Information for Teacher Candidates

In the final year of the teacher candidates’ program, the Office of Clinical Experience places candidates in a studio school location to complete their year-long Practicum I and II clinical experience. The studio school partnership allows UMSL’s teacher candidates to fully engage in the school experience. The teacher candidates co-teach, teach independently,  participate in staff meetings, opening of school activities, setting up classrooms, professional development days, IEP meetings, data team meetings, parent/teacher conferences, and field trips.

In order to be accepted into Practicum, candidates must complete the practicum application in Kuali. You can see the required documents here. The application carries the candidates through to Practicum II. Please see Important Dates for application deadlines.

Choosing Your Practicum Site

The Office of Clinical Experience will send candidates a Studio Schools Preference Survey allowing them to rank the studio schools by preference. The Office of Clinical Experience will  email candidates with their confirmed studio school site placement and designated consent number for registration. Any questions regarding the practicum process can be directed to Chrsitine Sykora.

Teacher candidates will:

• Participate in all professional opportunities including school and district professional development, parent/teacher conferences, professional learning communities, data teams, Individualized Education Plan meetings, faculty meetings and open houses. 
• Attend on-site collaborative exchanges led by your clinical educator as well as Grand Seminars held on campus.
• Develop and implement lesson plans incorporating Learning by Scientific Design practices.
• Teach whole groups, small groups and collaboratively with other teachers.
• Record videos of themselves teaching.
• Teach diverse populations, including emergent multilinguals and students with Individualized Education Plans.
• Request extra copies of district/school texts and teacher guides from your clinical teacher and become familiar with the related grade-level Missouri Learning Standards.
• Implement district curriculum.
• Implement classroom management skills and strategies.
• Complete all work as assigned in the Practicum syllabus.
• Follow the daily schedule as required of classroom teachers at the Studio School site, including arrival and departure times.
• Follow the school district’s calendar, including all holidays, Parent-Teacher conferences, open houses, Professional Development days, Spring/Fall breaks, etc.  Please refer to your district’s calendar from their website.  

MEES Observation

DESE requires all teacher candidates in the state of Missouri to be evaluated using the MEES Teacher Candidate Assessment Rubric by their university clinical educator as well as by  their K-12 clinical teacher. The university requires clinical teachers and clinical educators to evaluate their teacher candidates each semester formatively and summatively. Two formal observations, one formative and one summative, will be collected.