Advanced Teaching and Foundations of Teaching has some exciting news moving forward. We are partnering with the University of St. Francis to bring dual credit to the students.
Foundations of Teaching students will be awarded 3 credits for the EDUC 107 Exploring the Teaching Profession. A huge component of this course is that the students are required to complete observation hours in order to obtain the 3 Credit hours. This portion of the course blends in so nicely with our current curriculum. The students have been gaining this hands-on experience since 2007. They are placed with local grade schools to gain the resources to grow and develop in the field. The current Foundation students started their clinical portion of the class on Tuesday, October 17th. They spend the class period working alongside professionals in the field. We have students partnered with physical education teachers, special education teachers, as well as regular education teachers. They are given the opportunity to work with small groups, individual students, and any tasks assigned to them.
Advanced Teaching Methods will then move on to gain 5 additional dual credit hours. They will earn 3 credits for completing EDUC 210 Teaching in a Diverse Society. This course doesn’t require observation hours but as a part of my curriculum they will get those observations opportunities as well. My current Advanced students have been out in the field since the second week of September. They are able to witness student growth from the beginning of the year until mid May. This is a huge advantage for the students that have decided that this is the field for them. These students are given the opportunity to actually teach mini lessons to either the whole class or small groups of students. They develop lesson plans under the guidance of the teacher that they are working alongside. They are able to see best practices in place and learn how to apply them in real life situations. The final 2 credits will come from EDUC 225 Technology for Teaching and Learning. The students will be working on different technology strategies that they can apply to their future classrooms as well as developing a web page.
Eight dual credits from University of St. Francis that will be able to transfer to any university is an amazing opportunity for the Advanced Teaching/Foundations of Teaching students. A huge thank you to the University of St. Francis for this opportunity.