Teaching Professions program gives students hands-on experience in the teaching profession

  • February 8, 2010
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Most student teachers don’t get experience teaching while in high school. But students in Teaching Professions at the Wayne County Schools Career Center have multiple opportunities to learn from teachers and actually spend time with students as a high school senior. Raquel Foltz, a senior from Northwestern High School, is currently assisting Jennifer Casteel in teaching Algebra II and Algebra/Geometry at the career center. On a recent school day, she was making grading keys, grading papers, and answering student questions in Casteel’s classroom. Career center students were solving equations containing radicals, and finding that some problems had extraneous solutions. Casteel was using the classroom’s Smart Board as students checked equations from their homework. Foltz was sitting at the teacher’s desk, grading papers, with a “staff” name tag reading “Ms. Foltz, Intern Teacher.” After the presentation by Casteel, Foltz assisted her by answering student questions. “I’m learning and teaching at the same time,” said Foltz. “I’ve wanted to be a teacher since second grade.” She admired Mrs. Broughton, and “loved her teaching style.” Now Foltz says of the Teaching Professions program, “I love it! It’s very helpful, just amazing.” The first four weeks of Teaching Professions involves seminar training at the University of Akron Wayne College with instructor Liala Zimmerman, who formerly taught at Stark State College and Walsh University. Foltz’s first internship began assisting Rich Kline in fifth-grade math at Northwestern Elementary School for several weeks. “That was a lot of fun,” she said. “Math is what I want to teach.” Now that she’s working with high school students, she admitted that it is a lot more difficult. Teaching Professions students spend their afternoons on Monday through Thursday with a teacher in their school district, then attend seminar classes at Wayne College on Fridays. The students are enrolled as courtesy students at Wayne College. They continue to take their academic courses at their high schools, and some take their academics at Wayne College through post-secondary enrollment. Nestled in the log cabin at Wayne, the students learn best teaching practices, getting lessons from Zimmerman, a national board-certified instructor. They make presentations to each other as colleagues, have “teacher” mailboxes, and even sign in and out as some teachers are required to do. “It’s a teaching environment, but we’re also learning,” Foltz said. There are 12 students in the program which is “intense, but a lot of fun.” Foltz said her English writing skills have improved as the Teaching Professions students have to write a one- to two-page paper each week. Some seminar days involve peer review, and the students also have seminar weeks between internships when they meet each day at Wayne College. At the beginning of the year, the students chose the grade levels and subjects with which they wanted to work, then Zimmerman contacted the district principals to find teachers who were willing to work with the students. One of Foltz’s friends in the program assisted with first grade, and then did seventh and eighth grade special education. The friend now knows that special education is what she wants to do with her life. “There’s no doubt in her mind now,” Foltz said. Four Northwestern students are in Casteel’s classroom at the career center. At first, Foltz said, they asked her what she was doing there. “They all know I’m really good at math,” Foltz said, “so it’s OK with them. Foltz admires Casteel for her teaching style. “She makes everything work,” Foltz said. “She goes with the flow.” Zimmerman is energetic and fun to learn from, said Foltz. “She makes you feel like you’re a colleague, not just a student. She’s sharing information with us.” During the Algebra/Geometry class the following period, students were studying parallelograms. Again, after Casteel’s presentation, Foltz assisted students with answers to their questions. This is Casteel’s first experience with a student from Teaching Professions, as she is a new teacher at the career center this year. “It’s been a good experience,” she said. “She (Foltz) is very good at picking up things. She’s aware where I keep things and where they should be in the room. It’s nice to have somebody young, so we can respond to each other. She takes suggestions well and helps with other students. I can’t always get to them all.” Each Teaching Professions student is evaluated weekly by the teacher they are assisting. Zimmerman made a manual for each teacher to explain the purpose of the teaching profession program and what is expected of the student in the classroom. That really helped Casteel understand what Foltz was supposed to be doing and her role in the classroom. A program like Teaching Professions would have been wonderful to take at the high school level, Casteel said. “I would have taken a program like this.” She remembers peers at college who got into their senior year, did their student teaching, then decided teaching was not for them. “These students are four years ahead of things,” Casteel said. “They won’t be as jittery in the college setting (doing their student teaching).” Another advantage of the Teaching Professions program is that each student makes a teaching methods portfolio, which is required at the college level. “That’s huge,” said Casteel. “It’s awesome to come out of high school with that.” Many college students going into teaching are overwhelmed by the creation of the portfolio, she said. To learn about the Teaching Professions program, go to www.wcscc.org or call the Wayne County Schools Career Center at 330-669-7000.


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