DEP ARTM ENT OF TE ACHING AND LE ARNING
OFFICE OF CLINIC AL S TUDIES
Field Observations in Schools and Other Educational Settings
TCHL-UE 5
Fall 2013
Section 1: Silver Center, Room 207
Section 2: Silver Center, Room 411
Section 3: TBA
Instructors:
Frank Pignatosi, Dir. of the Office of Clinical Studies: 212-998-5481, fp6@nyu.edu
Patricia Romandetto, Assoc. Dir. of the Office of Clinical Studies: 212- 998-5538, pr57@nyu.edu
Ted Hannan, Field Coordinator for Arts Education: 212-998-5624, th5@nyu.edu
Kate Legnetti, Field Coordinator for Primary Education: 212-998-5291, cel343@nyu.edu
Anne Beitlers, Field Coordinator for Secondary Education: 212-992-9482, als300@nyu.edu
Office Location: 82 Washington Square Place, 7th floor
Course Introduction:
New York State requires that all teacher education students complete 100 hours of field work
(150 hours for dual certificate candidates) prior to student teaching. Therefore, Field
Observations in Schools and Other Educational Settings is the introductory field experience
course in the undergraduate teacher preparation sequence which will start your accumulation of
observation hours (17.5) toward your required goal before student teaching.
This course will expose you to three key explorations as you begin your course of study: New
York City as an educational setting, NYC Department of Education (DOE) staff and
environments, and the theories and issues that characterize life in these settings for NYU
students.
This course provides a series of guided visits to schools and cultural community-based
organizations; panels of teachers, administrators, student teachers, and students; and discussions
with your faculty around educational topics. The different field experiences will guide you
through a sequence that will enable you to explore in greater depth the elements and dynamics of
education raised in this course: the settings, the participants, and the content.
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Course Requirements:
This course does NOT meet every Friday of the semester; rather, you will be given a set of dates
for which you must attend. The course is designed to give you specific experiences to introduce
you to schools and cultural, community-based settings in New York City. It will be during these
experiences that you will observe and discuss education from an educator’s perspective, as
opposed to your previous school experiences from a student’s perspective. These events include:
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Introductory Session (September 13)
Guided School Setting Visit (x2)
Guided Non-School Setting Visit
Interactive Thematic Discussion (x2)
Conversations with Educators (November 1)
Culminating Session (December 6)
At the Introductory Session, students will be sorted into Cohorts led by faculty. Each cohort will
discuss expectations and queries for the field events and craft a Guiding Question for the
semester. At each field-related experience they attend, students will document their impressions
in the Field Notes. The three categories of field-related experiences are described below:
1. Guided Visits (School and Non-School Settings)
You will be assigned to a Guided Visit to two School Settings and a Guided Visit to a NonSchool Setting. You must attend these sessions with your cohort. Students will visit a site, hear
about its mission and programs, and have the opportunity to interact with youth engaged in
learning. Afterwards, your cohort will meet to discuss how this visit has impacted your
understanding of education from the perspective of a teacher. Your education major does not
matter in these visits since the goal is to expose you to a variety of settings. You will have many
opportunities in the future to observe your specific field and with your target age group.
2. Conversations with Educators
You will attend a Conversations with Educators session that will allow you to interact with
teachers from NYC public schools and current student teachers from your own programs. During
this session, you will be able to ask questions of pre-service and in-service educators with the
aim of helping you understand the profession you will be entering and to find out what it’s really
like to teach in New York City public schools.
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3. Interactive Thematic Discussions
A variety of professionals, university faculty, and school-based personnel will provide focused
and interactive discussions on specific topics and themes that impact teaching and learning.
Students are required to participate in at least two of these discussions. One is assigned to the
cohort and will be attended collectively, while the other is an individual choice by the student.
Students may choose to attend more than two discussions if they so choose.
The discussions being offered this semester are:
What’s special about Special Education?
Friday, September 20 at 10:00AM (Silver Center, Room 207)
Professor Mark Alter
The focus of this session will include a snapshot of the history, philosophy, and role of
education for students with disabilities. Topics presented include significant legislation and
litigation effecting the provision of services and life opportunities for individuals with diverse
characteristics and needs. Discussion will include characteristics of individuals with disabilities
and the effect of those disabilities on learning and behavior. Explorations will also be made into
the delivery of educational programs and special education delivery systems, employment, and
community-based resources and supports.
From Saunter to Swagger: Affecting Vocabulary Development Across the Curriculum
Friday, September 27 at 10:00AM (Silver Center, Room 207)
Professor Kay Stahl
Vocabulary knowledge plays a crucial role in each area of the curriculum across the
school years. Effective vocabulary instruction is engaging, social and multidimensional. This
interactive session will explore how elementary and secondary school teachers can move beyond
traditional methods of vocabulary instruction to enhance conceptual development and word
consciousness.
