Student teaching lasts for ten weeks. During student teaching, each candidate works full time in a middle grades classroom for twelve weeks. Thus, each teacher candidate spends a minimum of 480 clock hours in a middle grades classroom during student teaching. The total amount of time spent in schools equals or exceeds six hundred hours. Most, but not all, secondary programs have a pre-admission requirement similar to those mentioned for early childhood and middle grades programs.
All programs also require field experience during their methods and curriculum coursework.
The minimum student teaching placement is ten weeks in secondary education programs. Beyond that, the programs vary. In English Education, candidates are required to demonstrate that they have completed fifty clock hours of work with young adults in some capacity for admission to the Advanced Professional Education Course Sequence. They then gain a minimum of eighty clock hours in supervised field experiences during the semester before they begin student teaching. Those hours are embedded in two required courses, ELAN 4460 and ELAN 4470.