How to Support a Student Teacher

A student teacher enters your classroom in order to practice her craft under your supervision. By supporting her in a positive manner, you help her develop the skills she needs to become an effective teacher in her own, future classroom. Nurturing her enthusiasm while providing feedback on her developing skills takes a different set of abilities than just teaching regular students.

Instructions

1. Orient the student teacher to your school. Provide a copy of the faculty handbook, student's handbook, and other relevant school manuals. Go over the specific areas of interests, such as location of resources, rules and consequences for student behavior. Tour the school and introduce the student teacher to other teachers and administrators. Answer any questions he has about the school.

2. Tour your classroom, pointing out locations for instructional resources. Provide a desk or other area for the student teacher to use and supply it with common items like pens, tape, scissors and paperclips.

3. Create a binder with common forms and handouts the student teacher will need. Set aside an area of the binder for lesson plans, seating charts and attendance forms, and a journal area for reflections on lessons. Help your student teacher become organized early, so he won't be overwhelmed later in the year.

4. Establish guidelines for lesson plan construction. Help the student teacher during the early stages, modeling acceptable lesson plans and discussing the expected criteria at your school. As the student teacher becomes more proficient, allow her more independence and move to more of an adviser role, someone who mainly shares resources and knowledge.

5. Model instruction for the student teacher at the beginning of his visit. Allow time for the student teacher to ask questions and clarify his observations. Slowly allow the student teacher to take over the main role of instructor within the classroom, as he become more capable. Give him detailed feedback on performance in the classroom and offer suggestions for improvement, if needed.

6. Establish a climate of communication and professionalism. Students teachers must feel comfortable experimenting in a safe, controlled environment. Provide specific criticism only, and always connect it with suggestions and advice.

7. Take time to informally evaluate the student teacher's performance daily, reserving the formal observations for specific, scheduled days. This allows the student teacher to not fear that every mistake is a failure, but rather a learning experience that leads to a better performance overall.

8. Set weekly goals and objectives. Meet weekly to revise and discuss the success in meeting goals. Clearly define expectations for the student teacher to eliminate confusion and stress.