Levels 1 and 2
Variety in settings and experiences
As a partner with Teacher Education, you play a vital role in the future success of our students.
For Level 1 and 2, we're proud to partner with Waterloo Community School District, Cedar Falls Community School district and other area Cedar Valley districts for our initial field experience placements. The majority of the exploratory experience in Level 1 occurs in Waterloo schools, while the majority of Level 2 experiences happen in Cedar Falls as well as surrounding Cedar Valley schools.
Cedar Valley schools are also part of our Level 3 placements, the majority of which are supervised by teaching faculty associated with the teaching majors across the four UNI colleges.
Below you will find contact information for Cedar Valley Schools. Included information may be local school site coordinators, principals, UNI student teaching coordinators and Level 1/Level 2 field experience coordinators associated with the listed school. UNI faculty can access current placements.
For Site Coordinators
Working with Cedar Falls and Waterloo community school districts, we identify, create and maintain a network of outstanding teacher leaders who are also willing to serve as a UNI site coordinator at their school. Site coordinators are a critical part of our efforts to improve and enhance our school-university communication and collaboration and to maximize the mutual benefit of field experiences.
General Roles and Responsibilities
- Assist with recruitment of mentor teachers for field experiences at Levels 1, 2 and 3.
- Serve as a point of contact for other placement requests from other departments within the College of Education.
- Coordinate and lead an orientation event at the start of each semester for field experience students.
- Act as a liaison between mentor teachers, field experience coordinators and UNI students where deemed appropriate and necessary.
- Assist field experience coordinators with collecting mid-term and/or final evaluations, surveys or other information
Principals in partner schools are asked to identify a teacher who: 1) is respected by the the teachers in the school as an outstanding educator and leader and 2) is trusted by the principal to act as his/her designee. Site coordinators are the face of Teacher Education on the ground in the schools and work closely with field experience coordinators and other teacher education faculty members.
For Mentor Teachers
UNI’s cadre of outstanding mentor teachers for field experiences is integral to the quality of the Teacher Education program. Mentor teachers for field experience have standard Iowa licensure and are recommended by their building principals and/or school site coordinators as good models for pre-service teachers. In addition, UNI strongly encourages mentor teachers to participate in workshops offered each semester for mentoring and the reduced-cost graduate course, TEACHING 5133g Mentoring Pre-service Teachers. More than 350 area teachers have completed this course to date.
Below are general roles and responsibilities for mentor teachers in every level of experience.
General Roles and Responsibilities
- Communicate willingness to mentor pre-service teachers to principal or school site coordinator(s), indicating preferences for level and type of experience
- Model a variety of effective strategies in the classroom
- Communicate with field experience students regarding their teaching practices, including but not limited to beliefs, strategies, management techniques, procedures, and relationship building
- Encourage appropriate level of active engagement in classroom by pre-service teachers and provide a variety of interaction opportunities
- Communicate concerns and questions to the field experience coordinator, the UNI professor of record or professor-in-residence.
- Evaluate the pre-service teacher’s progress and submit timely evaluations to the university