Majors are required to take three field experience courses through the College of Education (FETE 201, FETE 302, FETE 402). These courses are designed to give students experience with diverse communities, the elementary school classroom, and the secondary school classroom. Specifically, FETE 302 provides opportunities to reflect on teaching and assessment practices, to try out individual and group lessons and assignments, and to reflectively interpret current classroom practices as they relate to assessment and curriculum classes. FETE 402 provides opportunities to teach in a diverse classroom setting, to apply teaching strategies introduced and demonstrated in their methods class (PHY 325), and to plan and implement instruction based on student needs.
All students have three pre-student teaching placements and one student teaching placement. They routinely get experience in both their major and minor content area during these times.
During the past 5 years we have had 5 minors take MTTC; 4 were Math majors and one was a General Science major. That is, while it is possible to major in, for instance, a social science and minor in physics, we have no evidence that any of our secondary education physics minors have done so. Therefore, as far as our physics minors are concerned, we believe that much of their training in the area of their major is relevant to their minor as well.
Additionally, though not required, some of our majors are hired by our department as tutors for our introductory classes.