Contact Kathryn Leo-Nyquist, Education Program Director
Email: Leo@champlain.edu
Phone: 802.651.5859
Fieldwork & Student Teaching
Step Into the Classroom In Your First Year
At Champlain, you'll engage in field placements and student teaching earlier in your college career than is typical.
Starting in the first semester of your first year, you'll spend time in a real local classroom in the Burlington area. In fact, you'll be in the classroom all four years of your college experience, progressing from one-day-a-week observational positions to full-time teaching; in the second semester of your senior year, you'll spend full weeks teaching and managing the intricacies of the classroom.
These placements connect the material you're learning in your Early Childhood or Elementary Teacher Education classes at Champlain with the reality of having worked in a classroom of students. You'll get multiple years of real experience that will teach you the in-person skills, confidence, and flexibility needed to stand at the front of a room.
With four years of classroom placements on your résumé, you'll stand out among a field of applicants after graduation.
Student Teaching Placements In Vermont
Vermont offers a number of diverse educational settings that you can explore. These varied experiences can help you determine which age groups and class sizes you'd prefer to teach.
Here are just a few schools where Champlain students have gained experience:
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How We Prepare You for Experiential Learning
We want you to be well prepared for your first internship, externship, or other fieldwork. After your first year of exploratory practical education, you'll be ready to work with your Career Advisor to take the next step.
- The Upside-Down Curriculum allows you to get extensive classroom learning and hands-on experience with industry professionals in your first year, which gives you the real-world skills and qualifications needed to begin taking an internship or externship as early as the summer before your sophomore year.
- Champlain's Career Collaborative will help you develop your professional résumé and hone your interview skills. Early on in your studies, you'll be able to show employers what you know.
- Your professors will become your reliable mentors, pointing out the strategic academic and co-curricular activities that will help you build your professional skill set and enhance your résumé.
Local and national employers turn to Champlain for college interns because they are better prepared to work in professional environments than the majority of their peers from other institutions. Many Champlain graduates receive full- and part-time job offers from the organizations where they first took their internships or externships.