Registering
The course name is Fieldwork and the course numbers are
830:396:04 (fall) or 830:397:04 (spring). You should keep
one day open during the week (M-F) from 8:45 AM to 2:50 PM
as your day at the Center (Douglass Developmental
Disabilities Center / DDDC). You will sign up for that at
the first Thursday lecture. Most students get their first
choice of day, but it helps if you have more than one day
possible.
Location
The DDDC School is on the Gibbons Campus of Douglass
College at 25 Gibbons
Circle. The Ryders Lane facility is at 151 Ryders
Lane.
What will you do?
The course involves lots of direct work with a child,
adolescent, adult, or small group of learners with autism.
You would be assigned to a single classroom and usually
there is just one undergraduate student in the class along
with a full complement of teaching staff. As a result, you
get a lot of very good supervision in exchange for giving
your time, energy and caring to the learners. You will
carry out a variety of different teaching programs with
them. The details vary with the person, but most of the
children, adolescents, and adults have programs for speech
and language, social skills and play, and for self-help and
life independence. All of the details of those programs are
carefully worked out and we show you how to use them. We
don't expect you to have any experience - it's our job to
teach you how to do the teaching.
In addition to the day spent working with the learners, there are also the Thursday 5th period lecture/demonstration/discussion meetings. The other assignments are less time intensive and include a multiple-choice exam on the book and lectures, and a couple of very short papers. See the class syllabus for more details.
Most people who take the course find it both interesting and personally satisfying. It is different from most traditional academic classes in that the bulk of your time is spent doing "hands-on" work with children, so you do have to like children or older students with disabilities. Some people find the experience so rewarding that they return for a second semester where they continue to work in a classroom and also enjoy a small advanced seminar.
Fieldwork Course Fall Syllabus 2007
Fieldwork Course Syllabus Spring 2008
If you have other questions feel free to contact Professor Harris.
sharris@rci.rutgers.edu
732-932-3017 x155