Learning through Play
Friday, October 4 at 9:30AM Silver Center, Room 207)
Professor Maris Krasnow
Are you born learning how to play? Do you REALLY know how to play? Why is play
called the “work of children”? Why is play a critical aspect of a child’s growth and
development? Why does the ability to play well influence an adult’s ability to succeed later on in
life? Come play and find out!
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Bullying: Addressing complexity and Deepening Understanding through Theatre for Social
Change
Friday, October 4 at 2:00PM (Silver Center, Room 411)
Professor Nan Smithner
This discussion/workshop will introduce the complex nature of bullying and explore
ways of addressing it in the school community. Through the use of role play, forum theatre and
dramatic activities, participants will explore a democratic pedagogy to apply towards notions of
conflict and bullying.
Offender Education: Freeing Incarcerated Minds
Friday, October 18 at 10:00AM (Silver Center, Room 207)
Piper Anderson
The number of persons currently incarcerated for various crimes, and the cost to sustain
the prison system, are astounding. Furthermore, this warehousing of people has created a
revolving door situation in which many people who enter the system for various crimes (many
victimless offenses) find themselves unprepared to rejoin society upon release. This session will
explore how prison education programs allowing inmates to obtain a college degree are highly
effective in reducing recidivism by enabling these individuals to find a meaningful and
productive place in society….reclaiming minds that might otherwise be lost.
How To Build Positive Relationships with the Families You Serve
Friday, October 25 at 2:00PM (Silver Center, Room 411)
Professor Fabienne Doucet
Two archetypes dominate the popular imagination of parents in schools--the helicopter,
and the parent who just doesn't care. In this workshop, we will discuss the roots of these
archetypes and the limits of their utility for the work teachers need to do with families; the
various models of home-school relationships; and the practices of inclusion and exclusion that
shape relationships between schools and families, and among families themselves. We will then
workshop case study examples of sticky scenarios involving families and generate solutions for
best practices in teacher-family interaction.
Getting students out of their desks: Embodied activity for learning
Friday, November 8 at 10:00AM (Silver Center, Room 207)
Professor Jasmine Ma
As children progress through school, their bodies seem to become liabilities as teachers
ask them to focus on mental activity. We ask them to sit still, often in small chairs at tables or
attached to tiny desks. We tell them not to get up and wander around, touch each other, or run in
the halls. Since most of the thinking and learning they need to do in school happens in their
heads, the argument goes, their bodies can and should fade into the background, and not get in
the way. However, recently a lot of research shows that this is not true, and that bodies are a
significant resource for learning. What role do bodies play in cognition and learning? How can
activity involving students' whole bodies support the learning of disciplinary content? In this
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discussion we will explore the possibility that students can and do think, and learn, with their
bodies.
Making Connections: Music Across Curriculum
Friday, November 8 at 2:00PM (Silver Center, Room 411)
Professor Nancy Shankman
This interactive workshop will provide students with opportunity to make connections
between the musical repertoire and other content areas such as social studies, science, literature,
art, cultural and community resources. Students will create this “Wraparound" tool (either
individually or in groups) which could later be duplicated and shared with everyone, so that the
students would have a packet of "wraparounds" for future use.
Differentiating Instruction for English Language Learners
Friday, November 15 at 10:00AM (Silver Center, Room 207)
Professor Heather Woodley
This interactive discussion will explore the diversity within the Emergent Bilingual
(English Language Learner) classroom population, and students will engage in various ways to
differentiate instruction to meet Emergent Bilinguals' academic, linguistic, and social-emotional
needs.
Understanding Academics: Unraveling the Unique Academic Challenges of Students on the
Spectrum
Friday, November 15 at 2:00PM (Silver Center, Room 411)
Lauren Hough/ Aaron Lanou
There is a growing number of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in the public
school system. Teachers are challenged to find ways to best support this population of students
with unique and often perplexing needs. In this Interactive Thematic Discussion, we will discuss
the core challenge areas that students with ASD face and present strategies to support their
needs. We will also explore ways to capitalize on students' strengths and incorporate students'
special interests.
Place-Based Learning
Friday, November 22 at 10:00AM (Silver Center, Room 207)
Professor Mary Leou/ Professor Howard Schiffman
The workshop will address how to use the environment as a context for learning across
the curriculum. Methods for utilizing field based learning will be explored. Activities and hands
on workshop will give participants an introduction to environmental education.
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The Purposes of American Schools: Perspectives from History
Friday, November 22 at 2:00PM (Silver Center, Room 411)
Professor Jonathan Zimmerman
Should our schools promote religious faith? Job skills? Good citizenship? or just
"Knowledge for knowledge's sake"? This session will examine the different goals and purposes
that Americans have assigned to their schools, from the colonial era into the present. It will also
help students frame arguments for what they think schools should do, and why.
