EDU (0801) 781 - Reflective Fieldwork Practice Seminar I for Alternative Certification

Credits: 1.00

Students will engage in reflective practice while concurrently enrolled in fieldwork courses focusing on special education and adolescent development. This course is the first of a four-part series of reflective practice and developmental progression seminars. Through observation and coursework, competencies and developmental growth of teacher candidates are assessed.

Repeatable: No Grade Type: Regular
Course Learning Goals: Students will be able to compile an authentic portfolio that demonstrates; hours in the field as a participant observer, detailed descriptions of activities related to special education practices including identification, referral, and services provided to students with special needs as well as evidence documenting the developmental growth of adolescents. Reflections should be provided for each activity described.

Students will be able to provide teacher mentor feedback on competencies in the field using the 2013 Danielson Framework and thoughtfully reflect on the feedback.

Students will be able to create and maintain reflective journals prior to attending each session.

Students will be able to think and write critically about special education practice and the developmental processes adolescents undergo including social, cognitive, and biological growth.

Students will be able to write a final reflective essay with specific examples and supporting evidence that self-assesses how their fieldwork experience can inform their teaching with a focus on best practices for identification, referral, and service provision for adolescents with special needs and how one’s pedagogy can accommodate for the growth and maturation patterns of adolescents including how environmental factors may impact adolescent development.

Students will be able to demonstrate appropriate professional and ethical practice in the field.

Through class participation and readings assigned in each fieldwork course, students will discuss current trends and issues that influence the profession, and discuss resources to increase knowledge and understanding of issues.

Students will reflect on their own strengths and areas for improvement and discuss ways in which teachers can enhance their practice through scholarship and professional development.

Students will discuss lessons that demonstrate advocacy for all of their students regardless of ability, culture, language, gender and economic differences. Students will discuss appropriate accommodations, adaptations, and modifications for students’ learning needs, differences or abilities. Students will analyze their own teaching behavior and identify appropriate decisions for change.

Students will discuss promoting learning environments that model safe and healthy group interactions and reinforce collaborative behavior and good character.

Students will discuss education as holistic, and the body, mind, and heart must be nurtured equally.

Students will discuss incorporating ideas of appropriate engagement strategies, self-awareness, and open, creative mindsets that encourage constant reflection on our world and new ways of making it more humane, beautiful, and sustainable.