Clinical Experiences
Supporting your professional education
As you’ll discover, your path to becoming a teacher includes everything from:
- Getting admitted to UNI
- Initial coursework and your first forays into classrooms
- Admission to the Teacher Education program
- Final coursework and more immersion in classrooms
- Student teaching
- Receiving your degree — then licensure!
Our particular focus: working with ALL teacher education student teachers and, for your internship experiences, with teaching majors focused on middle and high school teaching. This applies whether you're on campus or in one of our online transfer undergraduate programs or completing your Master of Arts degree in secondary education. It's all part of how the Department of Educational Foundations and Professional Experiences can serve you.
Building a Successful Experience
Our Role in Your Placements
Getting hands-on is something you’ll experience early and often as part of your professional education in Teacher Education. EFPE faculty:
- Lead the elective pre-professional coursework for any teacher education students needing an initial 10 hours observing a classroom to meet state requirements
- Supervise middle and secondary education (grades 5-12) clinical internship experiences in partnership with faculty teaching the methods courses and your mentor teachers
- Supervise all student teaching placements, working with the College of Education Advising and Teacher Education Success office which secures placements in more than 90 school districts across Iowa and beyond.
How We Work with You
You can count on our team to guide your progress and growth through your two eight-week placements, which often includes placement in two different classrooms or settings. We’ll engage with you through:
- On-site or virtual visits
- Debriefing conferences
- Seminars and courses
- Teaching and feedback on lesson planning
- Career planning
- Growth assessments and evaluations
- Helping you link theory with practice
- Assisting with out-of-state and international student teaching placement
I am forever impressed by Leasha Henriksen and her approach with student teachers. She tells it like it is, finds the positives and supports these young teachers immensely. The program and evaluation is designed for student success, the expectations are rigorous, and the students who complete the entire four years through UNI are exceptionally prepared to teach!
Student Teaching Coordinators
Student teaching coordinators living in the following nine regional centers in Iowa work with you and more than 90 school districts to ensure successful placements.
Greater Cedar Valley (Cedar Falls/Waterloo area): Beth Harris and Mary Beth Rygh
Corridor (Cedar Rapids/Iowa City): Leasha Henriksen
Greater Des Moines: Melanie Hill
North Central (Mason City/Charles City): Kady Korbel
Central (Marshalltown area): Jim Stichter
Northeast Iowa: Neil Mullen
Southeast Iowa (Quad Cities/Burlington): Kelly Rohlf
Northwest Iowa: Sheryl Larson
West Iowa and Omaha: Katie Towler
Located on the UNI campus is the coordinator of the Out-of-State/International program: Carrie Elser
Internship Coordinators
Internship coordinators in Educational Foundations and Professionals Experiences supervise the Internship 1 and Internship 2 experiences for our secondary education majors (grades 5-12, middle or high school), primarily in Cedar Valley area schools, outside of accommodations for remote students.