The Laboratory Schools Clinical Experiences Committee, made up of faculty from both Metcalf School and University High School, began work last school year to identify best practices in clinical experiences. The committee included Ginnell Barke, Jean Gorski, Lisa Kendall, Shannon Maney-Magnuson, Maggie Proctor, Amy Reiman, Kim Walker-Smith, and Ronda Wilder. The committee established characteristics of clinical experiences that would benefit Lab School students and clinical students greatly. Collaborative efforts between Lab School faculty associates and TCH faculty are resulting in a stronger cohesion between the College of Education (COE) teacher preparation courses and modeling best practices in instruction.
The University High School pilot group (Maggy Proctor, Amy Reiman, and Shannon Maney-Magnuson) is now working with TCH 216 professor Allison Meyer to align the specific topics of set induction, questioning skills, assessment and differentiation with the U-High experience during specific weeks of the spring 2017 semester. Administrators and teachers at Thomas Metcalf have been working with TCH 209 and TCH 296 professors, and will be implementing clinical experiences in grades 1st-8th in spring 2017. These clinical experiences focus on providing ISU students early and frequent contact with Metcalf students in continued effort to produce positive results for both the ISU students and Metcalf students. Collaborative efforts between Illinois State instructors and Lab School faculty continue to be emphasized with all three of these clinical pilots.
