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BU’s Danville Area School District PDS Practicum is a K-12 program designed to provide undergraduate and graduate education majors with practical school-based experiences during the fall semester prior to spring semester student teaching.

An emphasis is on the inclusion of students in the general education classroom. Practicum students spend the fall semester in Danville schools (Grades K-4 are in classes at Danville Primary School and Liberty Valley Intermediate School) on Tuesdays and Thursdays of each week.

BU practicum students and the DASD first-year induction teachers attend modules together on various professional development topics such as:

• ethics
• SAS
• technology-interactive whiteboards
• teacher webpage development
• classroom and behavior management
• RtII and differentiated instruction
• gifted education

Practicum students attend additional modules on curriculum-based assessment (CBA) and measurement (CBM), progress monitoring, portfolios, resumes, and interviews. School district administrators and practicum supervisor teach these modules.

Each BU student also spends time working closely with one mentor (current full-time teacher) to observe, plan and teach lessons in their classroom. This mentor becomes one of the BU student’s co-operating teachers during spring semester student teaching.

The practicum coordinator assists BU students during this school-based experience. All candidates must meet practicum objectives with their mentor teacher and students with whom they are working by completing:

• reflective journals
• lesson plans
• progress monitoring graphs
• and self-assessments on a pre/post basis that match the conceptual framework