If you’re a teacher educator, you’ve probably heard all the typical practicum questions:

What’s the difference between a teaching practicum and an internship?

Why does a practicum matter?

How long does it need to last?

Practicum experiences vary across university and teacher education programs. Your program requirements could be very different from someone else’s, but no matter who you are, you want your students to have a successful and useful practicum.

How exactly do you design one?

 

Ask the Teaching Practicum Experts

We’ve compiled a list of resources even veteran teaching educators can benefit from.

What’s something you wish your practicum was doing better? Do your teaching interns understand the grand goal of field experience? Are they getting the feedback they need?

And then there’s collaboration. Are they offering help in the classroom that supports their coordinating teacher and helps the students learn too?

It can be tricky figuring out all the moving pieces. Plenty of teaching supervisors have been where you’re at right now, so why not learn how others are doing it?

To guide you on your journey, we’ve put together a handy list of cool resources.

What’s in the Guide?

There are plenty of voices out there on student teaching. We figured we’d track down all the best ideas and put them in one succinct list for you to enjoy. Here’s what we found:

• Student Teaching vs. Practicum—This quick description is exactly what your students need to understand the difference between practicum and formal student teaching.
• Best Activities to Include in a Teaching Practicum Experience—Check out the top six aspects every practicum should have. These are the absolute basics you can’t live without.
• How to Design an Educative Practicum Experience—Researcher Kenneth M. Zeichner from the University of Washington Seattle has studied teaching practicum structures, common obstacles of field experience, and how to overcome them.
• How to Create a Positive Practicum Experience—Teacher Magazine has the inside scoop on how to organize a practicum experience most beneficial to a pre-service teacher. The key is healthy communication and good feedback.
• Practicum Experience Objectives—The Child Development Training Consortium shares their outline of practicum experience goals, objectives, and outcomes.
• Practicum Activity Log—Grand Canyon University has created a practicum log document where students can track their activities and practicum hours.
• Field Experience FAQs—The State University of New York has a complete collection of the frequently asked questions most pre-service teachers are asking.

If you’re ready to check out all these resources, then our ultimate guide on student teaching practicum is definitely for you:

 

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