Just one of the practical experiences you will get at GSE if you are going into the teaching practice: STUDENT-TEACHING! Everybody has different student-teaching experiences. For me, all my practical/ field assignments have shown me something new and different about schools, education, learning, teaching, students, etc. However, in each instance I have felt equipped and capable to manage and work through the situations and tasks I am given.
Since I am seeking my Reading Specialist certification I have to work with some kind of literacy program within a school at least 10 hours per week. All the theory and research that we receive in the classroom is often challenged during this experience and at other times it is well supported. My experiences have taught me that I need to find the correct balance between these two concepts. Depending on the setting, the students, and the school culture, this balance changes; however, classroom discussions and even casual discussions with classmates and professors are essential in helping to find/create an effective balance between theory and practice.
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2 comments:
Hello Jamie, my name is melissa and I am a junior now at Spelman. Im doing the minor in secondary education and I am super excited about hopefully coming to penn! i wanted to talk to you because I remember your face from The AUC choir and just seeing you in the caf. Anywho, about student teaching- im struggling to get finished with all of my course work to start student teaching next spring. Im contemplating dropping the certification, so that I can get finished and get on to grad school. any advice?
Hello Melissa,
How are you? I am gald that the blog interest you. I always want to see more people of color at Penn and more Spelmanites! We are in the process of making this happen. Now to get to your questions...
On Teaching/Certification:
While at Spelman, many of my cohorts who began as Education Minors had a difficult time sticking to the rigorous schedule, most of them dropped out; however, by senior year, when it came to student-teaching, there were 6 people left...it is possible. I do not recommend "killing yourself" but if you can handle it, do it! The certification is always a plus. In order to make the load easier for you, try taking summer courses at schools where credits transfer to Spelman and consider overloading some semesters. An overload at Spelman isn't that bad because our courses are 4 credits, so most students take 5 or 6 classes anyway. If this is just not an option, you should base your decision to drop the Education Minor based on what graduate programs you are interested in. For example, my program, RWL did not require me to have certification, but it has made my course load easier, I have one less class to take. It will not make a difference for other programs.
Diversity Fellow:
The Diversity Fellow position is a Graduate Assistantship out of the admissions department. I work with admissions, other faculty and staff, and students on diversity initiatives and concerns. This school year I created a group, the Admissions Diversity Council (look in my facebook groups) whose central focus is to attend to diversity issues and brainstorm ideas around this topic. I am also working with a core team to host a follow-up event to last year's Diversity Roundtable Discussion...this was a project that the Diversity Fellow from last school year began. There are other things but this is getting LONG!
email me: jameelah@dolphin.upenn.edu
I am so happy that you are interested :)
Jamie
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