In Teaching and Learning in Diverse Settings I and II, field experience are linked to course objectives giving candidates opportunities to experience course content in the context of PK-12 classrooms. Candidates will participate in field-based experiences for a minimum of nineteen hours in Teaching and Learning in Diverse Settings I and eighteen hours in Teaching and Learning in Diverse Settings II at school sites. Sites will be carefully chosen in cooperation with local school systems to provide candidates with access to effective teachers who are successful in improving student learning. Candidates work within diverse settings (including urban, suburban, and rural), at varying grade levels, and with high-achieving, low-achieving, and average-range students. School systems will identify schools to serve as field sites. School principals will identify effective teachers as cooperating teachers. Classroom teachers will help to ensure that candidates have access to students with various achievement levels.

In Teaching and Learning in Diverse Settings I, candidates will interact with students from at least two different grade levels. Field-based experiences will include structured observations to help candidates identify developmental levels of students and the impact on classroom planning. Instructors will evaluate candidates’ observations for objectivity and recognition of relevant developmental issues in a classroom. Candidates assist individual students with teacher supervision. This fifteen hour requirement will be split into five increments so that students will interact with students in an urban, suburban, and rural school.

Both peer evaluations and self-evaluations of the candidates implementing a prepared lesson plan to reinforce previously presented material will be completed (Peer Observation Rubric, Self-Evaluation Rubric) for each site. The peer evaluation and the self-evaluation will be completed for each of the same three lessons to give candidates the opportunity to compare their impressions of the lesson to that of the observer. Interactions must include students from at least two grade levels. Candidates will demonstrate the level of student learning from these tutoring activities through informal pre- and post-assessment results. Students will record these results in their self-evaluation. To encourage reflective practice, candidates record their reactions through ongoing journal entries. Candidates conduct at least one structured interview of a classroom teacher to help identify favorable teacher dispositions. Candidates will participate in a family/school activity and complete a written reflection.

In Teaching and Learning in Diverse Settings II, sites may or may not be the same as sites for Teaching and Learning in Diverse Settings I. Candidates work with small groups of diversely achieving students. Classroom teachers will ensure that groups are diversely achieving. Candidates will conduct prepared lessons on previously introduced materials with individual children and small groups under the direction of the classroom teacher. Candidates will also present a lesson of new material to a small group (Peer Observation Rubric, Self-Evaluation Rubric). Candidates conduct multiple intelligences, or learning style inventory, with a small group of students. Candidates implement a lesson plan and will make changes to the planned activity based on the results of the student’s inventory. Candidates will compare the effectiveness of the original and the changes by comparing student reaction and informal evaluation.

Candidates will complete at least three of this course’s required hours of field experiences in a special education classroom or in a class that has at least two members with identified exceptionalities. Candidates will complete an observation of a student with identified exceptionalities as the student participates in a learning activity. Students will keep a reflective journal and write a summary of their experiences. Candidates will evaluate a peer and be evaluated by a peer at least twice during the semester.