Education Field Office

Education Field Office

ODU's Education Field Office organizes and administers all field and clinical experiences related to Ohio Dominican University’s teacher education programs.

Ohio Dominican partners with local school districts and teachers to provide quality and diverse field experiences for our future educators.

While in the classrooms of experienced mentor teachers, our students develop a context for learning, enhance their skills, reflect on dispositions for working with others, and relate theory to practice. 

The Division of Education strives to provide students with a variety of placements, including those in urban, suburban, rural and charter/private school settings. 

ODU’s Field Placement Coordinator and the school district administrators arrange all field and clinical placements.

Students working toward earning K-12 licensure (Visual Arts, TESOL, IS) are required to have field experiences in a variety of grade levels even if plan to teach at a specific level. 

Students completing field/clinical placements will work with licensed educators in at least his/her third year of teaching. District administrators recommend cooperating teachers to be capable and willing mentors.

  • Students are not permitted to contact schools directly to request placements.
  • Students are responsible for providing their own transportation to all field/clinical placements.
  • ODU pre-service teachers are not permitted to complete student teaching placements in buildings where immediate family members attend or are employed.
  • Students planning to student teach must complete an Application for Student Teaching in Tk20, the semester prior to student teaching.

Students who plan to student teach in a field/clinical placement during the fall semester must complete an application during the end of February/early March the previous spring semester. 

For those students teaching in the spring, the application should be completed in early October. 

Please submit in writing any special requests. 

ODU Education students who participate in field/clinical experiences must have updated FBI and BCII background checks on file in the Division of Education prior to starting their placements each semester.  

Background checks are valid for 365 days from the time they are completed and must remain valid through the duration of the field placement. Failure to complete this task in a timely manner could result in your withdraw from a course that has a field component. 

Ohio law requires all individuals to have a baseline BCI and FBI criminal background check at the time they apply for their first Ohio educator license, certificate or permit. 

The Ohio Department of Education does not accept paper copies. All background check reports must be submitted electronically directly from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation.  

Therefore, when students complete their background checks, they are to check the Ohio Department of Education box under the ‘Reason Fingerprinted’ part of the application.

When completing the background check, be sure to use the following codes:

BCI: 3319 39B3

FBI: 3319 39

If the correct codes are not used, another background check is required before entering the placement.

Students are responsible for the cost associated with having their criminal background checks updated. Students with previous convictions can access this link to the Ohio Department of Education to see if they are eligible to obtain a teaching license in the state of Ohio.

Hard copies of the FBI/BCII background checks should be mailed to:

Ohio Dominican University
Attn: Bonnie Miller
Division of Education
1216 Sunbury Road
Columbus, OH 43219

ODU’s 2017 Ohio Educator Preparation Performance Report, display of candidate performance data.

View Report

Education Majors at ODU