Early Childhood & Elementary Education

The Office of Field Placement accepts and evaluates requests for field observations, clinical experiences, and student teaching. The Dean's Office in the School of Education provides certification information related to Hofstra University's New York state-approved teacher, administrative, and pupil personnel preparation programs.

Programs that lead to New York teacher certification require a minimum of 100 hours of fieldwork as well as student teaching. Hofstra goes up and beyond the minimum. In fact, before we send our students out into the field to do their student teaching, they have typically had 250 hours of clinical experience in an elementary school setting.

HNET is an active group of Hofstra University pre-service teachers and alumni of Hofstra's undergraduate and graduate elementary education programs, as well as their colleagues.

HNET exists to provide a professional community for elementary teachers and teachers-to-be who are associated with Hofstra. Activities include an annual conference; regular discussions on issues of importance to new and veteran teachers; social events; and book discussion groups. While HNET is a valuable support center both our undergraduate and graduate students, it continues to be be a resource they can depend on long after they graduate.

Hofstra University’s student chapter of ASCD (the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) has the opportunity every year to attend and present at the national organization’s annual conference. At Hofstra, the ASCD Student Chapter Program includes both undergraduate and graduate students. Membership is designed to accelerate the pre-service development of educators and student teachers and enhance their self-identification as education professionals and leaders.

In several school districts on Long Island where Hofstra University's School of Education has developed school-university partnerships, students complete their formal student teaching placements in the fall semester and then segue into a paid internship role for the remainder of the school year through the end of the spring term.

While serving in the spring, interns provide academic intervention services and/or tutorial services to district students while continuing to develop their pedagogical skills under the direction of district teachers and administrators. Employment as interns provides valuable clinically rich experiences at the conclusion of the teacher training program and gives interns solid experience on which to continue building a resume as they work to secure a first teaching position.