This course has an assignment that is due by 11:55 pm Central Standard Time on Wednesday night of the first week of class. Failure to complete this assignment will result in your removal from the course for non-participation.

Students must complete at least 10 hours of observation of special education students in an urban setting (this can be loosely interpreted; a community of 7,000 to 8,000 or larger will qualify). Each student must secure his or her own placement. 

To complete this course, you must be registered with the Family Care Safety Registry. Failure to register by Wednesday of the first week of class will result in your removal from the course.

If you have questions regarding this requirement, please contact Jane Bethel, jbethel@centralmethodist.edu.

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Students from CMU will visit an urban school, spending two days in a Special Education classroom, preferably at two different grade levels since their certification will be K-12.  Immediately following these visits, students will write about their experiences, connecting the practices and behaviors they observed with Missouri Standards for Teacher Education programs (MoSTEP) and grade-level expectations (GLE) they have discussed in their classes.  These papers will be evaluated by the CMU instructor of the practicum. 

• What Pre-Service Teachers Should Know About…
• Content, Learning, and Pedagogy…(MoSTEP Standards 1.2.1, 1.2.4, 1.2.5, 1.2.7, 1.2.11)
• Students build new knowledge and skills based upon prior experiences and learning.
• Learning occurs as an active intellectual process.
• Students learn the content and processes of academic disciplines by employing strategies of experts.
• Curriculum and teaching methods reflect the content of local, state, and national standards, learned societies, and the interests and readiness of the learners.
• Their Future Students……(MoSTEP Standards 1.2.2, 1.2.3, 1.2.6, 1.2.8)
• Learners, from birth through high school are complex individuals.
• Learners exhibit common traits of development.
• Using a variety of assessment techniques clarifies individual and developmentally determined traits of learners.
• Classroom management strategies are based upon knowledge of theories of motivation as well as developmentally appropriate practices.
• To Become Reflective Practitioners… (MoSTEP Standards 1.2.9, 1.2.10)
• Early and frequent field experiences provide opportunities to apply and reflect upon their pre-professional knowledge base.
• A repertoire of reflective techniques to provide opportunities to refine teaching plans throughout the process of lesson design, execution, and evaluation.
• A repertoire of reflective techniques gives learners the skills to reflect upon their work.