Are you interested in teaching, but aren’t ready for the commitment of an internship? An alternative option would be to take the CE Intro to Education class taught by Melody Beutler. It is a class that gives students the opportunity to experience a classroom setting, earn high school elective credit, and earn 3 college credits through Weber State’s Concurrent Enrollment Program.

In the CE Intro to Education class students have to opportunity to observe other teachers and teach lessons themselves. Students are given 12 opportunities to observe teachers from elementary schools, junior highs, and high schools. The students schedule these appointments with the teachers and use this opportunity to learn what they like about various teaching styles and what they dislike as well. The students are required to go to at least 2 elementary classes, 2 junior high class, and 2 high school class and the remaining 6 are up to the students to decide. The requirement for all grade levels is a good requirement because a student may think they want to be a kindergarten teacher, but might come to find out that the environment of a kindergarten class is too innocent or immature for them. It gives students a real opportunity to find out what they might want to do.

Students are also given an opportunity to teach a lesson while participating in this class. Mrs. Beutler has an awesome way for students to do this. There is criteria and lessons that need to be covered while taking the course, so rather than teaching them herself she gives the students the opportunity to teach those lessons. She assigns the lesson you will teach at the beginning of the semester and requires that you make a power-point for the class to follow along with to take notes, that there is active discussion during the lesson, and that there is an activity to involve the class. You are given a partner to teach this lesson with and get a feel for the style that you would want to teach.

Many students have loved taking this class because this class has really given them a feel for the kind of teacher they aspire to be. They understand what subjects’ interest more and what forms of teaching effective and which ones are aren’t. They learn that keeping students interested is a key component to teaching, especially teaching teenagers. They have a better understanding of how they might want to teach one day and they understand the different teaching styles.