How to Choose a Teaching Program

What is hands-on, pre-service experience? 

Pre-service experience refers to any teaching practice you get before you lead your own classroom. All Connecticut teaching programs require clinical field experience before you get certified. 

Pre-service, hands-on field experience can come in a variety of forms, from one or two semesters of working full-time in an experienced teacher’s classroom (this is typically called student teaching) to working in a classroom full-time for one or more school years while enrolled in a program.

Why is hands-on experience important? 

Teachers are more likely to feel prepared for their first year in the classroom if they get plenty of classroom experience as a part of their prep program. Opportunities to observe other teachers and to practice teaching can make all the difference for early-career educators. 

As a rule, more pre-service experience is better, but quality definitely matters. 

Make sure to ask any prospective programs about what their pre-service experience entails, including:

• How long it lasts.
• How you will receive feedback on your practice.
• If there are opportunities to add-on more pre-service work (through an internship, for example).

What does “teaching diverse populations” mean? 

Your teaching program should prepare you to teach students with diverse learning styles, cultural backgrounds, and social and emotional needs.

Preparation to teach diverse populations can include: 

• Coursework that specifically addresses the diverse needs of students.
• Coursework, coaching and feedback on culturally relevant pedagogy. 
• Learning how unconscious biases can lead to negative impacts on some students, especially students of color, and how to check for biases when teaching.
• Pre-service experience in a variety of settings (for example, rural, urban and suburban schools). 

Why is preparation to teach diverse populations important? 

Connecticut is home to more than 200 urban, suburban and rural school districts. With an increasingly racially and linguistically diverse student population (about half of Connecticut public school students are students of color), and over 135 languages spoken, diversity is a key strength and core value of our state.

Ask teaching programs about how they prepare teachers to work with diverse students, including:

• What required courses focus on diverse populations.
• What hands-on practice you’ll get working with diverse students.
• What skills you’ll build to work with diverse students. 

What does “mentoring and coaching” mean? 

Your teaching program will provide an experienced and highly effective mentor, teacher and coach to give meaningful feedback during your training process. 

Mentorship in the classroom

Programs will put you in a classroom under the supervision of a trained cooperating teacher during your pre-service experience.

You will generally start off only observing and then start teaching more and more. Cooperating teachers give you constructive feedback to help you grow in ability and confidence.

Program coaches

Programs also send supervisors to visit and observe you in your classroom at regular intervals. Coaches can give you additional feedback and help you think through challenges you're experiencing. 

Preventing burnout 

Some programs and cooperating teachers also dive into how stress might impact your well-being, and how to develop tools to keep you healthy and thriving in the classroom. After all, teaching—like all impactful professions—is challenging. Having strategies for self-care will help you avoid burnout. 

Why is mentoring and coaching important?

When you’re starting out as a teacher, you want to learn from someone whose work you want to emulate. Many teachers will tell you that having a mentor teacher, especially a mentor in a similar subject area and grade level, is critical for success. 

Your teaching coaches and mentors  will have a big impact on the kind of teacher you’ll become, your attitude toward teaching and your professional growth mindset.

Ask prospective programs about their mentoring and coaching support, including:

• How they select cooperating teachers and coaches.
• How they match you with a cooperating teacher or coach.
• What they expect from cooperating teachers and coaches.
• How they ensure that cooperating teachers and coaches model effective practices and give helpful feedback. 
• How they help teacher candidates learn to manage stress and avoid burnout. 

What does “commitment to improvement” mean?

Your teaching program should show commitment to continuous improvement of its teacher preparation practices. This might be the hardest criteria to spot as you shop for programs. 

Programs with a strong commitment to improvement might: 

• Ask for regular feedback from students, recent alumni, partner schools and districts. 
• Research data on child development and learning styles. 
• Actively work to recruit and retain diverse teacher candidates, mentors, professors and instructors. 
• Partner with diverse schools, districts and professional enrichment programs.
• Set clear goals and standards for preparing successful teacher candidates. This might include benchmarks like the percentage of candidates who pass their certification exams or get hired after graduation. 
• Make changes in response to current events in education, policy and cultural shifts. 

Why is commitment to improvement important? 

Our world is changing rapidly, and so are the skills you’ll need to teach students. To be prepared for the classrooms of today and tomorrow, you’ll want your program to be up-to-date on research about childhood development, serving diverse populations and how humans learn and grow. This benefits you and your future students!

You can ask prospective programs about their improvement practices, including: 

• How they collect, share and use research and data with teaching faculty and students.
• How they gather feedback from students and alumni.
• How they assess partnerships with schools and districts.
• How they respond to school and district needs. 
• How they stay up-to-date on effective, relevant educational practices. 
• What their goals are for their teaching programs’ growth.