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Math Dept. Policy on Student Teacher Placement (Fall 2018 -)

Mathematics student teachers are to complete their student teaching in area. In area placements (those within 60 miles of MSUM) allow math department faculty along with education faculty the ability to work face-to-face with our pre-service teachers and facilitate the student’s professional growth to meet the expectations required of student teachers.
Students who wish to petition to student teach out of area must demonstrate self-reliance, distinguished mathematical knowledge, and exceptional teaching abilities. The petition items identified below are to verify that students meet these qualifications. The deadline for fall placement is by Sept. 15th the year prior, and by Feb. 15th for spring placements the year prior to student teaching.

The following items for a petition request are to be submitted to the Math Department Office Administrator:

A written rationale from the student that the out of area student teaching is crucial to their development as a teacher.
A copy of the student’s current DARS is to be submitted with this petition.
Communication from their analysis or abstract algebra professor classifying the student’s mathematical knowledge.
Communication from each of their math methods instructors speaking to the student’s self-reliance and teaching abilities.
Communication from a professor in which the student served as a learning assistant or comparable teaching experience speaking to the student’s teaching abilities.

The out of area placements are to be in school districts that MSUM has partnerships established. These include Aldine, TX; St. Paul, MN; overseas placements that MSUM has agreements with; and others districts that develop student teaching partnership arrangements with MSUM.

The rationale for this policy is outlined below.

Placing student teachers in the area, 60 mile radius from MSUM, has the following advantages:

1. We have the ability to match our students with cooperating teachers that will be good fit along with challenge our students in areas they need the most development in. The cooperating teachers serve as educators on math education advisory committee.

2. Their University Supervisor is a faculty member who has years of teaching secondary mathematics and can address if the lesson is developmentally appropriate and if the student teacher demonstrates knowledgeable about the content in the lessons taught.

3. Having the students in class along with supervising them allows faculty to speak to the student teachers growth and write letters of recommendation that speak to their abilities to teach.

4. When student teachers need extra attention there issues arise, which can range from a conflict with their cooperating teacher, their performance is not up to expectations, or they are needing additional support, university faculty can immediately step in to support or make changes in their placement.

5. When faculty are able to supervise it provides us program feedback on how our students are doing in student teaching so that Methods courses and address weakness identified.

6. The logistics of where they are placed and who will be their university supervisor are completed months before they start student teaching. Those out of area have not received placements until a month or less prior to their student teaching which is not something we want to subject future student teachers to. These are stressful and unpredictable situations.

7. Those in area attend the edTPA workshops held on campus while student teaching and meet with their university supervisor.

8. Students Teachers can share experiences and have the support of their classmates who are also student teaching. Below is an example of a student’s comment relayed in their weekly journal after an edTPA meeting last week: “It was nice to meet in our group of math student teachers and be able to share some experiences from our student teaching thus far. I thought it was interesting to see how our experiences have been similar, and how they have been very different in certain ways.”

9.The most common issue for student teaching out of area is wanting to live at home to save money on housing, that does not prevail over the benefits listed above for mathematics education majors.