The Portland site focuses on diversity, the development of interdisciplinary curricula and school restructuring within an urban setting. The interns at the Portland site work together as a supportive cohort group. It is the good fortune of this site to include the art interns as part of the cohort. While the art intern placements are not always in Portland schools, they share Seminar and coursework, and bring a rich diversity, and broadened perspective to the cohort group. The last two weeks of August are spent in orientation to ETEP, community building at Wolf s Neck Outdoor Education Center, and introduction to course work, some of which begin during these two weeks.
Orientation sets the tone for the year.
During the fall semester, all interns spend 6 weeks in two school sites at two different grade levels, either elementary and middle school or high school and middle school. During that time they observe classes and begin practice teaching and take courses required for certification in the afternoon. All interns take a year-long Seminar in Educational Issues, Exceptionality, Life Span, and Content Methods Courses. All coursework is closely tied to intern s field work in the schools and involves reading, writing, and discussion designed to integrate what interns are learning in class with what they are seeing and practicing in school. This partnership lasts until the end of the teaching phase, in mid-April.