The education program provides you with a minimum of five direct experiences in the classroom, starting with an observation component during your first core course. As a student, you'll have the freedom to arrange student-teaching experiences around the state and beyond, while BVU's active relationships with area school districts and education organizations provide many possibilities within driving distance of campus. BVU students have even student-taught internationally in South Korea, Rome, Brazil, Italy, and Greece. The goal is variety: you'll be encouraged to student-teach in socio-economically varied locations to provide you with experiences as practical as they are diverse.

Locally, you'll have student teaching opportunities at Storm Lake Elementary School (new school building opened in 2009), Storm Lake Middle School, Storm Lake High School and St. Mary's Catholic School (K-12). Other common student-teaching field experiences include placements in the nearby community school districts of Alta, Cherokee, Newell-Fonda, Schaller-Crestland, and Sioux Central.

The Storm Lake school district is statistically among the most ethnically diverse in Iowa with many members of the community hailing from Mexico, Sudan, El Salvador, and Southeast Asia. Over 70 percent of the Storm Lake Community School District's students are non-Caucasian and over 40 percent speak a first language other than English. Storm Lake offers an ideal environment to hone skills for working with diverse populations that will be even more useful as the world grows increasingly interconnected - and the Midwest and America grow ever more manifold in their heritages.