Student Teachers Still on Track: An Update from Dr. Lisa Starr
McGill Education student teachers take part in four Field Experience courses where each student is placed in an elementary or high school, according to their program. These internships are progressive from fist year to fourth year where students’ in-school participation ranges from class observations and tutoring to full weeks of independent teaching and classroom management. Student teachers are guided by cooperating teachers and adjudicated by McGill field supervisors from the Office of Internships and Student Affairs. It is a time where students take the theory they’ve acquired at McGill and have a chance to put it into practice, mentored by experienced teachers and connecting with their own students. With schools closures in effect as of March 13th, how did this impact our student teachers?
As soon as schools closed, we saw the writing on the wall and began planning how to move placements to the upcoming years so as to minimize any potential disruptions to students’ programs. For students in their final semester, we tasked field supervisors and cooperating teachers with adjusting their assessments based on the student teachers’ performance up to the school closure. For the other students, we worked closely with the cooperation of the Department of Integrated Studies in Education (DISE) and Kinesiology and Physical Education (KPE), so that all of our Spring 2020 field placements and corresponding coursework could be moved to next year.
We had a handful of students whose programs would have been negatively impacted. Gaby Ohayon one of our Placement Coordinators, got on the phone and secured four online placements with our partners at Selwyn House School. The online placements are very similar to a traditional face to face placement where students work directly with a cooperating teacher from Selwyn. One of our Field Supervisors monitored remotely. It is not uncommon to have some students in Field Experience 4 do their field placement by distance, so we have field supervisors familiar with this format. One noteworthy story is that we had one student who was set to do his placement in South Korea. Because schools closed there much earlier than in North America, he never got a chance to start his placement. Again, with some quick stepping from the Internships and Student Affairs Office (ISA) and his school in Korea, he was able to complete his Field Experience 4 online and thus graduate with his peers.
We are very proud of our response to the challenges that were presented to us. Our success rates, and more importantly for the vast majority of students, their Spring 2020 convocation was not impacted by the closures. Our overall perspective is that these changes could provide an opportunity to examine how we do field placements and possibly improve on the overall delivery of our programs.
Dr. Lisa Starr is the Director of the Office of Internships and Student Affairs and an expert in teacher education. Last month, she co-authored an Op-Ed piece featured in the Montreal Gazette with DISE colleagues Dr. Joseph Levitan and Dr. Bronwen Low about how the digital divide threatens access to education.