What are your responsibilities to the B.Ed. teacher candidates, to the program, to your Associate Schools, to your Associate Teachers, to the School Liaisons?

Your Responsibilities to the B.Ed. Candidates

1. Ensure that they are in an appropriate Practicum placement in their school. Each Teacher Candidate in P/J  spends 10 weeks in an elementary school, divided this way: 6 weeks in a classroom, 4 weeks in a different classroom. Part of your job is to negotiate these appropriate placements with teachers, candidates, school liaisons. Tact and positive thinking are required here!
2. Contact School Liaisons and Associate Teachers in September to confirm placements. Visit whenever we have a new school or a number of Associate Teachers who are new to their role with our program.
3. Ensure that each Teacher Candidate receives appropriate feedback on their teaching and school-based activities. This feedback comes from you during and after visits to their classrooms. It also comes in the form of formal and informal assessment and comments from the Associate Teacher, using the forms provided by Queens as well as any informal arrangement developed by the Teacher Candidate and Associate Teacher.
4. Ensure that all your Teacher Candidates use our list of In-School Weekly Discussion Questions to guide their work during their weekly meetings, and that you arrange for them to communicate with you by email about their meetings each week. Use the course website to share the discussion questions with Associate Teachers.
5. Ensure that each Practicum placement runs as smoothly as possible. Provide appropriate information to Teacher Candidates, Associate Teachers and School Liaisons. Provide as much support as needed, so that each candidate reaches their potential and has appropriately successful experiences in all facets of their placements.
6. Inform your candidates and their Associate Teachers about your proposed visits to their school – dates, times, duration, purposes, possible group meetings, etc. You need to spend at least an hour observing and providing feedback to each candidate.
7. Provide each Teacher Candidate with information about reaching you – email, phone -- so that they can contact you concerning problems or questions in their placement.
8. Lesson Planning is best left to Curriculum instructors: they have already provided each candidate with specifics for planning and implementing lessons in Literacy, Math and other areas. Direct your candidates to their Curriculum notes for lesson planning ideas.
9. Provide suggestions for candidates to keep a written record of their activities and progress. Journalling is a proven method for professional learning and reflection. Candidates should find the pages in their Practicum Binder useful for ideas about recording their experiences, observations and understandings. Remind them of practicum-based opportunities to enhance their Professional Portfolio.
10. Remind candidates to look for opportunities for Action Research projects.

Your Responsibilities to the B.Ed./Dip.Ed. Program

1. You are the face behind the documents and phone calls. You are the person connecting Queen’s Faculty of Education with the schools. You are likely the only representative from Queens who will visit your Associate School.
2. You need to inform all members of the learning community about this enterprise so that they understand the needs and opportunities of the Practicum. You may want to remind Associate Teachers that the school-group Weekly Meetings are part of our program and not negotiable: each group of candidates in each school must be provided with 2 hours of uninterrupted meeting time during school hours, each week of the Practicum. Weekly Meetings questions are easy to find on our website.
3. You need to encourage participation by Associate Teachers by describing the positive elements of the program: we can never have too many Associate Teachers in any school.

Your Responsibilities to Associate Teachers

1. You need to ensure that each Associate Teacher has the appropriate information about their candidate's placement: the Practicum Handbook, assessment rubric and assessment form, Queen’s expectations about the Practicum, remuneration procedures and dates for your visits. You may want to talk with each Associate Teacher about our revised Practicum Assessment Form and Rubric.
2. You need to provide Associate Teachers with appropriate information about the Action Research project as well as the ethical considerations that accompany the Action Research assignment. Many Associate Teachers are very interested in this activity and willing to help candidates.
3. You need to provide each Associate Teacher with information about reaching you at any time – email, phone, fax numbers. You also need to make clear that they should contact you with problems or questions at any time.
4. You need to be prepared to deal appropriately, following Queen’s policy, with any candidate in difficulty during a Practicum. Our new Assessment rating scale makes it clear that candidates who are not achieving well enough above minimum expectations for a particular practicum will require extra support. See the  Practicum Handbook .
5. When an occasion arises, introduce Associate Teachers to the PROF 190 website, so that they can see what the course expectations are, and what the weekly meetings are about.
6. You need to be able to provide positive reasons for each Associate Teacher and school to continue accepting Queen’s candidates: flowers and candy are not a silly idea! Positive, friendly, appreciative diplomacy is needed in all contacts with your Associate Schools.
7. Discuss with Associate Teachers their important role in mentoring the candidate(s) in their classroom. This often means having the classroom teacher model best teaching practices so that the candidate can improve. The recent changes and expectations regarding instruction in Literacy and Math are a good starting point: all candidates are learning about using the lessons in the Ontario Guides to Effective Practice for literacy and numeracy, K to Grade 6. Conversations about these Guides and the teaching practices they promote in Ontario Schools will help our candidates focus and should increase the sharing of good ideas and appropriate teaching practice between mentor teachers and our candidates. You should provide lots of support for this sharing.

Your Responsibilities to the School Liaisons

1. You need to communicate in early September, concerning the upcoming Fall Practicum so that School Liaisons can match candidates with appropriate Associate Teachers.
2. You need to continue ongoing communication concerning assessment forms, Practicum Handbook, classroom placements, assignments,  concerns, problems. You need to be sure that School Liaisons have the information they need to contact you

Your Responsibilities to the Associate Schools

1. You need to do what you can to ensure that even after individuals have left the school, it will continue its positive relationship with Queens Faculty of Education. Without placements in appropriate Associate Schools, our candidates cannot meet the requirements of the Ontario College of Teachers – good relationships make our program work. The flowers and candy again!
2. You are one of the people who is working to prepare our candidates to work and learn successfully in their schools. Others, of course, are their curriculum instructors, foundations instructors, and PROF 100 and 150 instructors.