UC Program

Cincinnati Professional Practice Schools and the Cincinnati Initiative for Teacher Education

For its part, the University of Cincinnati has designed new 5-year teacher education programs involving dual degrees in both Education and Arts and Sciences and culminating in a year-long internship in a Professional Practice School.

Recently, the Cincinnati Initiative has been identified as an exemplary teacher education program by the National Commission for Teaching and America's Future and has been featured in Education Week, TIME, and in The New York Times (read this one, if you want to read my interview).

Compared to our old 10-week student teaching experience, each of our fifth year students spends a whole academic year (36 weeks) employed by the school district as a Student Intern in a Professional Practice School. Each Student Intern teaches half-time as a member of a Professional Teaching Team made up of 3 to 4 interns and 2 or 3 career teachers.  Our goal for the teaching internship is to blur the transition between university studies and the first year of teaching by creating an initial year of teaching that creates a doable teaching workload with extensive mentoring, support, and assessment by teachers serving as teacher educators.