The Virtual Practicum – an invitation
WiER’s Virtual Practicum provides online practice teaching placements for pre-service teacher candidates (TCs). Student teacher candidates participate online alongside professional writers, teachers and students, who work with original writing and commentary posted by students in participating schools. A key feature of The Virtual Practicum is that TCs consider professional implications for literacy, arts, mentorship and online learning, while engaged in this work themselves.
Many thanks to the teacher candidates who have participated in previous years. Thanks to their excellent work, samples of which are available as special teacher education editions of the Wired Writers Podcast, we were encouraged to increase the number of internships available.
The Virtual Practicum program has operated in pre-service programs at several faculties of education in Canada. If your institution is interested in working with the program, please contact us.
Please review the file attachments, below, to learn more about WiER in general, and The Virtual Practicum initiative in particular. Please note that these documents are provided as examples, and may or may not refer to the current year.
- What We Do provides a quick overview of the program’s breadth and reach in the education and arts communities. The “In Their Own Words” section offers quotations from students, writers, teachers and others.
- Details & Highlights offers a quick overview.
- Loose Among the Literati considers WiER from the perspective of Sudha Takaki, a pre-service teacher candidate, in an article published in Education Canada. (Co-authored with Trevor Owen.)
- Learning to Select Enter considers WiER from the perspective of Christine Uy, a former student in the program, in an article published in Education Canada. Now an Ontario Certified Teacher at the elementary level, Christine has maintained her involvement in WiER, serving part-time as WiER’s Program and Research Assistant. (Co-authored with Trevor Owen.)
- WiER: An Innovative Online Writers’ Salon Marks 20-plus Years appears in a special edition (fall, 2009) of Education Canada, which focuses on innovation. By Trevor Owen, WiER Founder, with Jennifer Lewington, previously the Globe’s national education reporter.