UGA student and student teacher Carly Cantrell helps freshman Hana Chaney in math class. The two student teachers in math department co-chair Heather Julian’s class are going through a long program, so that they can get their degrees. “This was our fourth semester of Emac classes and that is strictly student teaching. So in order for us to get our degrees we have to go through student teaching,” UGA student and student teacher Sara Fagan said. Photo by Aneesa Conine-Nakano.
By OWEN CHURCHWELL – Staff Writer
Clarke Central High School’s math department is host to 17 student teachers for the second term of the 2014-15 school year.
On Jan. 6, Clarke Central High School received student teachers from the University of Georgia, who will remain at CCHS for 14 weeks. The math department classrooms were given the most student teachers out of all the other classrooms.
“Mr. Henry, Mr. McCullough and myself each have a pair of student teachers,” math department teacher Heather Julian said.
The student teacher program at UGA covers not only local high schools in Athens, but includes high schools in neighboring counties and across the state.
“There are 17 of us and there are only two groups from our cohort that are placed at Clarke Central. Other ones are in Madison County (High School), Oconee County (High School) and Winder-Barrow (High School),” UGA student and CCHS student teacher Sara Fagan said.
According to Fagan, the addition of student teachers has been helpful to the classrooms. With three teachers in these classes with two student teachers instead of one has let the classroom be a lot more productive.
“It is definitely better to have more teachers for the students,” Fagan said. “When you have three teachers in here, we can monitor the kids and we can also answer more questions quicker. We are often having more engagement time which means we can get more students on task and we can help in the management system of that.”
In addition to being a significant help towards the students, UGA student and student teacher Carly Cantrell thinks that the student teachers have also been able to help themselves become better teachers.
“I think that when all three of us (teachers and student teachers) are collaborating, we all learn differently, just like all students in the classroom all learn differently,”Cantrell said.
Although there are now many student teachers at CCHS, prior the teachers had to go through a process in order to obtain them.
“All of us (CCHS teachers wanting to obtain student teachers) said that we are (willing) to have student teachers. Our administrators have to approve that we have the student teacher and then UGA sets us up with student teachers,” Julian said.
However Julian believes the process has been worth it and that it has helped out the students as well as the math department.
“It’s awesome because its gives me new ideas as they collaborate with me, Julian said. “We can monitor, we can answer questions, so for me I think it helps me teach and it helps my students learn more.”
