Missouri Western Department of Education

Dr. Richard Porr, ChairMs. Tina Dye,

Coordinator of Clinical Placement

September 8, 2008

Dear Cooperating Teachers Hosting a Western Student Teacher,

Thank you for your willingness to host a MWSU student teacher for the fall semester, 2008. The success of the MWSU Teacher Education Program is in large part due to the guidance and example that you will provide to our teacher candidate. As you may recall, MWSU student teacher candidates are responsible for working with you for approximately twelve weeks (Elementary and middle school student teachers –September 8 until December 5, 2008. Secondary student teachers are in the schools from September 15 until December 5, 2008). The teacher candidates are to assist you in all aspects of your teaching, management and school activities. We appreciate your modeling and guidance for them. You are assisting them in meeting the expectations of our conceptual framework – Becoming a teacher leader – taking responsibility for student learning.

Experience information – You are receiving this letter as part of the introductory materials delivered by your assigned teacher candidate. Those materials also include a student teaching syllabus and a host school information sheet. While the teacher candidate will also provide a copy of the evaluation form for your review, you and a MWSU supervisor will complete that form for the mid-term (by October 21) and final evaluation form (by December 5).

Western teacher candidates follow your school schedule. They are expected to attend regularly, develop lesson and unit plans, and participate in your assigned faculty duties. At all times they are to follow your district approved curriculum and seek your approval for teaching strategies. They are to regularly ask for your input about teaching and their progress and conduct themselves in a professional manner at all times. All Western teacher candidates are required to sign a confidentiality agreement that commits them to protecting student, parent and collegial confidentiality.

We anticipate that the teacher candidate will observe your class and routines for a few days and gradually begin to assume some teaching responsibilities during the second week. It is helpful if you provide a seating chart or list of student names so he or she can begin to know your students as soon as possible. The teacher candidate should assume more teaching responsibilities during the second and third weeks with full teaching responsibilities for at least six to eight weeks. For any lesson or part of a lesson that the teacher candidate presents a lesson plan should be available for both the cooperating teacher and MWSU supervisor. Also, we are particularly interested in having our teacher candidates observe and experience ways of supporting cultural/diversity awareness and how you support exceptional needs students.

Attendance, being prepared, demonstrating effective instructional and classroom management skills, demonstrating Western leadership dispositions, demonstrating ethical and professional conduct and working well with all parts of the school community are important parts of this experience. Please help your teacher candidate by observing his or her teaching and/or interactions with others and offering regular feedback on his or her performance. It is very important that any areas of improvement be identified as soon as possible so that opportunities for improvement may occur.

Supervision – Each Western teacher candidate will have a supervisor who will visit your school, observe the teacher candidate and work with you to complete evaluation forms. Please keep him or her informed of any classroom issues. The Western supervisor should visit with you and the teacher candidate on an average of once every two weeks.

Website Support – To support your experience with a MWSU student teacher, information related to this experience is posted on the following website: By clicking on Off-campus experiences or Off-campussupervisors (and scrolling to the bottom on the page), you can access information about our clinical experiences and supervisor responsibilities. Also, syllabus, calendar and schedule information for most experiences is available on my website at

Questions??? – If you have any questions or wish to speak with me about the placement of a teacher candidate or any issue related to clinical placement, please contact me at 816-271-5951 or .

Again, we appreciate your willingness to allow a MWSU teacher candidate into your classroom this spring. We look forward to working with you and having our student teacher learn from the best.

Sincerely,

Tina Dye