Study Skills aims to help students identify and use effective learning strategies through the application of practical skills to become effective learners. The course shows students how to create and use study systems, think critically, become active readers/listeners, and use effective techniques to manage time and organize information for understanding and efficient retrieval. In this course, students will learn how to identify and use their learning styles to achieve expertise in their content area and to apply these skills to their current and future education and career pursuits.

Social Studies methodology is built on the constructivist philosophy. In this course, student teachers will be exposed to strategies that will help them to develop lessons where they directly involve the learner. This course is designed to provide interaction with the National Curriculum for Primary Schools. Conceptual knowledge, critical thinking, social skill development and positive self-esteem will be promoted. It will equip student teachers with the necessary knowledge, skills and attitudes to effectively plan for learning and delivery of the curriculum.

The Teaching Practicum course is designed using structured field-based experiences that integrate the theory and practice of teaching in the Belizean primary school system. During this first field experience, student-teachers will get the opportunity to examine, through critical reflection, their emerging beliefs about teaching and learning and to assimilate new knowledge, insights, and understanding into their conceptual framework.

     Student-teachers will engage in a minimum of fifteen (15) hours of class/seminar. With a partner, student-teachers will spend a minimum of thirty (30) hours participating in classroom experience, interacting with and observing school teachers and students. In cases where permissible, student teachers will rotate to observe exemplary teachers, thus gaining maximum experiences from various professionals.

     While the clinical experience of this course is expected to be carried out with a partner, at the discretion of the institution, a student teacher may work independently. This may happen where circumstances would make it extremely challenging for the student teacher to work with a partner. Such circumstances may include, but is not limited to, the following:

• The student-teacher is working full-time in a primary school

• The student-teacher lives in a remote area

• There is an odd number of student-teachers enrolled in the course at a given time

• One partner unexpectedly withdraws from the course