OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY

College of Education
120 McArthur Highway, Marulas, Valenzuela City

What is PRACTICE TEACHING?

Practice Teaching or internship is an integral part of an Education student’s college

period. It is the actual immersion of the students in the academic world and considered as their
make or break phase. It is a form of work-integrated learning that is described as a period of time
when a student is working in his or her cooperating school to receive specific in-service training
in order to apply the theories and lessons they have learned in practice.

The main purpose of internship is to provide adequate practical academia experience for
the student teachers to develop their own skills with the guidance of those already in service. It is
important to maximize this period as this will be a measure of how much theoretical knowledge a
student retained and how much they have improved after three and a half years.

Internship also enables the student teacher to design, carry out and evaluate their own
teaching methods to his or her cooperating teacher or school, and to cooperate with their
colleagues and students. One of the aims is also that the student will be able to understand his or
her role in the larger scope of the profession and in the extended operational environment of the
school. An important goal is to learn how to develop and advance one’s competence in
development.

Every prerequisite course plays an important role in practice teaching. Psychology and
behavioral development-related subjects prepare a student teacher to understand the different
types of student that he or she may face during his or her service. This may include their future
students’ different types of intelligence, learning styles, and strategies on how to deal with their
various behaviors. On the other hand, professional subjects deal with the pedagogies and
approaches in teaching, and hones one’s lesson preparation and assessment making. All these
subjects are crucial in preparing a student teacher for the real thing.

Practice Teaching is usually a 300 – hour pre-teaching course where a student teacher is
deployed to a partner or cooperating school. There, he or she will be under the supervision of a
cooperating teacher. The student teacher will be oriented and brief about the school and
classroom rules of the classes that he or she will handle. The first couple of weeks will be
dedicated for class observation. This will give the student teacher ideas on how their cooperating
teacher usually runs his or her class. This period will also give the student teacher time to
observe the students itself. After the observation period, the student teacher will then step up to
teach the class him/herself. This is of course under the cooperating teacher’s supervision. The
student teacher will prepare lessons, instructional materials, and assessments for the subject.
Later in this period, the cooperating teacher may completely leave the class for the student
teacher to become more independent.

Giving grades is also a part of being a student teacher. He or she might feel the need to be
friendly to his or her students but it is important to remember that they are still under him or her.
Being attached or favoring a student or group of student just because he or she feels like it is
considered unprofessional as it reflects his or her priority inside the classroom. The student
teacher must also exclude his or her personal emotions when giving marks. With that being said,
he or she should also be considerate to the students. Not everyone has the same circumstances
outside the school, so it is important to develop good judgment early on.

At the end of the practice teaching, the student teacher is expected to accomplish a
portfolio of his or her experience during the internship period. This includes his timecards,
journals, documentations, and learning materials that he or she has prepared. This is also where
the student teacher can summarize his or her goals as an educator.