51勛圖厙

TEH Section 4: Student Teaching Phase

Student Teaching Phase

Culminating internship for teacher licensure

Student Teaching Placements

Before a student teaching placement will be arranged for you, you must maintain eligibility to student teach according to catalog policy. The eligibility criteria include coursework requirements, GPA, disposition standards, and any other criteria as specified by your Program Area Faculty and/or College. The following are important points to guide the student teaching placement process:

  1. Prior to participating in your student teaching semester, you are required to enter the to complete the Student Teaching Application. Using the Clinical Experience link, you will complete the Student Teaching Application one year prior to student teaching. Importantly, Student Teaching Application deadlines are program specific. Information on program timelines is available each semester on the Clinical Experience website.
  2. Please keep in mind that you are not permitted to student teach in the same school district where you are employed, your relatives are employed, your children are attending, or from where you have graduated within the last 10 years.
  3. Generally, placements are made within a 50-mile radius of the Kent Campus and/or your residence. You are responsible for having reliable transportation to and from your placement site and for all other necessary travel that is a part of student teaching.
  4. The Vacca Office of Student Services makes all arrangements for student teaching on the Kent Campus; therefore, any other attempts to make one's own student teaching placement is not allowed. Under no circumstances are you to contact any school district personnel with the intention of securing your own placement. 
  5. The Clinical Experience Placement office reserves the right to change your student teaching placement site if it is deemed to be inappropriate, insufficient, or contrary to the expectations, policies, and practices of our teacher preparation programs.

Consortium of Overseas Student Teaching (COST) Program

There is an amazing opportunity where you may complete student teaching in a school abroad.  However, the same procedures for applying for student teaching apply, including applying for student teaching with the Vacca Office of Student Services (VOSS) one year in advance and completing all required trainings before the start of student teaching. You will need to submit an additional application to the Consortium of Overseas Student Teaching (COST) program to complete student teaching in another country. For more information on the COST program and deadline dates for application submissions, please visit the COST program website.

If you participate in the COST program, you will study abroad the last 8 weeks of the semester and will be placed in an Ohio school for the first 8 weeks so you can complete the planning, implementation, and recording of the K-STEP.

As expected, all professional conduct and expected behaviors for domestic placements for student teaching apply to all student teaching placements abroad.  In addition, you will be required to comply with all requirements of the school abroad. You should communicate with your supervisors and mentor teachers abroad before beginning your student teaching.

On-the-Job Student Teaching Placements

Student teaching is the culminating experience in the preparation of student teacher candidates. The expected student teaching experience includes coaching, mentoring, modeling, exploring, reflecting, and more. In very limited cases, when extraordinary circumstance(s) exist, if you are currently employed as a classroom teacher in the content area in which you are seeking licensure, you may submit a written application to complete the student teaching requirement on-the-job. We will examine each request on an individual basis based on the following criteria:

  1. All program standards for eligibility to student teach must be met and the Student Teaching Application must be submitted to 304 White Hall. Registration in the appropriate student teaching course and seminar (if required) for the semester is mandatory.
  2. Student teaching will consist of a full-time supervised experience, in accordance with the standard length of time as prescribed by your program area. You will complete all student teaching assessments and assignments, including the K-STEP, unless specified otherwise by the Program Coordinator or Assistant Director of Clinical Experiences.
  3. The school principal and superintendent of your school district must endorse their support of your student teaching experience via formal letters addressed to Renee Brown, Assistant Director of Clinical Experiences, rbrow156@kent.edu, 304 White Hall, 51勛圖厙. These letters should be attached to the Student Teaching Application. The principal and superintendent must also identify a classroom teacher employed in the school/school district with the same license/certification and at least three years of experience, who will serve as your mentor during the student teaching experience.
  4. Your current teaching position must represent your intended area of license/certification. For example, if you are teaching Spanish at the high school level, then your license/certification request must be in that content area and with the appropriate age level.
  5. A university supervisor will be assigned to you during your student teaching experience and will observe and evaluate your performance. The university supervisor will observe you in your classroom. All student teaching evaluation forms will be completed by the university supervisor and the mentor teacher, and submitted into the Faculty Portal by the end of the student teaching semester.
  6. An On-the-Job application (see Appendix F) must be submitted to the Assistant Director of Clinical Experience, along with the other forms and information listed above. The beginning and ending dates for your student teaching experience will be arranged by the Assistant Director of Clinical Experiences, 304 White Hall, in coordination with your respective program faculty.

Any further questions or concerns should be addressed to the Assistant Director of Clinical Experiences, 304 White Hall, email: rbrow156@kent.edu; phone (330) 672-0541, fax (330) 6726277.

Exceptions to Student Teaching

To participate in the student teaching experience, you must have met all of the program requirements in order to be fully eligible. This includes having an overall 2.75 GPA and having met the major GPA as required by individual programs. In addition, you must have completed all required courses and received a rating of acceptable on all program disposition assessments. In rare circumstances, exceptions may be made with the approval of the Director of Educator Preparation in the College of EHHS. Each program has identified these rare circumstances so please refer to your Program Coordinator for specific information on these exceptions. It is important to note that the Director of Educator Preparation will not approve any exception requests for taking more than one course during the student teaching semester or more than 2 courses after the student teachin