Culminating Session – December 6
On December 6, each cohort will reconvene with its cohort leader and collectively process the
data collected at each event. Students must bring their completed Field Notes to this session.
Each cohort will share its findings at this session.
Grading
Successful completion of the course requirements includes at least 20 documented hours of field
events. Each event is worth 2.5 hours. This will be met by attendance to the following events:
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Introductory Session
2.5 hours
Guided visit to an elementary school 2.5 hours
Guided visit to a secondary school 2.5 hours
Guided visit to a non-school setting 2.5 hours
Conversations with Educators
2.5 hours
Interactive thematic discussions (x2) 5.0 hours
Culminating Session
2.5 hours
o Total: 20 hours
Students who meet the requirements of this course, including all specified events, will earn a P
(Pass) in this course. Students who do not attend all events will earn an IP (Incomplete Pass),
and those students will only be able to make up their missing events the following fall semester.
If they do not make up those missing events, their grade changes to an N (No Credit) after one
calendar year.
Documentation
To document your hours for the 8 events as stated above in the “Grading” section, you will
utilize the Field Observations Undergraduate Field Work Time Sheet. Each required event
counts for 2.5 hours, and each event must be signed off by the NYU facilitator on the day of that
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event. You will submit your completed Time Sheet at the final course session on December 7,
2012.
* If you are a tutor in America Reads/America Counts or Jumpstart, you may count 10 extra
hours up to a maximum of 30 total hours for the course.
**If you have done field work at another university, you may receive approval to count 10
extra hours up to a maximum of 30 total hours for the course.
Absence Policy
If you cannot make an event due to illness, you must notify Anne and Kate in the Office of
Clinical Studies (beitlers@nyu.edu or cel343@nyu.edu) 24 hours in advance and/or with a
doctor’s note related to your illness. In this case you must be reassigned to attend another event,
which Anne and Kate will reschedule with you. Since you are part of a cohort and share most
events with its members, you may NOT attend any other event without prior approval by the
Office of Clinical Studies.
If you do not attend a session and have no medical excuse and/or did not notify the Office ahead
of time, you will receive an Incomplete for the course, and you will have to complete the missed
session in the next fall semester.
You must be on time to each of your events. An unexcused lateness will require a rescheduling of another event.
Field Observation and Student Teaching Timeline
This course is the first in a series that will expose you to the field of education, in typical and
atypical settings, as you move through your program of study:
a. After the initial observations this semester, either during your freshman year or early in
your sophomore year you will also take Inquiries into Teaching and Learning I, a course
situated in a public school and taught by a team of instructors composed of an NYU
faculty and a NYC public school teacher. You will reflect on your learning experience
and consider the type of learner you are while engaging with students and teachers in
urban NYC schools (15 hours).
b. In your sophomore year, you will enroll in Human Development I & II, in which you will
study how child and/or adolescent development affect learning. You will spend 1
morning per week for 7 weeks in a school. You will be interacting with students of your
certification age group in NYC public school classrooms (25 hours).
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c. In your sophomore year or junior year you will be enrolled in methods and curriculum
courses that will require field hours commensurate to understanding curriculum and the
engagement of students within specific content areas (hours will vary based on your
program).
a. If you are a Childhood or Early Childhood major, you will be beginning your first
supervised student teaching experience of four semesters in the fall of your junior
year.
d. In your senior year, you will be prepared to engage in intense student teaching
experiences (as often as Monday-Friday mornings). Students in Secondary Education
Programs, Music Education, and Educational Theater will begin two semesters of student
teaching. Those in Childhood Education and Early Childhood Education Programs will
continue their student teaching throughout their senior year.
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Apprentice
Apprentice is a database that allows faculty, staff, and students to track and coordinate student
field experiences at NYU Steinhardt. While still not fully developed, the system is a means of
communication between the Office of Clinical Studies and students around field initiatives and
experiences. For example, all requests for student teaching placements will occur through
Apprentice. All Teacher Certification students are required to create and maintain a profile
in the Apprentice system.
Please follow the directions below to activate your account.
Please create your profile now by logging onto:
steinhardt.nyu.edu/apprentice
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To log in, you'll use your Net ID and NYUHome e-mail password. (If you ever
change your NYUHome password, Apprentice will automatically update to the new
password.)
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Once you log in, you will find on the left of your screen for a green-colored link that
says Create Profile. Click on it.
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Please answer all of the questions on your profile and click the Save button at the
bottom of the screen.
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That's it! You now have a profile in Apprentice. You can update your profile at any
time by clicking the Edit Profile button at the top of the page.
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