The elementary education major is a field-based program in which students receive supportive, hands-on, real-world training to become future teaching professionals. Students engage in extensive field experiences beginning in the Immersive Term of their sophomore year and continuing each semester through their final student teaching semester prior to graduation. Each elementary education student has an average of 600 required hours of supervised clinical experience prior to student teaching. Each elementary student teacher has an average of 375 hours of supervised clinical experience.

What students learn in the classroom in their elementary education courses is put into practice throughout the wide variety of field placements. Within those field placements, students teach lesson plans that attend to the unique educational needs of their placement students. Every field experience allows students to work with special needs students. Students demonstrate proficiencies in supporting all learners through their course work, their field work, their lesson plans, their unit plans and their reflections.

Field placements are made by the coordinator of field experiences. The department strives to situate students in the best possible placements to maximize their experiential learning. Cooperating teachers are chosen based on their own levels of expertise. Field supervisors are adjunct faculty and all have extensive classroom teaching experience.

Placements are made in the following school corporations:

• Center Grove Community Schools
• Clark-Pleasant Community Schools
• Franklin Community Schools
• Greenwood Community Schools
• Nineveh-Hensley-Jackson United Schools
• Perry Township Schools
• Shelbyville Central Schools