Student Teaching FAQ

This is where actual teaching with and learning about students is happening to prepare for student teaching. Methods classes are a crucial part of your preparation for student teaching. Your performance and attendance in these courses impacts your readiness, and informs our decision regarding admission to the Professional Semester.

As required by the Vermont Agency of Education, a student teacher needs to be present for 13 consecutive weeks in a school. Though you will not be teaching full time that entire time, you are expected to be in schools and working with your class community.  

You need to inform your cooperating teacher, your college supervisor, and your seminar professor as soon as possible. If you were scheduled to lead lessons on that day, you need to provide sub plans that move students’ learning forward. All missed days must be made up during Middlebury College’s final exam period. We may need to remove a student teacher from their placement if their attendance becomes unreliable for the mentor teacher and the students.

Attendance is a key component of successfully completing student teaching, but not the only component. Student teachers are observed and evaluated regularly by their mentor teacher and the college supervisor. Students meet regularly with this team to get feedback, set goals for improvement, plan, and get support. We expect to see growth, not perfection, in a student’s performance across many areas.

This is a full time commitment to becoming a teacher. The K-12 students and colleagues in schools look at you as a professional in the school. Our student teachers must be able to work in community with others. Accepting feedback, communicating in a timely manner, collaborating with the mentor teacher to build a successful learning community, collaborating with other school personnel, and avoiding gossip and disparaging comments about faculty, students, and staff, are just some of the professional responsibilities of a teacher. We expect our student teachers to be able to do this. We have removed student teachers from their placement when they have been unable to adhere to community standards.

This is not an option. Enrolling in the Professional Semester means your intent is to earn both the double major and licensure recommendation. Our commitment to local school partners and families is that you have access to work in a classroom based on pursuing a teaching certificate as part of your pre-professional preparation. If you do not want to earn a license, you cannot student teach.

No. There are three possible outcomes of the Professional Semester. The decision will be determined collaboratively by your mentor teacher, college supervisor, seminar professor, and the EDST program director: 1) graduate with a double major in EDST and earn a recommendation for licensure, 2) graduate with a double major in EDST but not be recommended for licensure, 3) graduate with a minor in EDST and your other declared major.

Again, your enrollment in the Professional Semester means that your intended goal is graduating with the double major and earning a licensure recommendation. The other two outcomes (2 and 3 above) are not “up front” options for students, but rather remedial pathways that are sometimes necessary.

Being admitted to the Professional Semester does not guarantee graduation with an EDST major, since so many of the major requirements must be fulfilled during that semester in order to earn the final 4 credits for the EDST major. Meeting the attendance requirements of the Professional Semester does not guarantee a recommendation for licensure, since there are many other factors beyond attendance that go into that decision.

A student could potentially not be recommended for licensure but still finish the EDST major if they fulfill the requirements outlined and agreed upon by the mentor teacher, college supervisor, seminar professor, and the EDST program director. We do not have a set number of “possible days missed” in this scenario. Obviously the further a student gets from the required 13 weeks, the less likely it is that they can be considered as having completed student teaching.

Students who do not meet enough of the requirements for the Professional Semester must drop the EDST major and instead declare an EDST minor. They graduate with their other major and an EDST minor.

No, the Professional Semester is only offered in the fall. If you are a 7th semester student, you could postpone student teaching until your 9th semester. We want you to be in schools beginning in August so you see how a new year starts, attend the professional development trainings, and work to build a new class community from the very first day with students. Additionally, there is no EDST staffing available for spring student teaching. For these reasons, there is no student teaching option during spring semester.