Future teachers gain valuable experience at Galion Primary

Submitted article

The Galion Primary School had a unique opportunity to serve as an experiential learning site for field placement students from The Ohio State University at Mansfield. Twelve senior students spent the first semester of the 2014-2015 school year working with second grade teachers gaining valuable field experience to help prepare them for student teaching.

During the 2013-2014 school year, the Primary and Middle Schools served as placement sites for education students from OSU. Last year’s field placement students had such a positive experience in the Galion buildings that Field Placement Coordinator Regina Sackman, a Galion alumna herself, knew she wanted to get as many students placed in Galion as possible.

“Last year after meeting Superintendent Mark Stefanik, I was encouraged to place students in the Galion City School District,” Sackman said. “And being a Galion graduate, naturally I wanted my students to experience and be a part of the quality education that Galion provides.”

In this program, pre-service teachers were placed in a classroom setting with a peer. Current Galion teachers worked with two students who were partnered together for methods teaching, and each of the student teachers were responsible for individual lessons, as well as peer teaching and assisting the other.

“When planning for fall placements, Galion was a district we had hoped our students would be able to work with,” Sackman said. “This unique and wonderful situation was the result of Primary School Principal Cindy Voss welcoming us and all of the second grade teachers volunteering to mentor a pair of students. We were fortunate that all of our primary students could be placed at Galion.”

While in the field, pre-service teachers worked with classroom teachers to meet the needs of students, often working with individuals and small groups to reinforce learning. Galion second grade teachers volunteered to be mentors to give back to the teaching profession and share their experiences. Current teachers shared their passion for teaching while at the same time experiencing and learning different strategies and ideas from the pre-service teachers.

“The pre-service teachers impacted student academics by providing hands-on activities to help the students better understand concepts being taught,” Second grade teacher Cindy Conner said. “They brought new ideas to the classroom that enhanced the activities I was already using, and they helped to provide more small group instruction, one-on-one interventions, and provided help with day-to-day responsibilities in the classroom.”

The pre-service teachers under Conner’s mentorship helped teach Social Studies and Science classes for two weeks. Heather Snow, a Clear Fork graduate and senior at OSU-Mansfield, and Nella Blackford, a Mansfield St. Peter’s graduate and OSU-Mansfield senior, both taught Science and Social Studies lessons in Conner’s class.

“All the students in class were nice, worked very hard and were really patient with themselves,” Snow said. “The staff was absolutely fantastic and welcomed me with open arms. Cindy was extremely patient and helpful, and provided tremendous support regardless of the time of day I contacted her.”

Field experiences provide opportunities for pre-service teachers to implement teaching strategies and theories that they learn about in their college course work with a classroom of learners under the guidance of a master teacher. The time that students have in the field working with students enables them to develop an understanding of how students learn and how to address each student’s specific learning needs.

“The atmosphere in the Primary School was a breath of fresh air because the entire staff was very welcoming,” Blackford said. “Cindy gave us the opportunity to be involved in every aspect of the students’ educational experience including Parent Teacher conferences. It was a great experience as a student aspiring to be a teacher.”
It is important for pre-service teachers to have a “methods experience”, which are shorter and require less time than student teaching, because it prepares them for the last step before applying for a teaching license. Snow and Blackford spent a several weeks observing and helping in Conner’s classroom before they were responsible for 10 social studies and 10 science lessons each.

“Galion Primary was fortunate to have 12 pre-service teachers in the second grade hallway during the first quarter,” Conner said. “They were able to work together to produce some amazing lessons that the students learned a lot from.”

In addition to the learning experiences, the pre-service teachers also worked together to coordinate a service project in conjunction with the MOMS program. They collected items to be sent to Crawford County servicemen and women serving overseas. The entire district was involved in this project that collected over 700 items to be sent.

“The importance of field experiences in preparing our students for the day they have their own classroom cannot be over emphasized,” Sackman said. “We are grateful for teachers and school districts that share their professional knowledge and experiences to help our students enter the teaching profession.

“It is my hope that Galion students not only learned content standards, but also saw that an opportunity to attend college is a few miles away and that they too can be a OSU student and earn a bachelor’s degree in Education at the Mansfield campus.”

For more information about the field placement program and the Galion Primary School’s role in the program, contact Regina Sackman at sackman.4@osu.edu or Cindy Conner at conner.cindy@galionschools.org.