Western Carolina University

Teacher education candidates are integrated into community schools from the beginning of their professional teacher education coursework.  This early and ongoing engagement with public school faculty and students ensures that our teacher education candidates are specifically prepared to serve the needs of their local schools.

Candidates enrolled in field experience courses complete observations at public schools in conjunction with course assignments.  Students taking EDCI 201, PSY 323, SPED 339 and most methods courses must complete this experience for each course in order to satisfactorily complete the course requirements. Students may not enroll in PSY 323, SPED 339 or methods classes until fully admitted into the teacher education program.

The Early Field Experience program undergoes constant evaluation and revision in response to feedback from candidates and partner schools and teachers.  Candidate evaluations of early field experiences and host teacher evaluations of candidates are both completed on TaskStream.

EDCI 201, PSY 323 and SPED 339 require a timesheet to be turned in to the Office of Field Experiences.  All other courses arrange their experience documentation with the individual WCU course instructors.