Practicum offers urban ed experience

UW preservice teachers take a break from practicum responsibilities with Park Hill Principal Tonda Potts (center, white suit).

   The opportunity to teach in an urban setting is rare for students enrolled in the Wyoming Teacher Education Program (WTEP), but a new option has been created to provide students with an intensive practicum experience at a Denver public school.
   The UW College of Education launched an urban section of EDST, "Teacher as Practitioner," in the spring 2009 semester. Under the supervision of educational studies faculty member Angela Jaime, 16 preservice teachers are traveling to Park Hill Elementary School for their practicum. By the end of the semester, the group will spend up to 10 Fridays at the historic school, spending long days interacting with mentor teachers and their students.
   Practicum days are intense: about 13 hours including travel to and from Denver. Students are kept busy from the moment they enter the building in the morning until departure time, but Jaime says they enjoy the exhausting schedule set up by school staff.
      "They put them to work the minute they walk into the door, and it's like pulling teeth to get them out just before 3," she says. 
    Jaime credits Park Hill Principal Dr. Tonda Potts with welcoming the UW students warmly and engaging them fully in school life.
   "She's phenomenal," she says of Potts. "She's so energetic and so enthusiastic and very supportive of the students."
   Park Hill is in the midst of a transition from a K-8 school to a K-5 school.  This semester, it fielded classes from kindergarten through eighth grade with the exception of sixth grade. The transition will be complete at the end of the year with the final eighth grade class divided among the surrounding schools. With fewer secondary classrooms available, several students were willing to accept assignments in other areas of professional interest. More important to them, Jaime says, was the chance to work in an urban setting.
   Still, the College of Education must ensure that students have rich opportunities to experience classrooms in their chosen majors, before they reach the student teaching semester.
      "Their 3000 practicum experience should be, as much as possible, about instructional models and classroom management, and if possibly within a grade or two, grade specific," Jaime says.
   Toward that end, future versions of the urban education section of EDST 3000 will include two sites: one at an elementary school and one at a secondary school.
      "It's really important for students to see the process of education: to see the connections between different grade levels, to see and hear the experiences that other students are having," she says. "It has been ideal to have them all in one school, because they do see each other and have a chance to share stories. That's really beneficial for them."
   For many students, enrolling in the special section was as an opportunity to build upon a positive experience they had during a one-day visit to an urban school during EDST 2480, "Diversity and the Politics of Schooling."
   "More than any other aspect of that (diversity) class, that's the one thing about which they say, ‘this changed my view on education,' ‘this influenced me to think about doing urban education," Jaime says.
   Whether or not they ultimately end up in an urban classroom during their teaching careers, there are lessons of value for students to take away from the experience.
    "My goal for them, in this particular section, is the idea of being in an urban setting and that it is not that much different than being in a rural setting," Jaime says. "Sure, you have the city that surrounds this little school.  But kids are kids."
   "Ultimately, teachers have the same goals," she adds. "They want their children to be healthy, critical thinkers. They want them to learn, they want them to succeed. That is the common thread between urban and rural education."
 

Posted on Thursday, March 12, 2009