Student Teaching

What is Student Teaching?
Student Teaching is the culminating experience prior to certification. Student Teaching is a minimum of a ten-week, full-day teaching experience in a selected classroom. The dates of Student Teaching depend on the school placement. Students may start and end their experience before and/or after the official beginning and ending dates of courses on the National-Louis University calendar. In addition, a required seminar will meet for a minimum of 5 evening sessions during the quarter, 1 of which may be an exit conference. This Webpage will explain the Student Teaching process. You may also download the Student Teaching Manual for more information.
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Application for Student Teaching
The clinical placement coordinator in the Office of School-College Relations (OSCR), Rachelle Rosenfeld, will arrange a formal placement for student teaching. Students cannot make their own student teaching placements. The student teaching placement process will not begin until a copy of the Student Teaching Application, word-processed in the sample format, has been received by the due date in the OSCR. For those who end up student teaching outside of their cluster, they will need to send a refreshed application to Rachelle Rosenfeld (OSCR).

Student Teaching Application

Application Deadline
Applications and supporting documents for Student Teaching are due no later than the 3rd week of the student’s first term in the program. Students who fail to turn in their application by the deadline may not receive consideration for placement. Prior to Student Teaching, you must complete your required observation hours. For information on observation hours, visit the following link: Observation Hours.

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Paid Student Teaching
Paid student teaching is an option at NLU under certain circumstances. Candidates for the paid student teaching experience must be admitted to the Secondary Education traditional Master of Arts in Teaching degree program in the National College of Education at National-Louis University. Candidates complete the same coursework as traditional student teachers. The only difference for these candidates is a paid experience in place of the traditional unpaid experience. All other degree requirements remain the same. Other qualifications include:

1.    Admission to the Master of Arts in Teaching program
2.    All General Education requirements are complete
3.    All prerequisite certification classes are complete
4.    Pre--clinical hours are complete and Log Sheets on File
5.    Content-Area Test for certification passed
6.    Current employment as a full-time teacher: for example, one of the following

Individuals serving as full-time teachers in public schools
Individuals serving as full-time teachers in charter schools
Individuals serving as full-time teachers in non-public schools

7.    Two NLU faculty recommendations
8.    Recommendation from School District Administrator
9.    Approval of advisor

Additional requirements and information can be found in the Paid Student Teaching Application. Students MUST fill out a traditional Student Teaching Application form as well, as the traditional form must be on file in the OSCR office. The paid student teaching application form must be completed in addition to the traditional form, not in place of it. Paid student teaching applications must be made in the FIRST term, by the 3rd week, at the beginning of your cluster sequence.

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Policies & Procedures
Before beginning Student Teaching, each student and each cooperating teacher should download the Student Teaching Manual and other NLU documents available at the National-Louis University website (www.nl.edu/academics/nce/oscr/index.cfm) that describe Student Teaching policies and procedures, including the following:

Each student reports to the principal, director of personnel, or other designated building administrator of the school before beginning work in the classroom.

Absence from SEC590A-E Student Teaching is not like an absence from a class. Many people are affected by a student teacher’s absence. For this reason, regular attendance is required of the student teacher. Only three absences per student teaching term are allowed and only for these reasons: a) illness, b) observing religious holidays outside those on the school calendar, or c) death of an immediate family member. In case of such an absence, the student shall notify the cooperating teacher, college supervisor and in some school districts the school office using the same time frames required of teachers when they are absent. In general this would mean reporting the absence the day before or in enough time the morning of the absence for the cooperating teacher to make the necessary arrangements to take over the classes.

Faculty meetings or other important events scheduled for afternoons/evenings often provide profitable experiences for the student teacher; however, a student teacher is never expected to miss the Student Teaching Seminar for these events. Seminar make-up work will be assigned for sessions missed. Incomplete Seminar work will result in an in-progress (“I”) for the Student Teaching experience. Certification would not be granted until a final grade is recorded.

Students are required to attend all SEC590A-F Student Teaching Seminar meetings and complete seminar requirements as an integral part of their Student Teaching experience. Specific dates and arrangements are announced prior to the last week of the quarter before Student Teaching. A student portfolio, in Livetext and hard copy, will be a requirement of this course.

At each observation, the student is required to have a copy of the lesson plan for that day’s presentation (See Lesson Plan Template). This will be attached to the observation/evaluation notes that the supervisor submits to the seminar instructor.

It is also important that at least one previous lesson plan and a plan for the next class presentation are available so that the supervisor can see how the plan for the day is part of a whole unit plan .

All cooperating teachers must be State certified (Illinois or elsewhere) and must have three years of classroom experience, whether the experience is in a public or private school.

