By Grace Smith | Broadcast Reporter
Jae Moore, a senior student-teacher and intern for the Baylor School of Education, is well along on her “path to teaching.” Baylor’s School of Education is nationally known for its innovative partnership with local schools providing students with real experience teaching in a classroom.
Starting off with 1-on-1 interactions, freshman and sophomore students are given a local school to go to once or twice a week. As juniors, students are given the title of a “teaching assistant,” and they are at local schools four to five times in the mornings. This all leads up to becoming an “intern” where students spend senior year all day at the local schools. “Interns” get the unique experience to teach the class all day for nine weeks.
Jae Moore is putting her teaching skills into practice at Hillcrest Professional Development School, and she explains why this interactive program is so beneficial and how it had prepared her for her future.
“I think that getting to learn things that you wouldn’t get to learn just in a normal classroom setting and really just getting to experience everyday things that happen in the classroom,” Moore said. “You read all about it, but it is really different in person. Getting to see what a classroom looks like for myself before I take it over is really cool.”
Moore teaches alongside Tamara Holey, who has been working with the Baylor partnership for seven years.
“Since we have implemented the co-teach model, the benefit for the students is just amazing,” Holey said. “When we implement a parallel teach, Jae and I can do the same lesson but we can impact the children in a wider range. Instead of 22 students, we can bring it down to 10 to be more one-on-one with them. This way we can pick up on their strengths and needs.”
