The university supervisor provides the link between the university and the participating school districts. The university supervisor is involved in orientation, supervision, evaluation, and overall concern for the program.
Individualized teacher intern programs are managed by university supervisors who are trained in the Teacher Intern Assessment Instrument (TIAI) and the Impact on Student Learning (ISL) and are experienced in various fields of specialization. All elementary teacher interns are under the direct supervision of staff members who have specialized in elementary education.
Every subject matter department in the university with curricula in teacher education provides at least one supervisor to work with the teacher interns from the intern’s department.
The university supervisor is expected to visit each teacher intern a minimum of five times while the student is actually teaching a class. The university supervisor has the responsibility for evaluating the teacher intern using the TIAI scoring guide and the ISL rubrics. Through observations of the teacher intern engaged in instruction, the university supervisor provides feedback to ensure that the teacher intern passes all parts of the TIAI. In some cases, a teacher intern may pass all the indicators during one visit, while other teacher interns may require further observations to complete all the indicators. Additional visits will be made to continue to provide feedback to the teacher intern. Lesson plans and records of work are checked on each visit. Requests for observation of specific lessons may be made at any time by the cooperating teacher or teacher intern. The cooperating teacher or teacher intern may call for a conference with the university supervisor when the need arises.