Narration:
I just have always adored my interns. They come in May and they come into the room, it's pretty—you have things up. But when they come in August, the desks are all to the side, there's not a bulletin board up, books are stacked, boxes are stacked. They see grade books, they see computers, how are you going to set up a computer in your room. They see it from the beginning, how are you going to make it through the year?
Be there for the entire school year
Katie (PDS Intern):
Professional development school, that is what PDS stands for. It's a year-long internship where you get to student teach all year. And the first semester you're student teaching and taking your regular classes you'd be taking your senior year.
Brittany (PDS Intern):
I'm introduced at the beginning of the year as another staff member, as an intern in the building. So, I think the respect level is there from the beginning as opposed to coming in the middle of the year when they're used to one thing. They think they're going to get away with another because a student teacher is coming in, and it's not like that.
Matthew (PDS Intern):
I'll be able to see how the school year starts and spend almost an entire year with kids. So this way I'm not like some student teacher coming in. You know, they're in class for two weeks and then they take over. They'll know me throughout the whole year.
Ashley (PDS Intern):
I think in traditional student teaching, you see one or the other. You see either the beginning of the year or the end. In the beginning of the year, I think it's really important, because you see how teachers come in and they have to set up their rooms. You see how first meeting a class is difficult. You have to learn all the names, you have to figure out where they come from and who they are and what they're about. In my opinion, it's the best. It's so important to be able to see the school year from beginning to the end.
Take classes on site
Bill Ducett (Instructional Assistant Professor):
The scenario here is, we have students who come to school here for this class in the morning, they're ISU students. This is an on campus class. In fact I teach this class on campus as well, that we're teaching off campus at this site. The benefit of it is they've got their class in the morning for a couple hours, then they go into the building and work with their teachers for a couple more hours. So they get a much smoother segue-way between the classroom and the clinical.
Jennifer Ramamoorthi (PDS Partner):
For the first phase, the first semester, three days a week, ISU professors drive down and they're in classes for the whole day. The other two days of the week, the interns are in the classrooms. And it's a beautiful balance because the ISU professors are giving them strategies, sharing books and ideas. And then the two days that they go back they have the opportunity to start implementing it. So, to me the PDS's are those solid building blocks to get the interns to become successful, confident, competent teachers.
Molly Munson-Dryer (Associate Director of Clinical Experiences):
The common element of the PDS is that courses are offered on site, however each program is different. We have PDS sites in early childhood, elementary, middle, and secondary. Each one has a different program, so the setup is different at each school.
Help along the way
Narration:
Being a professional means you are part of the team. So, you go to the board meetings, you go to the staff meetings, you go to the parent-teacher conferences.
Erika Marquer (Mentor Teacher):
I've seen a tremendous growth as far as her self-esteem, professionally, talking to the students, dealing with parents. She was at all of our grade level meetings; she went to workshops with me. You get to see what it's like to be a teacher, what it really entails, that it's not just a six-hour job. I just think that we clicked, we really did click, we shared ideas. She's taught me a lot. She's brought in her fresh ideas, and I think that's helped me grow.
Narration:
When you write lesson plans during your methods courses or before you start your student teaching that's just the general idea. It's totally different when you teach it in the classroom in front of students, you do have to adapt to the kids.
Deborah Curtis (Dean College of Education):
There's an important function that the higher ed. experience needs to play. We must present to teacher candidates the ideal. What should schooling look like? Sometimes though, there's a "disconnect" when they get out into the schools with reality. Our job now, and PDS is a part of that, is to say, "How do we connect what we're talking about ideal in the best scenario with an experience for you in a real school setting and allow those to make sense?"
Narration:
There are two coordinators. They're the liaisons between the intern and ISU. They really are the ones who are there for them—for professional things—for personal things.
Narration:
Being in the PDS you are in a year-long program with a group of people. You do develop a close relationship with those people because you are with them all year long. They go through the same things you go through. They went through the same phases, the same classes, and through student teaching—all with you. So, you are able to depend on them and able to talk to them because they do understand your problems.
Feel like a second year teacher
Narration:
When principals and superintendents are looking to hire, they want the very best candidate they can get. And it's been my experience that the PDS students just shine. They rise far above the crowd. You end up having to fight over them because they really do come across as a second year teacher.
Shelia Boozer (Principal):
We've had about fourteen in our district and I want to say all of them were hired within our district, except for maybe one or two who decided they wanted to go to one of the surrounding areas.
Narration:
I've definitely changed a lot over this past year and having the confidence in myself that I can do this. It's called professional development school and that's exactly what it is, I've become a professional. I feel like I'm a teacher who's ready to set up her classroom this summer for my fifth grade classroom that I'm going to have in the fall. That feels so good to say.
Deborah Curtis (Dean College of Education):
One of the selling points about a PDS is you need something in your resume that makes yours look different than every other education major coming out of all these institutions. We hear about administrators calling the administrators in these PDS districts saying, "Who's in your pool? Who have you got?" You know, "Who can we see this year?" And mostly the response is "Well, we're looking first and then we'll let you know."
Narration:
I'm interviewing and I'm going on jobs. I've actually had six interviews so far out of seven. I've actually been made an offer, and I think that it's excellent seeing it so early in the year—to already have one offer on your plate and to be going on six interviews.
Bill Ducett (Instructional Assistant Professor):
I always tell my students that when they leave college they're going to walk out with a toolbox. In the toolbox are the things they can use, the tools they can use in their classroom. I think the kids that go through a PDS or go through this experience are going to have a pretty hefty toolbox. They have lots of experiences in things within their mentoring experience and their observational experience and their student teaching experience that will make them much more effective teachers. And that's the goal in the end. To have good effective teachers in the classroom benefits everybody.