Most beginning teachers will agree that the student teaching experience is the most practical and worthwhile experience in their teacher preparation program. It is the one culminating experience that brings together the earlier studies in subject matter specializations, adolescent development, pedagogy, and curriculum.
Middle level student teachers also share a respect for this final field experience, yet these students are often placed in a setting that is basically different from the junior highs of yesteryear. In addition to the former areas integrated into the student teaching process, there is an added dimension to this teacher induction process in which the student teacher must learn to absorb the culture of the middle level schools.
The fact that many beginning teachers in middle level schools are encountering elements such as interdisciplinary teaming, flexible block scheduling, advisory programs, and integrated curricula adds to the uniqueness of the middle level student teaching practicum.
Because the experience may be unique, there are a number of ideas that can facilitate the transition from college student to effective middle level teacher. A few of those ideas are: getting off to a good start, developing effective interpersonal relationships with the cooperating teacher and the university supervisor, and acclimating the student teacher to the responsibilities of an effective middle school teacher.
Getting off to a Good Start
The beginning days of the student teaching experience are crucial to the growth of the novice teacher. This is the time when learning about the new surroundings, introduction to the role of the middle school teacher, and laying the foundation for a classroom management system are initiated.
An excellent way for the student teacher to learn about the environment of the middle school is through participation in a shadow study. The student teacher, with help from the cooperating teacher, selects a middle school student to shadow for a day. The student teacher records impressions about the student he/she is following, considers the events of the day, and draws conclusions about the daily life of a young adolescent in this particular middle school. Much opportunity for observation and reflection is provided by a well-done shadow study.
Since the focus of an effective middle school is meeting the needs of the young adolescent learner, situations that permit the student teacher to view the school environment from the eyes of a variety of individuals working to meet learner needs is important. Interviews with support staff, other faculty at the same and different grade levels, administrators, and the secretarial staff help the student teacher appreciate the educational atmosphere of the school.
Another activity that can facilitate a smooth adjustment to the student teaching position is early conferencing between the cooperating teacher and the student teacher focusing on planning and teaching responsibilities. Topics such as appropriate lesson plan format, deadlines, mode and delivery systems for feedback, and transition of teaching load should be discussed early. These initial conferences will set the tone for communication between cooperating teacher and student teacher for the rest of the experience.
Conferencing during student teaching needs to involve analysis of planning techniques, teaching, student assessment and evaluation, and the effectiveness of interpersonal relationships. The conference is an ideal time to discuss these topics, analyze and revise approaches, and plan for future skill development. A focus on young adolescent learner characteristics and needs should be maintained in this field experience.
Another valuable form of conferencing is the three-way conference between the student teacher, the cooperating teacher, and the university supervisor. The university supervisor is probably responsible for visiting a number of student teachers as a part of his/her assignment. This breadth of experience provides a new set of eyes and ears that can contribute information tempered with a knowledge of how other student teachers are doing at this stage of development.
Getting a good start on developing a classroom management plan that takes into consideration the developmental needs of the learners is another area to be addressed at the beginning. The student teacher should talk with the cooperating teacher and the university supervisor about what techniques will help put in place a plan that teaches students to take responsibility for their own actions.
Developing Effective Interpersonal Relationships
One of the most significant determiners of success in student teaching is the student teacher’s ability to develop effective interpersonal relationships with young adolescent students, the cooperating teacher, and the university supervisor. The degree to which the parties involved are able to communicate will affect every other aspect of the student teaching episode. In addition to the immediate parties with whom the student teacher needs to communicate, the interdisciplinary team is also a participant in the development of professional relationships.
Teaming is often a new concept to middle level student teachers. Whether or not the teacher education program contained instruction on teaming, the actual collaboration expected at the team level requires the development and practice of new skills. The student teacher and the cooperating teacher should spend conferencing time discussing the role of a productive team member. Any responsibilities that team members have on the team should be built into the transition plan for the student teacher to eventually assume.
It is a good idea for the student teacher to visit other team meetings in order to gain a broader perspective. The student teacher can observe how diversity of personalities, management styles, and mode of operation can vary from team to team. In this way, the student teacher can appreciate the need for effective group interpersonal communication skills.
Becoming an Effective Middle School Teacher
An effective middle level teacher is knowledgeable about the nature and needs of young adolescents, middle level philosophy, curriculum and instruction, appropriate middle level methodology, and ideally is prepared to teach in two or more teaching fields. In order to provide supervision and guidance across these areas, the student teacher, cooperating teacher, and university supervisor need to monitor progress in each.
Activities may be developed to allow closer observation of the physical, social, emotional, intellectual and moral development of the student in a variety of social contexts within the school. Guided observations could be completed which require the examination and study of developmental characteristics of the young adolescents in both classrooms and extra-curricular settings. An appropriate tool designed to communicate ideas would be a journal kept by the student teacher facilitating later reflection about learner needs and characteristics.
Opportunities for participation in the planning and implementation of exploratory offerings, teacher-based guidance, and cross graded groupings should be an integral part of the responsibilities shared with the middle level student teacher. Early and continuous feedback on the student teacher’s work in these areas should take place through written dialogue in a journal, or through the conferencing process. There is no substitute for frequent reflection and feedback.
