For course instructors, 2006-2007
DAET advice and policy | TE Department policies | Elementary Education equirements | MSU policies
DAET information
DAET/MSU Calendar
This calendar includes all of the important dates that DAET sets, and attempts to include many other dates important to teacher candidates, interns, mentor teachers, and instructors. Send additions and corrections to daet@msu.edu.
Lansing School District Testing Calendar
The Lansing School District Testing calendar is available from the LSD website (the the link above, on August 29. If that doesn't work, Google "Lansing School District" testing calendar.
DAET Personnel
This contact list provides names, email addresses, telephones, and offices (if any) for all DAET personnel. Send additions and corrections to daet@msu.edu.
Course Instructor TO-DO
There are a few things that course instructors must do as a matter of policy, and others course instructors should do to compose a program, as distinct from a collection of courses; this page tries to tell what they are, and why they make sense.
Unit and lesson planning
Planning, teaching, and assessing units and lessons, and learning from that, are central activities in teaching and learning to teach. In support of course instruction, the page offers to teacher candidates and interns a set of questions to stimulate that process, and two common models of teaching that might be employed.
Instructor support
Here is a list of information about making copies, claiming mileage reimbursements, getting supplies for classes, etc. Report gaps and confusions to daet@msu.edu.
Grades and grading
Grading is both an important element of course design and a potentially vexing topic for instructors as well as for teacher candidates and interns. Both strategic advice and specific examples are provided. Send comments and suggestions to Tom Bird.
Grading in the intern year
In the intern year, there arise some special issues and procedures, most owing to the fact the fall courses are prerequisites for the spring courses.
Internship support and problem-solving
All interns deserve systematic support. Some will need particular assistance. A few will come into peril of failing the internship. The page describes the Team norms for consultation among instructors and for documentation of performances by all involved.
TE Department policies
Professional Teaching Standards (revised 4/25/2006)
These standards apply to interns’ performances in the intern year, and so should guide much of the work in earlier stages in the program. There are eight groups of standards: practicing a liberal education, teaching subject matter, engaging and responding to students, organizing a class, using an equipped school room, joining a faculty and school, engaging parents and guardians, and growing professionally. Each group has four to eight standards statements.
How course and field instructors should handle discussion of activities in mentor teachers’ classrooms
Activities in mentor teachers' classrooms are staple material in teacher education courses. Necessarily, we work with teacher candidates and interns to describe, interpret, and assess what they observe, and thereby to construct their own practice. Mentor teachers, who are colleagues and partners in the program, provide the material for all these discussions; instructors owe them an account of how those discussions will be handled.
Professional Conduct Policy
In addition to meeting academic and testing requirements, teacher candidates and interns also must meet standards for their professional conduct. This policy states the main expectations. Standard 4 of the Professional Teaching Standards for interns also addresses professional conduct.
Procedures for handling disputes between students and instructors
In case of a dispute between a student and instructor, you need to know that the TE Department has approved procedures for handling disputes. Two important parts: A few acts by teacher candidates or interns so serious that instructors should report them immediately to the Team Leader, TE Department Chair, and Associate Dean for Student affairs. In most cases, the first step of the procedure calls for the student and instructor to work it out between them in a collegial and timely way. If an instructor cannot achieve that immediately, s/he should call in the team coordinator. We do not let trouble fester. Get the procedures at http://ed-web3.educ.msu.edu/te/teacherprep/HandleDispPol.htm.
Substitute Teaching by Interns
This policy regulates substitute teaching by interns, for their collaborating teachers. Field instructors will need to know the policy early in the fall semester. Consultation among intern, mentor, and field instructor is required before the intern begins to substitute teach, and forms must be completed to record the decision and to report the substitute teaching.
Elementary program requirements
Instructors should be generally informed about these requirements, but are not expected to know them in detail or to interpret them authoritatively. For authoritative interpretations, teacher candidates and interns should refer to the Student Affairs Office (SAO) in 134 Erickson Hall.
COE Office of Student Affairs
SAO offers the web pages describing elementary education requirements, and provides the detailed and authoritative interpretation of those requirements. Teacher preparation instructors should be generally informed about these requirements, but are not expected to know them in detail or to interpret them authoritatively.
Elementary Education requirements
These pages attempt to provide relatively complete information about requirements that apply to elementary education. Scanning the left menu of the elementary program pages will provide you a sense of what is included in them, and enable you to allocate your time in skimming them.
Summary of the requirements
This page summarizes the main requirements of the program and provides links to the various parts of the requirements.
Criteria for Progression to the Internship
Note in this page that, to progress to the internship, teacher candidates must meet both academic and professional conduct requirements. In addition to filing grades, TE course instructors also file reports with DAET on the professional conduct of the members of their sections.
MSU policies and facilities
Code of teaching responsibility
All MSU instructors--faculty and doctoral students--are bound by MSU's Code of Teaching Responsibility, which is an important basis for interaction between students and instructors. The Code also is available from the MSU Ombudsman's web site.
Academic Freedom for Students at MSU
This is the University's statement on the rights and responsibilities of MSU students. AFR also is available from the MSU Ombudsman's web site.The TE Department's Procedures for Handling Disputes between Students and Instructors conforms to the “AFR” and is more specific for the teacher preparation program.
Final examination policy
This policy requires that all sections of all courses should meet during finals week--whether or not a final exam will be given--for a set of purposes named in the policy. The Final Exam schedule provides the meeting times for these sessions. In practical terms, this policy provides for having a normal working session in the last regular meeting of a course, and then up to two more hours, in the following week, to collect final assignments, summarize the course, and evaluate it.
Religious Observance Policy | Provost's Supplementary Letter
" The faculty and staff should be sensitive to the observance of these holidays so that students who absent themselves from class on these days are not seriously disadvantaged...."
Angel
is MSU’s course management software, by which instructors can publish syllabi, upload materials for download by members of classes, keep grades, administer tests and quizzes, etc.
Registrar’s web page
This page is a trove of information for students and instructors. Also, of facilities for instructors: You can look up your class meeting place in the schedule of courses, get your class list, file grades, send emails to your class (Angel also provides that affordance). The page is so useful that a link to it has been included in the left-side menu for all elementary teams pages.
Selected MSU services for students
This selective list also is available from the left menu in elementary teams pages. MSU's list of services for students is much more extensive.