Frequently Used Terms

FREQUENTLY USED TERMS

• Cadre Coordinator:  The UNT employee responsible for facilitating the EC-6 and 4-8 ELAR/Social Studies clinical experience. The Cadre Coordinator's responsibilities include: facilitating open communication among the interns, supervisors, mentors, and UNT faculty, mediating any concerns or problems during clinical practice.
• Canvas:  An online learning management system   used to collect and store the assessments used to evaluate candidates' knowledge, skills, and dispositions relevant to program standards and objectives, and to collect and store TEA-required documentation.
• Clinical Practice Office:  UNT office responsible for the coordination of all clinical field experiences related to initial teacher certification.
• Clinical Teacher:  A teacher candidate who is in their final semester completing clinical student teaching.
• Cooperating Teacher:  A certified teacher with at least three years of teaching experience in a partner district who is hosting a teacher candidate during Early Field Experience/Block B or Clinical Student Teaching. CTs teach, support, and monitor a clinical teacher's growth into the teaching profession.
• Director of Clinical Practice:  UNT employee responsible for coordinating UNT clinical experiences with partner districts.
• Field Supervisor:  UNT employee assigned to each clinical teacher, responsible for on-site monitoring, mentoring, and evaluation during the clinical teaching semester.
• Growth Plan:  A Growth Plan is a written form initiated by university or district personnel when a teacher candidate displays a lack of progress that documents expectations that must be demonstrated by a teacher candidate to succeed in clinical teaching and be recommended to TEA for certification.
• Intern:  A graduate-level (Post-Bacc) candidate on a TEA-issued Intern or Probationary Certificate. Serves as the Teacher of Record while completing Practicum. This option is not available to Undergraduate students per TAC rule.
• Partner Districts:  Districts and campuses that host teacher candidates and collaborate with UNT's Educator Preparation Program
• “Post-Bacc”: (Post-baccalaureate). The Post-Bacc teacher education program is only available to candidates with an earned bachelor's degree.
• Internship: Candidates who have a Texas Education Agency Intern or Probationary Certificate do not clinical teach, they complete a full-year internship as the teacher of record in a school district.
• Professional Development Sequence/School Cadre (The Model is for EC-6 and 4-8 ELAR and Social Studies teacher candidates.):  Core group of preservice teachers assigned to a specific UNT partner school district for Block B (observation hours) and Block C (clinical teaching). Cadre members are pre-service teacher candidates, cooperating teachers, a Cadre Coordinator, and UNT field supervisors.
• Block B:  First semester of intensive clinical practice, 2 days (one full day, one half day) for 14 weeks for all undergraduate candidates in the EC-6/4-8 programs.
• Block C: Also called “Clinical Teaching” Six (6) Semester credit hours. For undergraduate EC-6 and 4-8 ELAR/SS candidates. Last semester before graduation.    Clinical teachers are placed in school district classrooms for no fewer than 14 weeks, 5 days/week for 100% of the district's designated school day.
• Student Advising Office (SAO):  UNT office responsible for advising undergraduate EC-6, 4-8 ELAR/SS, and All-Level teacher education candidates (except music & art who are advised in their home college).
• Texas Education Agency (TEA): State Agency external to UNT that issues teaching certificates to eligible completers of UNT's Educator Preparation Program.
• TExES Success Office (TSO):  UNT office responsible for the following tasks: Disseminating information about TExES state certification exams, Administering TExES practice tests to candidates, Documenting and reporting TExES results.
• Texas-Teacher Evaluation Support System (T-TESS): TEA required formal evaluation of clinical teachers completed by UNT field supervisors at least three times during clinical teaching.  Failure to achieve a score of Developing or higher on each domain on the final evaluation will result in a grade of NP for one or both clinical teaching courses.
• UNT Flexible Lesson Plan: UNT requires that all lesson plans used for formal T-TESS evaluations be submitted using the using the UNT Lesson Plan format. Clinical Teachers and Internship students will submit to UNT Field Supervisor at least 3 days prior to the scheduled evaluation date.  Each lesson plan must be approved by the field supervisor before the lesson is conducted.