Methodology appropriate for use in a middle school covers a wide variety of techniques. Careful planning will allow the novice teacher to learn to make effective use of techniques such as large group work, small group work, cooperative learning, independent study, problem solving, and other useful instructional strategies. The cooperating teacher should remember that the student teacher needs to feel safe to experiment with new techniques. A good plan-implement-review process should facilitate greater trust in this areas.
It is widely accepted that all student teachers feel they need to know more in their subject area teaching fields. It is important to provide many opportunities for accessing materials and resources. The broader the student teacher’s experiences with subject area resources, the more confident the student teacher will be.
If the student teacher is prepared in two or more content areas, it is a good idea to provide some teaching experiences in each of the areas. Curriculum integration becomes much clearer when seen through the eyes of one who has experienced teaching through a multi-disciplinary approach.
Although the literature suggests that student teachers at different levels tend to share some common concerns, it is clear that middle level student teachers face special challenges. A student teaching program focusing on a strong start, effective interpersonal relationships, and assimilating the role of an effective middle level teacher can place the middle level student teacher on the path to success in meeting the needs of young adolescent students.
The interest in curriculum approaches beyond the separate subject one has roots in the work of the Herbartians in the 1890s, the Project Method of the 1920s, the curriculum integration and core curriculum movements of the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, and other curriculum moments. Moreover, that history, like the present, involves many different types of approaches. This paper provides definitions for various approaches, beginning with the separate subject approach, and connects them with the larger field of curriculum design. It also includes a discussion of sources of themes and issues associated with implementing curriculum designs beyond the separate subject one.
Sources of Themes
Organizing centers for curriculum units are frequently referred to as “themes” and the term “thematic curriculum” is often used generically to describe any or all approaches beyond the separate subject one. In any given case, however, that term does not reveal the important matter of what the theme is or where it came from. In fact, educators seeking alternatives beyond the separate subject approach draw curriculum organizing themes from a number of sources.
One source themes is the existing subject curriculum. In this case, a topic already taught in one subject is opened up for consideration from the viewpoints of other subjects. Usually, themes drawn from existing subjects involve historical periods like “Colonial Living” or the “Middle Ages,” but others like “Metrics,” “Technology,” or “Myths and Legends” are also common. Themes selected from inside the existing curriculum often seem easier to use since they already have legitimacy in the curriculum as well as resources available for learning activities. However, a curriculum made up solely of themes based on personal concerns is inadequate to meet the school’s obligation to bring issues from the larger world to student’s attention.
Another source of themes might be called process concepts. Process concepts focus on relationships such as “Change,” “Cycles,” or “Systems.” Such concepts make it easy to involve various subject areas since they are found in almost any area of living. However, because such processes apply to almost everything, they are often too ambiguous to offer students a clear context for their learning experiences.
Appealing topics might include topics supposedly popular with students, such as “Chocolate” or “Apples.” Teachers who develop units around these themes often invent very engaging activities that students find interesting. While units using “appealing” topics may contain significant educational content, publicizing the titles alone, without any explanation of what they involve, has sometimes led parents and others to believe that thematic units trivialize the curriculum.
Teachers who use multidisciplinary designs draw from all sources depending upon which seems useful in correlating information and skills from different subjects at any given time. However, teachers who use curriculum integration designs draw themes from social issues and personal concerns since they emerge from real-life issues, offer powerful, significant, and relevant contexts for learning, and offer possibilities for introducing students to democratic problem-solving and constructivist uses of knowledge.
Curriculum Approaches in Action
The definitions of various curriculum designs presented here are drawn from curriculum theory as it has evolved over most of this century. Thus the technical differences among them may not always be so apparent in the on-going life of a school or team where teachers may overlap or blend different designs. Rarely does any curriculum design, other than the separate subject approach, completely dominate the program of a whole school. Instead, it is likely to find a mix of approaches in a school, particularly a combination of separate subject and multidisciplinary courses and units. Moreover, when a teaching team is involved in a particular multidisciplinary unit, it is possible that not all team members will participate or that team members will participate to varying degrees depending on their interest in the theme or their subject’s perceived relation to it. At the present time, the curriculum integration approach, as defined here, is almost always carried on by only a few teachers in any given school and often used for only part of the day.
Because teachers or teams may mix and match approaches and because the concepts behind various approaches may be implemented in diverse ways, it is probably unwise and unfair to engage in debates over whether any particular case qualifies strictly as one or another approach. Rather it is important to observe the general direction taken by a teacher or team with regard to how they define the purposes of the curriculum, the sources and uses of knowledge, the boundaries between subject areas, the sources of themes, and other important features of curriculum approaches. Furthermore, the use of one or another curriculum approach cannot be identified merely on the basis of the kinds of learning activities employed. While such activities as projects, collaborative planning, group learning, and student self-assessment are used within the curriculum integration approach by definition, they may be and are often used in other approaches, including the separate subject one.
Finally, as discussions in schools and elsewhere address the possibility of using curriculum approaches beyond the separate subject one, it is important to remember that the approaches defined here are not simply points along a continuum. For this reason, while some teachers may feel a need to work through a multidisciplinary approach before attempting curriculum integration, others choose to move directly to integration approach so as to pursue the purposes it intends.
Megan Wilson is a teacher, life strategist, successful entrepreneur, inspirational keynote speaker and founder of https://Ebookscheaper.com. Megan champions a radical rethink of our school systems; she calls on educators to teach both intuition and logic to cultivate creativity and create bold thinkers.