Information for Clinical Teachers

MEES Observation

DESE requires all teacher candidates in the state of Missouri to be evaluated using the MEES Teacher Candidate Assessment Rubric by their university clinical educator as well as by their K-12 clinical teacher. The university requires clinical teachers and clinical educators evaluate their teacher candidates 4 times per semester: 2 informally and 2 formally. Two formal observations, one formative and one summative, will be collected via MyCOE. Clinical teachers should provide regular feedback to their teacher candidates on their performance. The clinical teacher and the clinical educator's summative evaluation scores will be added together, and must meet a minimum composite score of 42 in order for the university to recommend a teacher candidate for certification. 

Clinical teachers are required to attend an in-person or online MEES training prior to evaluating a teacher candidate. Please review UMSL's Online MEES Training.

Learn how to log into MyCOE and complete a Mid-Semester or End-of-Semester Evaluation.

The Clinical Teachers in the studio schools model will provide important and timely mentorship and coaching to the teacher candidates. The clinical teacher should help scaffold the teacher candidate’s ability to plan lessons and to identify evidence of student learning, including how to use data to inform instruction.

The Clinical Teacher should provide routine feedback to the teacher candidates, and the following Clinical Teacher-lead questions can guide the discussions:

Prebriefing with Teacher Candidates. 

  • With regards to your lesson, what do you plan to explore in your content today? What do you plan to explore in instructional strategies and pedagogy today?
  • How do you envision your lesson unfolding? What will happen first, second and third as you teach your lesson today?
  • What is the one thing you want your students to learn and know at the conclusion of your lesson, and how will you know and what evidence will you have?
  • Can you predict where students might have challenges and make errors during your lesson?
  • How is the instruction you are planning responsive to support the needs of ALL learners?  Multilingual learners? Learners with varied abilities? Culturally diverse learners?

Debriefing with Teacher Candidates.

  • What worked well with your lesson? How do you know?
  • What were the challenges in your lesson?

Clinical Teacher should use these Look-For’s as a guide for mentoring, and discussion points:

  • Teacher candidate is always highly engaged in the class.
  • Teacher candidate knows the names of all students.
  • Teacher candidate interacts with students in a responsive manner as they enter the classroom.
  • Teacher candidate identifies needs of students and implements responsive strategies based on information about these students.
  • Teacher candidate demonstrates a confident and effective teaching presence.
  • Teacher candidate is aware and responsive to behavior in the entire classroom.
  • Teacher candidate waits until students are listening and attentive before giving directions or providing instruction.

For daily matters, please see your clinical educator, or contact Stephanie Koscielski, Senior Director of Clinical Experience and School Partnerships at koscielskis@umsl.edu.

The College of Education thanks you for your dedication to mentoring the future education leaders!