Phase I of the internship will be valuable for the intern. It will be particularly important for interns to observe in a focused way. This is a time for the mentor teacher to begin to model the clinical supervision process using a simplified organizer*.
|
Before the observation (pre-conference) |
Share the lesson objective and strategies |
Provide a focus for the observation Choose and discuss a data gathering tool* |
|
During the observation |
Highlight aspects of the lesson |
Ask the observer to gather the data and jot down questions to ask after the observation |
|
After the observation (post-conference) |
Meet to discuss the lesson |
Review the data Answer questions Reflect on the lesson |
*Adopted from the Howard County Mentoring Program
Teaching expectations for phase 1 is for interns to aim for teaching a minimum of seven lessons as shown in Table #1. The ultimate performance goal for Phase 1 is to demonstrate your ability for leading student learning across consecutive class meetings (e.g., second period on Tuesday and Wednesday). It is to your benefit to maximize the number of your teaching opportunities. This performance is measured by the Phase 1 to Phase 2 Transition Performance Assessment (see Row 4 of Table1).
Table 1:
Phase I Minimum teaching opportunities
|
Row # |
Number of Lessons |
Description |
Approximate Dates |
|
1 |
2 or 3 |
Focus Lessons 1 (may be observed), 2 & 3 |
Mid October Early November |
|
2 |
1 |
Informal Supervisor Observation |
Mid September Early October |
|
3 |
2 |
Formal Supervisor Observations (CPPA 1 and 2) |
Mid October Late November |
|
4 |
2 (must be consecutive class meetings) |
Phase 1 to Phase 2 Transition Performance Assessment |
Late November Mid December |
Table 2:
Phase 1 Assignments connected to UMBC course work
|
Assignment |
Description |
Course |
Approximate Due Date |
|
Contextual Analysis |
Reflection of Field Placement School Culture |
Seminar |
Early September |
|
Focus Lesson 1 Classroom Management |
Reflection of classroom management practices in field placement (may be observed) |
Methods of Teaching Courses and RICA II |
Mid-September (see course syllabus) |
|
Focus Lesson 2 Student Learning |
Reflection of how/why students did/did not learn material in a particular lesson (must be taught by intern) |
Methods of Teaching Courses and RICA II |
Mid-October (see course syllabus) |
|
Focus Lesson 2 Differentiated Instruction |
Reflection of how individual student needs were addressed in a particular lesson (must be taught by intern) |
Methods of Teaching Courses and RICA II |
Early November (see course syllabus) |
|
Curriculum Unit Plan |
500-minute sequence of lessons about a key idea developed in conjunction with mentor teacher |
||
|
ID Content Standards |
Mid-September |
||
|
Development of Pre/Post Assessment(s) |
Mid-October |
||
|
Outline of Lessons |
Early November |
||
|
One Completed Lesson Plan |
Early November |
||
|
Full Unit Completed |
Finals Week |
||
|
CPPA Informal Observation |
Lesson fully taught by intern or co-taught and led by intern |
Internship (Supervisor) |
Prior to Formative 1 |
|
CPPA Formative 1 |
Lesson fully taught by intern or co-taught and led by intern |
Internship (Supervisor) |
Phase I Week 8 |
|
CPPA Formative 2 |
Lesson fully taught by intern or co-taught and led by intern |
Internship (Joint Mentor Teacher and Supervisor) |
Phase I Week 17 |
|
Phase I to Phase II Transition Assessment |
Determination by supervisor and mentor teacher of intern preparedness for Phase II |
Internship (Joint Mentor Teacher and Supervisor) |
End of Phase I |
|
SLOPE |
Student Learning Objective Process Experience |
Seminar |
End of Phase II |
|
Reviewing Baseline Student Data |
Early October |
||
|
Developing appropriate research questions |
Mid-November |
||
|
Developing appropriate research design, methodology, and measures |
End of Phase I |
||