USM TEACHER EDUCATION INTERNSHIP PARTNERSHIPS
One of the foundations of the USM Teacher Education Program is our relationship with our partner school districts in Southern Maine. Currently, the Teacher Education Program works in close partnership with six school districts to prepare the next generation of teachers. The four most urban districts in Maine comprise the Urban Teacher Education Cohort. The Urban Cohort is a partnership amongst USM, Lewiston School Department, Portland Public Schools, South Portland School Department, and Westbrook School Department.
Most interns are placed within one of these partner districts for a yearlong internship experience. That experience is co-coordinated by University and school district faculty and includes site based seminars to learn from those within the district. Additionally, interns the opportunity to apply what they are learning in these seminars and their University courses in their classroom placement with the coaching and support of a mentor and district based supervisor.
The intern experience in each teacher education partnership is somewhat unique to that district’s context.
●The Urban Cohort offers interns placed in Lewiston, Portland, South Portland or Westbrook the opportunity to deepen the experience of learning to teach and broaden their perspective on teaching and learning in myriad ways. The schools in the urban cohort are culturally and linguistically rich and dynamic contexts for learning. Interns have the chance to examine, question, and experience many issues around which assumptions are commonly held through the lens of an urban experience. These issues as they relate to urban populations include, but are not limited to:
○Poverty
○Cultural and linguistic diversity
○Instructional planning time
○Extended learning opportunities
○Communicating and collaborating with parents and community
Interns in the urban cohort gain an awareness of the various complex roles urban educators play. Interns in the urban cohort develop an understanding of teacher responsibilities to collaborate with community efforts and resources wherever you find yourself eventually hired as a teacher.
●The suburban cohorts in located in the Gorham School Department and the Windham-Raymond schools offer similar opportunities and face many of the issues as urban schools. Although, their student population is less culturally and linguistically diverse, the students in these districts come from diverse family and socio-economic backgrounds.
●The Gorham cohort has an emphasis on integrated general and special education in order to best prepare all teachers to meet the needs of all students, including those in their classrooms with identified disabilities.
●The Windham Raymond school district’s vision is to actively engage students in authentic, individualized, and personally relevant learning. Interns placed in RSU #14 will have the opportunity to collaborate with mentor teachers to design safe learning environments that are technology-rich and where students have authentic, personalized learning experiences to master standards through multiple pathways.
Through the admissions to internship process, prospective interns will have the opportunity to share their placement preferences, although a placement in a particular district cannot be guaranteed.