Connecting coursework to classroom experience

One of the highlights for me as a student at the Marsal School of Education were embedded courses—courses that take place in school settings and involve immediate work with students. In these courses, U of M faculty are present to support students in writing, revising, teaching, and reflecting on lesson plans.

Coordinating coursework with field placements for teaching interns is much more challenging. Within one course, interns are placed in multiple schools, grade levels, and teaching contexts. Interns daily experiences are varied and the lessons they observe, plan, and teach do not always align with the current focus of their U of M coursework. U of M faculty do not have access to mentor teachers' curriculum or lesson plans—and even if they did—it would be impossible to sift through and align coursework with 25 different units of study.

I've had the opportunity to experience the teacher education program as a student, mentor teacher, instructor, and program coordinator. In each of these roles, I've experienced both the benefits of embedded coursework as well as the challenges of integrating coursework with intern fieldwork placements

For example, one of my courses as a student teaching intern was embedded within the Summer ESL Academy (SESLA) at Scarlett Middle School. As part of our coursework we planned a unit focused on teaching narrative writing through hip hip, poetry, and film making. As part of our coursework we read Nell Duke's work on reading and writing with purpose. Our professors helped us see the power of reading and writing with purpose by centering our unit around a culminating family night at the Neutral Zone. Our professors also gave us opportunities to practice teaching our lessons in class—with our peers giving us feedback on how we could clarify the connection between daily learning objectives and the final performance of their narrative writing at the neutral zone. Our professors were present to observe and give feedback when we taught the lessons—always centering their feedback on how we could help students perceive how their learning was preparing them for their final performance. Our class sessions also provided opportunities for us to reflect on how providing students an opportunity to read and write with purpose helped facilitate motivation and buy in

In contrast, coursework from methods courses did not always align as closely with my fieldwork experiences. For instance, I had an assignment in a social studies methods course to teach a lesson focused on analyzing local history sources. This particular assignment did not align with the unit of study in my field placement and my mentor teacher and I had to pause the unit so I could teach an unrelated lesson. Although I learned and grew from the assignment, it was stressful trying to integrate it into my student teaching placement. However, it would have been impossible for the professor to coordinate with 25 different mentor teachers to coordinate the objectives of our coursework with the scope and sequence of our fieldwork placement classrooms.

Could it be possible to create experiences for student teaching interns during their fieldwork experience that are as cohesive as the experience they have during their embedded coursework? The challenges feel insurmountable. How can a professor guarantee that scope and sequence of their syllabus will align perfectly with the daily experiences of a large group of teaching interns placed in classrooms that vary in their geographic location, grade level, topics, and teaching contexts?

And yet… what if? What if it was possible for interns to experience the power of embedded coursework during their student teaching experiences? Over the next year I will have the opportunity to collaborate with experienced educators and faculty to explore this problem of practice.