Mission
Our mission is to facilitate student-centered education designed to prepare life-long reflective teachers who build positive learning environments for all learners based on current best practices. To promote the application of theory to practice, we integrate a standards-based, interdisciplinary curriculum with extensive field experiences in culturally diverse settings.
- Student-centered education
Instructional practices that facilitate each learner's active construction
of new knowledge, allow students ownership of their own progress, and take
into consideration the individual needs of each learner.
- Life-long reflective
teachers
Teachers who throughout their careers continually analyze and seek to improve
the methods, materials, and consequences of their classroom practices in
order to enhance their students' learning.
- Current best practices
Those instructional and interpersonal strategies grounded in research and
presently recognized by the field as most effective in promoting student
achievement and well-being, including but not limited to constructivist
pedagogy, higher order thinking skills, inclusive instruction, interdisciplinary
curriculum, and traditional and alternative assessment.
- Standards-based curriculum
Course content, learning activities, and assessment procedures correlated
to national teacher education standards (NCATE and ISTE) and state teacher
education standards (Chapters 49 and 354) in content and pedagogy.
Teaching methods course content focused on standards-based lesson and unit plan development addressing national and state academic standards.
Interdisciplinary curriculum
A knowledge view and curriculum approach that consciously applies content methodology and language from more than one discipline to examine a central theme, issue, problem, topic or experience.
Extensive field experiences
- Elementary:
- During each of their four semesters, students gain practical experiences
by observing and teaching in local school districts.
- First semester
juniors observe elementary classrooms on three or more Fridays during
the semester
- Second semester juniors complete approximately 175 hours
in a suburban setting, and first semester seniors complete approximately
140 hours in an urban setting.
- Students are assigned "field tasks" for
each course to assure the integration of theory and practice.
All experiences are prior to the formal twelve weeks of student teaching.
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