"Lived-In": Embedding Teacher Education in Middle & Secondary Classrooms

An overview of a clinically intensive “lived-in” model to teacher education is provided. For sixteen weeks, teacher candidates enrolled in their methods courses mentor, tutor, and teach academically vulnerable middle and high school students, all identified as the school’s most academically vulnerable, in urban schools. Under the supervision of their professor and a cooperating teacher, methods students plan and take turns implementing rigorous and individualized instructional units in classrooms. Methods professors deliver instruction on-site in schools working alongside cooperating teachers, and instructors are consistently present and visible. This paper describes how two methods instructors, one in secondary social studies and in special education, successfully employed lived-in models to better prepare the next wave of educators while also empowering them to deliver individualized and high quality instruction to some of our area’s most vulnerable urban youth.