This paper describes a preservice elementary education program that incorporated more time spent at school sites. The program consisted of three consecutive semesters of courses combined with fieldwork. The first semester included a methods course, a reading class, and a children's literature class. Additional time was spent in the field observing…

State government is taking a more active role in defining field experiences and requiring input from professional and consumer groups. It is also monitoring the programs and practices of teacher education programs more actively. (Author/IRT)

Student and cooperating teachers must protect themselves from legal problems by introducing legislation where none exists, particularly on the state level. (LH)

This article describes a preservice physical education (PETE) program which includes 10 supervised field/clinical teaching experiences (pedagogical laboratories). Eight of the experiences occur before student teaching. A table outline of the program and list of student teaching goals is included. (IAH)

Four cultural conditions within universities impede significant reform of field experiences in teacher education: lack of resources, low status, fragmented curriculum, and professional perspectives of teacher educators. Recommendations are made for altering the purpose of field experiences to include more than the acquisition of technical…

The five-year rural elementary teacher education program at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, features extended field experience in remote rural schools and communities. The program seeks to provide preservice elementary teachers with a realistic awareness of the rural teacher's worklife. (SV)

Explores the epistemological shift embedded in one preservice program that puts extended teaching experience first in the process of learning to teach. Emphasizes the role and power of experience in learning to teach. It responds to Jones's paper on the 10 dichotomies in teacher education (SP 527 128), relating them to the notion of early teaching…

A description is given of the Regional Partnership Program, a field-responsive, center-specific model established at the University of Northern Iowa (UNI) designed to oversee clinical field experiences for student teachers. This cooperative partnership calls for a resident tenure track professor to be placed in a geographic area away from the main…

Numerous studies suggest that field experiences focus student attention on short-term survival strategies; they do not provide a systematic investigation of alternative theories of learning and instruction. Students attend to management techniques but do not develop a more reflective approach to instruction. If this is so, students at different…

This model for collaborative teacher education involves field and university educators working cooperatively to promote quality in teacher preparation programs and to improve the teaching behaviors of graduates. The focus is upon four primary goal statements: (1) public school practitioners are directly involved in preservice teacher education;…

The influence of supervisory training and experience as a cooperating teacher on the cooperating teacher's role as an instructional supervisor for early field experience students (FES's) was studied. Recent research has indicated that cooperating teachers tend to provide inadequate feedback and avoid negative comments. Their FES's appeared to have…

In the described early field experience program the field experience is included in the introductory professional education course that is offered during the students' junior year. The field component requires that students spend a minimum of 30 hours actively participating in a public school classroom during the semester. Emphasis is placed on…

The power relationship between the student teacher, cooperating teacher, and the university supervisor is analyzed. This triadic relationship is commonly hierarchical with a superior cooperating teacher, an inferior student teacher, and a university supervisor playing only a tangential role that is frequently reduced to corroborating the opinions…

Preparation, Orientation, and Induction of New Teachers (POINT) is a program of elementary teacher education at San Diego State University. It was planned cooperatively by 55 educators who concluded that a quality teacher education program should be built around significant teaching skills, rather than around mere completion of courses. Project…