The Elephant in the Room

Excerpt

Judy is the Director of Teacher Education at Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT). Every teacher education program has an individual like Judy who is charged with the pleasure of finding placements for student teachers, assigning university supervisors for student teachers, and having to deal with the myriad of requirements and documents generated by the State’s Department of Education. Norm is glad that he does not have to perform these tasks and if you can pull Judy aside at an ASTE meeting she will tell you about the daily pleasures of her role as Director of Teacher Education. Anyway, toward the middle of each semester, Judy begins the process of arranging placements for those preservice teachers who will be student teaching the following semester. Luckily, Judy has a network of schools and good science teachers in the Chicago area from which to select a school placement and science teacher supervisor. One of the requirements of obtaining a faculty position in the Department of Mathematics and Science Teacher Education at IIT is that the individual have a record of successful science teaching experience, so all of our faculty are considered capable of supervising a student teacher. However, the student teaching experience/internship requires that the university supervisor observe the student teacher at least once per week. Clearly supervising is labor intensive and most faculty would prefer to spend their time doing research and teaching classes. Fortunately, the IIT Ph.D. program has plenty of students and one of the requirements for admission is successful classroom teaching experience of at least 3 years. This provides Judy with an ample supply of graduate students who can supervise student teachers and avoid overburdening faculty members. Although every teacher education program is different, graduate students (or retired teachers) most often serve as the university supervisor for the student teaching experience/internship. …