What is Practicum? When do I Start?

Practicum is an undergraduate course providing students with supervised practice in their field. For us, it's TEACHING! Hi guys, Kenzie here ready to tell you everything you need to know about practicum. Now, I'm not an expert and have only participated in one great semester of practicum. I also recognize with the craziness of the coronavirus that your practicum options and formats might look different and that is okay, but I am here to share some things you may be wondering. Another factor to take into consideration when reading this is that each placement has its differences, read into both Erika and I's posts to look at the differences we had.

After being accepted into PEP, you will receive an email from the COE. This email is important and comes the semester before you start practicum. The email will contain your next steps and holds the schedule options and school descriptions for your first term of practicum. Although the schedule of your classes may be a huge factor when deciding what school you will work at, do your research and read the "blurb" about the school's specialty and/or focus to learn more. Yes, your schedule is given to you, your job is to find those course numbers and enroll in all of them for your school. In my experience, I took the 4 courses selected for my school (Leupp) and I added an online course and an in-person elective around the classes I had already enrolled in. You can add other courses into the schedule that you are given, but be sure they don't overlap and that you are taking an appropriate amount of credits.

A semester in the life of a practicum student:

When your classes begin, you will likely have the same professors for a couple of your courses. I had the same 2 teachers (Shawn and Ceci) for 4 of my 6 courses. You won't start at the schools for practicum in your first week. You will have your other courses and an "orientation" for what your practicum will look like. At that first session with your professors, you can ask what clothes and shoes they expect you wearing, what classroom you will be placed in and who your mentor teacher will be. For Leupp, the school I practiced in, it is located on the reservation which is an hour away from NAU. My teacher set up carpool lists and got us NAU vans. For schools that are closer to campus, you will be responsible for arriving to your classroom on time.

Not only is each school very different, but each classroom/mentor teacher can differ immensely. I was placed in the intervention classroom which had me working very hands-on with assessment and small groups all throughout the day whereas a mentor teacher and classroom in the 4th grade works with the same students all day may not be assessing students as often, they may just be observing the teacher and students. I had a wonderful experience and got very close to the groups I was able to pull and work closely with. If I could recommend working in an intervention (RTI) classroom to all of you, I would. Regardless of your placement and involvement level, you will see growth with your students, you will see where they struggle and you will witness first hand what techniques you and your mentor teacher are doing that are working.

Your classes (ECI 402, ECI 403 and ECI 330) will all go hand in hand with what you are working on in your practicum course (308). For example, you may complete a project for a grade in 402 or 403, and you will bring it to your students and actually use the project. 330 is a class that focuses on assessment, this will also play a huge role in practicum. You will most likely be asked to complete a certain amount of assessments using many common formats. Take advantage of the practice you are getting as you will use this in your career. During practicum days you will want to be taking notes, in fact, it may be required. Notes about the teacher, the students, the parents and yourself. How much experience is your mentor teacher allowing you to get? What daily routines in the classroom are you leading? How many lessons have you planned and led? What tactics have you used and liked? What is your mentor teacher doing that you would like to bring into your future classroom?

Everyone has very different experiences. Some days are better than others but this experience is very eye-opening and is important in understanding what we are all getting into. I am wishing you all the best first term of practicum and hope you keep an open mind and trust the process. We are all in this together.