The Making of a TeacherThe Making of a Teacher
Copyright © 1999 by the Center for Education Information.
All rights reserved.
V. THE TEACHER PREPARATION PROGRAM
Credit Hours Required in Teacher Preparation Programs
It would appear from the CEI survey results that students studying to be teachers are required to take, on average, more courses than are most students. While an average of 120 credit hours are needed to graduate in most Undergraduate programs, an average of 134 credit hours are needed to complete an Undergraduate program for the preparation of elementary school teachers, 131 for middle school teaching, 129 for secondary teachers and 133 for special education teachers. At the Post-baccalaureate level the average number of credit hours needed to complete a Teacher Preparation Program drop to 114 for elementary, 111 for middle school, 109 for secondary, and 112 for special education.
At the Undergraduate level of teacher preparation, about 51-52 credit hours are required in general studies, 36-39 credits hours are required in ones teaching major or equivalent, 24-31 in professional studies, and 14-16 hours required in various clinical experiences. (See Table 15)
At the Post-baccalaureate level, the number of credit hours required to complete a Teacher Preparation Program are: 42 in general studies, 31-33 in ones teaching major, 23-28 in professional studies, and 12 in clinical experiences.
There is amazing similarity in mean credit hours required for teacher preparation across all types and sizes of institutions.
The shift over time in credit hours required for completion of a Teacher Preparation Program has been toward requiring more courses in non-education courses, such as ones teaching major or equivalent. There has also been a slight shift toward more credit hours in clinical experiences and fewer in professional studies. (Table 18)
Field-based experiences
Much emphasis has been put on the need for people studying to be teachers to have more and more varied actual classroom experience in their preparation programs.
The CEI survey indicates that this may be happening. While the average number of credit hours in clinical experiences required to complete a Teacher Preparation Program in IHEs has not changed much in the last 15 years, there is evidence of a wide range and variety of field-based experiences.
Length of student teaching/practicum experiences
While the average number of weeks spent in student teaching/practicum is about the same across all categories of IHEs (14 1/2 weeks for Undergraduate programs and 15 1/2 weeks for Post-baccalaureate programs), there is considerable variation in the range of weeks required. In Undergraduate programs in public institutions, 50.2 percent of the IHEs require 15-16 weeks of student teaching, compared with 33.6 percent of Independent non-profit IHEs. (Table 19)
It would appear that about four in 10 IHEs are requiring close to a semester (15-16 weeks) of student teaching/practicum experience.
At one end of the spectrum, 17 percent of the IHEs at the Post-baccalaureate level that responded to the CEI survey reported that the student teaching/practicum experience was 17 weeks or more. At the Undergraduate level, about one in 10 IHEs said their student teaching/practicum experience was 17 weeks or more.
At the other end, one-third of Independent IHEs report that their teacher preparation candidates spend 12 or fewer weeks in student teaching. This compares with one-fourth of the Public institutions that train teachers.
This same pattern shows up in the analysis of data across enrollment categories. For Undergraduate programs in IHEs with enrollments under 1,000 students, 30 percent of respondents reported that their students spent 12 or fewer weeks in student teaching. This compares with 21 percent of the IHEs in the 10,000 and over enrollment category. However, the proportion of IHEs in the largest and in the smallest enrollment categories reported that their students preparing to be teachers spent 17 or more weeks in student teaching/practicum experiences was the same eight percent.
TABLE 19 GOES HERE
Variety of student teaching experiences
About half of enrollees in Undergraduate Teacher Preparation Programs and one-third of those in Post-baccalaureate programs do their student teaching under the supervision of one teacher within one school. Slightly more than one in three Undergraduate teacher candidates and one in four Post-baccalaureates have student teaching experiences in at least two different schools. (Table 20)
Approximately seven in ten Undergraduate students and 45 percent of those preparing to teach at the Post-baccalaureate level have field-based experiences in a variety of demographically different schools.
About one-third of Undergraduates and one-fifth of Post-baccalaureate candidates for teaching have different teaching experiences in different classrooms, working with different teachers, within the same school.
These ratios are relatively the same across all types of institutions that prepare teachers.
At the Undergraduate level, 86 percent of IHEs reported that various clinical experiences occurred throughout their Teacher Preparation Programs. This compares with nearly half (49 percent) of those at the Post-baccalaureate level.
Professional Development Schools
When asked, What percent of your initial Teacher Preparation Program students are enrolled in a Professional Development School? two-thirds of the IHEs that have Undergraduate programs and 43 percent of those that have programs at the Post-baccalaureate level responded to the question. (Table 21)
Of those that responded, two-thirds indicated that fewer than 10 percent of their Undergraduate students were enrolled in a Professional Development School (PDS). However, 10 percent said that more than 90 percent of their students were enrolled in a PDS.
Participation in a PDS across the various types of IHEs is not significantly different among respondents to the question in the CEI survey.
Dr. Feistritzer is president of the National Center for Education Information
in Washington, D.C.
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