Teacher Candidates Learn Valuable Lessons from Burroughs-Molette Faculty

The time spent as a teacher candidate is vitally important for any future educator. It’s a great way to see how things that are learned in class are practiced in real K-12 classrooms. That’s part of the preparation of being a great teacher, and why teacher candidates from the College of Coastal Georgia are learning from some of Glynn County’s finest educators, like the teachers at Burroughs-Molette Elementary School.

The teacher candidates assigned to Burroughs-Molette are juniors who are earning dual certification in early childhood education and special education. Their program at Burrough-Molette partly follows a clinical model, where they spend five to six weeks in class at the College, then four weeks at the elementary school.

Professor of Practice of Special Education Dr. Caroline Geiken spoke very highly of the faculty and staff at Burroughs-Molette.

“Principal Mavis Jaudon and her whole faculty have been so great to us,” Geiken said. “They’ve opened their arms to us and gave us our own meeting room, which is really special.”

The teacher candidates arrive at the school and have a mini lesson before going to their assigned classrooms. Mini lessons focused on knowing your learner, accommodations and modifications for students with special needs, and scaffolding. After the mini lesson, Coastal students then go to kindergarten through fifth grade classrooms in pairs, and work with small groups or individual students.

Fifth Grade Math Teacher Maurice Figueroa believes that having teacher candidates in the classroom benefits both the teacher and the teacher candidates.

“Being once a teacher candidate in college, and as a teacher now, looking back on it, it gives them a realistic experience. It definitely helps them increase their knowledge of classroom management,” Figueroa said.  “Differentiating is the toughest thing to learn as a teacher. They are learning how to differentiate now, because the students they’re working with are SPED (special education students), so they’re giving them the accommodations for their test right now, and learning multiple ways to do that. A lot of people are coming into the classrooms thinking differentiation is giving one a simpler assignment and one a harder assignment, when that’s not necessarily the case.”

Figueroa said he loves having the extra help in the classroom and sharing what he’s learned from his 12 years of teaching with future educators.

It’s also been a great experience for Coastal Georgia teacher candidates Anasia Holland and Maria Kollinger, who’ve been assigned to Figueroa’s class. Holland likes seeing the different teaching methods.

“You can see how it affects students and how the accommodations and modifications can improve their success within school,” Holland said. “The teachers are great, super helpful, and give great advice as well.”

What stuck out the most to Kollinger was how supportive the teachers and administrators are of each other.

“Everybody is here to help everybody. No one is left on their own,” Kollinger said.

Holland and Kollinger both commended Figueroa on his teaching style, saying he keeps his students engaged with math and sets good boundaries with them.

Teacher candidates Alexis Duncan, Molly Rowell, Olivia Terry, and Daisy Reddish also shared their experiences of learning at Burroughs-Molette. Duncan said it’s been eye-opening to see the many different ways one can teach, the different learning styles of students, and what goes into effective classroom management. 

Rowell has been in a classroom before as a substitute teacher, and talked about what it’s like now to work with a teacher and have more interaction with students.

“Now, I get to talk with the kids and find out what they need specifically. I think about their questions and understand how they think,” Rowell said. “As a substitute, I may give them a worksheet to do, but now, I’m learning that all kids can’t learn from a worksheet. You have to spend time with them, modeling how to do things, which is scaffolding.”

For Terry, one of her favorite experiences so far has been getting to know a student named Kevin.

“He’s very shy, but when we did an activity with drawing, he opened up a little bit and told me that he wanted to be a teacher and a police officer. He loves coming to school because he likes to learn,” Terry said.

Reddish appreciates seeing the variety of students in each class who are at different learning levels.

“In our practicum, we worked with students as a whole, but here, we get to pull individual students back and see who they are individually, and understand how important it is to get to know your students,” Reddish said.

Like Figueroa, third grade teacher Keisha Hamilton is also passing on her knowledge to teacher-candidates.

“I’m passing on what’s been given to me. I had great mentors—and still do. Whatever has been poured into me, I want to pour into them,” Hamilton said.

One thing she wished she had learned as a teacher candidate is when to say “no” and leave work matters at the job. After work, Hamilton, like many teachers, would go home thinking about her students and how to better them—doing research at home and looking for more resources.

“It’s easy to get burned out, and I think that’s a lot of what’s going on with teachers leaving the profession. Sometimesit’s overwhelming and it’s a lot, but I think it’s because they didn’t know how to set those boundaries,” Hamilton said.

She’s shared that knowledge and experience with not only the teacher candidates, but also her fellow teachers and school administrators.

“I hope this program, the partnership between the College and Glynn County School System, continues. Not only is it beneficial for them, but us as well,” Hamilton said. “As the years go on, they’re in the classroom learning new material that they can pour into us. No one ever gets to the point where they’re not teachable.”

The College’s middle grades education teacher candidates are learning from faculty at Needwood Middle School.