The primary mission of the Office of Clinical/Field-Based Instruction and Licensure is to provide a high quality field experience program for teacher education candidates in all majors during the last semester of their teacher preparation program. The teaching internship is the culminating field experience of the teacher education program in which the prospective teacher works full time in two 8-week placements with different age groups and supervising teachers or in one placement with several preparations. Specific assignments are made by the Office of Clinical/Field-Based Instruction in cooperation with local public school district administrators and professional staff. During the internship, the teacher intern observes, assists and gradually assumes full responsibility for classroom instruction. The internship is considered by many to be the most important phase of professional preparation; this is the time the prospective teacher applies and tests the principles, theories, and methods learned in the teacher education program.