Specific instruction is provided to students to enable them to adapt lessons, classroom management strategies and assessment to meet the needs of diverse students. This instruction occurs primarily in the Multicultural Education' course, the elementary 'Meeting the Needs of all Students' course and the secondary 'Adolescent Development and Education' sequence but manifests itself as well as in the various 'teaching and learning' and 'content block' coursework and in the Assessment course. By integrating class projects with field experience, as described above, the students learn to create and evaluate experiences which meet the needs of a diverse population. Study and practice in a variety of communities, with students of different ages, and with culturally diverse and exceptional populations. Each student in the teacher education program experiences a variety of placements.
Students experience four different partner school placements.
One placement is at a school with a relatively high level of cultural and socio-economic diversity, and the other is at a less diverse school. The Elementary Field Coordinator is responsible for obtaining appropriate placements. She is intimately familiar with the demographics and other relevant characteristics of each partner schools, and visits them frequently. During the second quarter students are placed in a setting opposite to that in which they want to do their student teaching, thus a student wanting to work in a more diverse school teaching kindergarten, would be placed in the intermediate grades in a less diverse school. During the third and fourth quarters every effort is made to place students in partner schools with a class in their desired grade range .