D738: Student Teaching II in Elementary Education

D738 is Student Teaching II in Elementary Education at Western Governors University, the second half of the student teaching series and a mandatory course for initial licensure candidates.

This page looks at the course through pacing and professional growth. You carry a classroom placement and a set of required synchronous sessions at the same time, and the written work has to show that the two connect. Many candidates find the time management harder than the teaching itself.

The Competencies in Plain Language

WGU's guide lists five competencies. Read each as a question you must be able to answer with evidence:

• Instruction and assessment: can you teach content well and check that pupils learned it?
• Learning and developmental patterns: do your choices fit the children's stage and needs?
• Reflection and collaboration: do you use feedback and work with colleagues to improve?
• Professional development plan: can you turn your reflection into targeted next steps?
• Professional dispositions: do you behave ethically and professionally in every interaction?

The final evaluation is the piece that determines licensure eligibility, so treat everything else in the course as preparation for it.

A Planning Table for the Placement

WGU does not publish a weekly schedule, so use this as a self-made structure and adapt it to your placement dates.

Turning Sessions into Evidence

The synchronous sessions are not a box to tick. Their themes are the same ones your development plan should address, so use them as thinking time.

Self-care deserves the same seriousness. A development plan that names a workable routine for workload shows maturity, not weakness.

Balancing Teaching, Sessions and Writing

The most common reason candidates feel behind is not a lack of skill but a lack of slack. A placement day is full, the evenings fill with lesson planning, and the synchronous sessions sit on top. Writing then gets squeezed into whatever is left.

A workable pattern is to write small and often. After each teaching day, spend ten minutes on three prompts: what did pupils learn, what surprised me, what will I change tomorrow. Those notes become the raw material of the final reflection, so nothing has to be reconstructed from memory.

The competency tracker is simply a page with the five competencies down the side and a column for evidence dated by week. If a row is empty after the middle of the placement, you know where to focus.

Where Students Get Stuck

• Calendar clashes. Placement hours, sessions and writing collide in the same weeks. Block them all at the start.
• Vague plan goals. "Improve classroom management" is too broad; name a specific routine and a way to measure it.
• Thin collaboration evidence. Record planning conversations with your mentor and colleagues as they happen.
• Ignoring earlier feedback. Evaluators expect progress from Student Teaching I.

Study Tips for D738

• Put session dates in your calendar before anything else.
• Write a five-line entry after each teaching day; assemble the reflection from these.
• Use the competency wording as sub-headings in written work.
• Limit your development plan to three priorities with one action each.

How We Help with D738

Send your prompts, drafts, observation feedback and schedule. We offer model examples, editing feedback and planning support. For wider reflective writing advice, see our reflective essay help guide.

GradeEssays is independent of Western Governors University. We do not attend sessions, teach in your placement or access your WGU portal. Our work is study support, to be used within WGU's academic integrity rules, written from scratch with free revisions and a full refund if late.