Upon admission to Teacher Education,
students are assigned to a particular TE Team. There are currently
two elementary teams: "LA" for students interested in intern
teaching in the greater Lansing area or Grand Rapids or Jackson, and
team "DA" for students interested in intern teaching in the greater
Detroit area including Detroit, Pontiac, and Flint.
Field Placement
Students enrolled in TE 301 through TE 402 are placed for field work in the greater
Lansing area in order to minimize travel time. For the internship year, field
placements are made in the Lansing area and in selected sites that are distributed more
broadly. A list of sites available for internship placement is provided with a
survey which students complete prior to internship placement.
The first consideration in making field placements and the
internship is to prepare you for certification in Michigan. To do that, we place you
in situations that match the teaching certificate you intend to earn, and which prepare
you to teach diverse students in diverse settings. We also seek to place you in
settings which best fulfill your educational needs as we see them. Our second
consideration is to place you in schools with which we have developed good working
relationships and which support a productive combination of course work and field work.
Our third field placement consideration is your preference of a location for
the internship year. We attempt to honor your preference, provided that we can
satisfy the first two considerations and have enough placements in a given location for
all who want internships there. Under no condition are students allowed to negotiate
their own placements.