Patton College of Education Professional Internships
The Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation recommends that clinical experiences be put at the center of teacher education. This is an affirmation of our belief that teaching is learned best through doing. The Patton College of Education is dedicated to working with our partners to continuously improve our Teacher Candidates’ clinical experiences. We support and offer an intensive clinical model for teacher preparation.
Please see below for information about professional internships by degree, a link to the comprehensive guidebook, information about the edTPA, awards for professional interns, and travel reimbursements for eligible OHIO students.
Please remember, all Teacher Candidates MUST complete a Professional Internship in Teaching Application upon receiving Advanced Standing. This application will initiate your data for our database. Without an application on file, you will not receive information pertinent to this capstone experience. This application needs to be submitted by October 1st, one year prior to the year of your professional internship.
Professional Internships
Internship experiences typically take place during the final undergraduate year.
- For Middle Childhood Education, Adolescent-to-Young-Adult Education, Special Education, Health/Physical Education, Modern Languages, and Family and Consumer Science Education majors, students will complete one full internship year, with two semesters in the same setting for their Professional Internship I and Professional Internship II.
- For Early Childhood and Elementary Education majors, students will complete one full internship year, with one semester in a part-time placement in a pre-K setting for their Pre-Primary Professional Internship, and the other semester in a full-time placement in a K-5 setting for their Primary Professional Internship.
- For Music Education majors, students will complete one full internship semester for their Professional Internship.
Guidebooks
For extensive information about the Professional Internship, please consult the following document:
edTPA
The edTPA is completed during the Professional Internship. Please see the dedicated edTPA page for more information.
Awards for Professional Interns
Lester D. Crow Educational Award
This award was established to honor one of the College’s distinguished graduates, Lester D. Crow (AB ’23, LHD ’72). It is given to four graduating seniors who possess high scholastic averages, strong moral and ethical values and show exceptional promise as teachers during their clinical experiences. The winners of this award are selected from nominations submitted by faculty, principals, mentor teachers, or university clinical educators. Click the link to access the nomination form.
Congratulations to the 2024 Winners:
- Maria Difrango
- Joselyn Moquete
- Hannah Reinschell
- Jarrett Stamper
Travel Reimbursement
The Patton College of Education is committed to placing teacher candidates in a variety of classroom settings. This sometimes requires students to travel outside of the Athens community. To help mitigate those travel costs, the Dean is offering two types of travel awards.
- The Rural/Urban Collaborative Travel Reimbursement - One core value of The Patton College of Education is embracing diversity. The Rural/Urban Collaborative is a manifestation of that value. It is intended to best prepare teacher candidates for a career in education by fostering a deeper awareness of how to examine, understand, and assess a variety of cultural experiences and issues based on gender, race, social class, and geographic locality. The Dean offers a one-time $25 travel award to Athens Campus students who must travel to Columbus City Schools to participate in this experience.
- Professional Internship Travel Reimbursement- The professional internship, the capstone experience in the teacher education program, requires daily travel to a placement school. Some professional interns will be sent to schools outside of the immediate area. To ease the cost, the Dean is providing a one-time $50 travel award for full-time interns (PI II) who must drive more than 30 miles to reach their placement sites. Professional interns who drive more than 40 miles will be provided a one-time $50 travel award during the first semester (PI I), and a one-time $150 travel award during their second semester (PI II). The distance is calculated by Google Maps from Patton Hall (formerly McCracken Hall) to the placement school, or for regional campus students, from the professional intern's home to the school site.