Students wishing to do SEC590A-F Student Teaching in a private and/or parochial school must complete at least 51 observation hours in public schools. If SEC590A-F Student Teaching is to be done in a public school, any portion of the 100 hours may be completed in a non-public school.

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Grading Procedures for Student Teaching
In order to pass student teaching, a grade of A or B must be earned. No other grade is acceptable to pass student teaching. If a student receives an “I”, for student teaching, student teaching will have to be redone. If a student teacher receives an “F” (fail) in student teaching, the student cannot repeat the internship. The student is terminated from the program and may not return to National-Louis University. Since assigning an “F” is very serious, there are some steps that must be followed before administering this grade (see below).

In determining a student teaching grade, the supervising and cooperating teachers will consider the grade descriptors (below) in the Mid and Final Assessment evaluation. This grade is submitted by the supervising teacher to the seminar instructor. The seminar instructor will evaluate the work of the student teacher in seminar, (assignments/attendance/participation) and the student teaching portfolio along with the recommendation from the supervisor (40%) and cooperating teacher(s) (40%). The seminar instructor (20%) will submit the final grade for SEC.590A-F. This grade must be an A or B.

A grade of an “A” indicates that, for a student teacher, he/she ‘EXCEEDS STANDARDS’ in the majority of the following areas on the Final Assessment:

Professionalism
Instruction/Assessment
Planning for Instruction
Core Language Arts
Classroom Environment and Management
Technology
Content Area Performance

A grade of a “B” indicates that, for a student teacher, he/she ‘MEETS STANDARDS’ in the majority of the following areas on the Final Assessment:

Professionalism
Instruction/Assessment
Planning for Instruction
Core Language Arts
Classroom Environment and Management
Technology
Content Area Performance

A grade of an “I” indicates that:

More content or classroom management skills are needed and should be acquired before the student can proceed.
Personal circumstances have interfered in the successful completion of the student’s teaching experience, but he/she wants to return in the future.

Before a grade of “F” can be given to a student, he/she must be told in writing by the supervisor and/or cooperating teacher(s), the improvements that are needed for passing the internship. The expectations for improvement must be explicitly communicated in writing. This warning is submitted to the student teacher and to the seminar instructor. The student must be aware of this alert so that benchmarks for progress can be met before a grade an “F” is finalized. A student who receives a grade of ‘F’ in Student Teaching will be unable to enroll a second time in SEC590A-F Student Teaching. This would terminate the student’s pursuit of certification through National-Louis University.

A grade of an “F” indicates that the student teacher:

Lacks the classroom management skills necessary to create a positive learning environment.
Has difficulty understanding the role that he/she has played in student behavior and learning.
Does not act upon or value suggestions for improvement provided by the supervising teacher cooperating teacher, students, and other certified personnel in the school.
Displays a lack of professionalism and reliability (e.g. absences, timeliness, preparations. assigned duties, etc.) that often interferes with student learning.
Has achieved minimal growth toward goals as determined by the student, cooperating teacher, and university supervisor.

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Determining a Grade
The University Supervisor and cooperating teacher(s) will consider, when providing the student teacher with feedback after the first classroom observation, areas of strength noted and goals set for areas in need of growth. The supervising and cooperating teachers will also make suggestions for steps to be taken to meet the goals that have been set. (Student Teaching Observation Form)

This same procedure will be used in the second observation. In addition, the student, the cooperating teacher, and the university supervisor will complete the Midterm Assessment. Specific goals, and steps by which to meet those goals can be documented on the assessment form. These goals would be areas of focus in future observations by the supervising and cooperating teachers so that growth can be documented. Students receiving a grade of “I” would repeat the Student Teaching experience before a grade is assigned. If the cooperating teacher, supervisor, and student teacher believe it is in the best interests of the NLU student and the students with whom he or she will be working, the NLU student can continue in the same placement school with the same cooperating teacher and supervising teacher. In many cases, however, new placements are often considered a better option. Student teachers must show progress in the next placement. There is no re-doing of student teaching a third time.

In the final weeks of student teaching, the supervising and cooperating teachers will again rank student teachers using the Final Assessment Form. Evaluators will record a grade of “A” to evaluations in which the majority of markings are in the Exceeds Standards area for a student teacher. A grade of “B” will be recorded for evaluations with an average of Meets Standards and no Does Not Meet Standards. A grade of “F” will be recorded for evaluations in the Does Not Meet Standards in the majority of areas along with documentation that the “F”, as a final grade, was discussed with the student beforehand. Observations should show that little or no improvement was made. Direct observations of classroom performance are not the only considerations for the final evaluation; a discussion between the supervising and cooperating teacher will also inform this evaluation.

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Got a question about student teaching and more? Visit our FAQs page!

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