Assessment of the Student Teacher

The assessment of the student teaching experience should be a continuous process, culminated by a final review at the end. This evaluation needs to be a three-way proposition, including the student teacher, the cooperating teacher, and the university consultant.
It is of paramount importance that the student teacher be helped to reflect on his/her performance realistically. Hopefully, the student teacher will be made to feel, "I like teaching, and I can be successful if I continue growing." The student teacher should be fully aware of the areas of weakness in personal performance so that s/he can continue to work towards eliminating weaknesses and capitalizing on strengths.
Because we believe letter grades at times detract from one's concern for the permanent quality of learning, the teacher education program faculty has adopted the Pass/Fail grading system for student teaching. A "Pass" (P) means that the student teaching performance was satisfactory. "Fail" (F) means that the student cannot be recommended for a teaching certificate. A "Pass" neither adds to nor subtracts from the student teacher's grade point average (GPA).
The final evaluation of the Profile of Student Teaching Performance completed by the university consultant and the cooperating teacher will be included in the EMU student's teacher education program file.