He or she will have participated in the mandatory early experience program which involves working with individual and small groups of students and, to some extent , instructing whole class groups. These early experiences should thus permit a quicker and smoother transition into full responsibility, but they should not be justification for either minimizing or eliminating similar kinds of experiences during student teaching. The student teacher must see, learn, and experience instruction as a totality with many dimensions. Actual teaching must begin with gradual induction, as was pointed out in the section on Organization of the Student Teaching Experience . Identification of the student teacher's beginning instructional responsibility should be one of the earliest cooperative decisions and might well precede the beginning of the experience so that adequate planning time can occur.
Teaching usually begins with responsibility for a single class, group, topic, unit, or activity.
Identification of this beginning responsibility should take into consideration the student teacher's special interests and abilities to help ensure that the initial effort will be built on confidence and competence. As the student teacher demonstrates instructional success with a single class or subject area and thus builds confidence, planning should begin for the addition of another class or another subject area. Assumption of the supervising teacher's full instructional load is the ultimate intent. There may be valid reasons why this cannot or should not occur, but such instances are rare and must be discussed with the university supervisor. The variety of instructional activity by the student teacher should be as complete and comprehensive as is appropriate for the subject area and learning level of the pupils.