Middle Childhood licensure programs have been designed to meet the growing needs of the late-elementary and pre-high school students (grades 4-9). The middle school philosophy promotes the transition from the self-contained classroom typical of the elementary grades to the content specialization of the high school curriculum. As a Middle Childhood Education major, you will specialize in two of four areas-language arts, mathematics, science, or social studies, and will be licensed to teach reading within your grade band. The Middle Childhood Education program gives you a variety of practical classroom experiences throughout your program. As soon as your first year, you will get a feel for teaching by spending time in school classrooms. Your second year contains a block of courses in which significant time is spent in two different classroom settings and in the third year of the program, you will take a block of methodology of teaching classes in which you spend a quarter of the term in schools, working directly with teachers. Finally, during your fourth year, you will spend an entire semesters as a student teacher (or intern) in the schools and will be regularly visited by a Miami student-teaching supervisor for consultation and guidance.<br> <br>Teaching requires such knowledge as the characteristics of learners, social structures of schools, families and communities, assessment techniques, classroom practices, law, statistics, electronic support systems, curriculum, and resources. In the professional education sequence, you investigate this knowledge and combine it with extensive experiences in a variety of schools. As you progress through the professional education sequence, you spend increasing time with experienced teachers in a variety of urban, suburban, and rural schools. Your experiences will range from helping individual students in the schools to being responsible for an entire classroom of students.