Teacher Education 211
Handbook
Navigating the Teacher Education Program
(With Success!)
This won’t be YOU!!
Table of Contents
1. Where am I and What am I doing Here?
2. What Teachers Make
3. The Teacher Education Program: an Overview
4. What the Heck is a Conceptual Framework?
5. Knowledge, Skills, and Applications
6. Reflective Practice
7. Professional & Ethical Behavior
8. Developing a TEP Portfolio
9. Goals: Long and Short Term
10. Philosophy of Education: Getting Started
11. My Resume: Who am I? What Have I Done?
12. Evidence & Captions
13. The Interview & How Do I Get In? (to TEP)
14. The Teaching License PRAXIS Connection
15. PRAXIS Information
21. Other Random Stuff You Should Know!
Where Am I And What Am I Doing Here?
If you have purchased and are reading this handbook, let’s assume you have for some reason chosen to be a teacher! This course is the beginning of the process through which you will navigate to reach your goal of teaching somewhere in public or private schools. Our program will lead to licensure in the state of Tennessee within your chosen field. There are lots of people here; faculty and staff whose job is to make the transition from student to teacher an easier one for you.
If you have entered the field of education because you think it is an easy job, or it’s something to fall back on in case something else doesn’t work out, you probably should rethink your choice. Teaching is a demanding, soul wrenching, exhausting job. Entering into this profession should not be taken lightly.
This course will introduce you to the basic requirements of the Teacher Education Program (TEP). You will develop an understanding of the Conceptual Framework that guides our program. During this semester you will be expected to develop your portfolio with which faculty judge your progress in our program. You will create a resume, a professional teaching philosophy and goals. How you go about all of this, plus learn about licensure, PRAXIS, and graduating with a toolkit to guide your first years as a teacher will be part of this course.
I hope you are ready…
1
WHAT TEACHERS MAKE
The dinner guests were sitting around the table discussing life.
One man, a CEO, decided to explain the problem with education. He argued, "What's a kid going to learn from someone who decided his best option in life was to become a teacher?" He reminded the other dinner guests what they say about teachers:
"Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach."
To emphasize his point, he said to another guest; "You're a teacher,
Susan. Be honest. What do you make?"
Susan, who had a reputation for honesty and frankness replied, "You
want to know what I make?
"I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could.
"I make a C+ feel like the winner of the Congressional Medal of
Honor.
I make kids sit through 40 minutes of study hall in absolute silence.
You want to know what I make?
I make kids wonder.
I make them question.
I make them criticize.
I make them apologize and mean it.
I make them write.
I make them read, read, read.
I make them show all their work in math and perfect their final
drafts in English.
I make them understand that if you have the brains, and follow your heart, and if someone ever tries to judge you by what you make, you must pay no attention because they just didn't learn."
Susan paused and then continued. "You want to know what I make?
'I MAKE A DIFFERENCE.' What do YOU make?"
Teachers make every other profession possible!
2
The Teacher Education Program (TEP)
An Overview
The teacher education program housed in Gooch Hall is an N.C.A.T.E. accredited program. This means that this program has met national standards in the preparation of teachers. If you leave this state to teach elsewhere, it tells prospective employers you have gone through a program which thoroughly prepares you to begin a teaching career.
The curriculum in your program includes three parts: the general education core, specialty area, and professional education. Your check sheet clearly indicates which is which. Your check sheet and catalog need to be your constant companions in the next couple of years. You need to read them, know what is required, and if you are staying on target for graduation. After you have been admitted to the TEP, you will have a faculty advisor to help you navigate your program. Ultimately you are responsible for your education, no one else can make you attend class or do assignments.
Admission to the TEP requires an interview with a faculty interview board, a minimum cumulative G.P.A. of 2.5, (going to 2.75 in Fall 08) and a minimum of 22 or higher on the A.C.T. or pass PPST (PRAXIS I). There is an appeals process. Finally, you will be evaluated from time to time on your disposition toward the profession and other educators.
The following dispositions characterize the UTM teacher education undergraduate and graduate candidate:
1. Demonstrates positive interactions with peers, faculty, and P-12 school personnel.
2. Demonstrates self-respect and respect for others.
3. Accepts constructive criticism and changes behavior in response to faculty suggestions.
4. Assumes responsibility.
5. Solves problems in a fair minded manner.
6. Exhibits interest in the learner and enthusiasm for the learning process.
7. Adheres to professional guidelines regarding academic conduct established by the Teacher Education Program.
Check out the Educational Studies website for more information about all the services, degrees and other miscellaneous information you may need. http://www.utm.edu/departments/cebs/educate/resources.php
3
The Conceptual Framework
The conceptual framework (CF) guiding the TEP was developed by faculty. This is a compilation of those things faculty believe candidates need to know in order to be prepared as a teacher. These include: Knowledge, Skills and Applications, Reflective Practice, and Professional and Ethical Behavior. Your portfolio and its evaluation depend on how well you present your case to your advisor and other faculty in the TEP in these areas.
Within these three areas you will also be asked to show your knowledge of assessment, technology and diversity. This means you will need to show that the work you have done within the three components of the C.F. also indicates you have considered these in doing your work for your courses. On the following pages each section of the C.F. will be considered separately.
4
Knowledge, Skills, and Applications
Knowledge includes knowledge of your content area as well as knowledge in the pedagogical (teaching) part of your program. If you are going to be a science teacher, you must know science. The same is true for every other content area. Specialty areas vary greatly from secondary to early childhood education. Each of your programs differs in the general education core, specialty area and professional education. In professional education, knowledge includes how to teach the science, math, history, or special education children you will have in your classrooms. It is not enough to know science content, you also must be aware of the developmentally appropriate approaches to teaching it.
The skills you must know include how to write lesson plans, plan a unit, integrate content areas, assess students, and modify lessons to meet the needs of all your students. Although not a comprehensive list, these skills, and others, will be acquired in your professional education courses. Seemingly mundane things have to be considered to be successful in the classroom: do my objectives match my assessment? Am I teaching what I say I am? Am I testing what I teach? How do I incorporate higher order thinking questions and objectives in my lesson planning? How do I maintain some kind of order in the room? Do I reward or punish? What rules are appropriate?
The application of knowledge and skills comes with mastery of these two important components. How you use them is the application of the information we as a faculty try to impart. You will find that, your professional education courses should be more than memorizing techniques and regurgitating information. They should be using that information to best teach students.
Reflective Practice
If you go home at the end of the day and don’t consider how your day went, you are weird!! A good teacher will be critical of themselves and reflect on lessons that went well or went wrong. They reflect on what they could have done differently or better. They think about keeping or not keeping an activity. They think about what Sarah was doing in social studies or where her mind was. What is going on in her life that I need to know about? Did Jim get this breakfast? He certainly couldn’t focus on what we were doing. How is Will’s grandfather doing? Did that affect how he was working today?
If 86% of your students failed their exam, whose fault is it? Theirs or Yours? How can you find out? Where do you go from here?
These are some of the hundreds of things you may consider on a daily basis. Just as a coach analyzes what went right and wrong in a game, you as the teacher must do the same thing. You will not improve as a teacher or facilitator of learning if you hand out information in tidy 50 minute packages, never consider how the information is related to your students’ lives or ever consider that you may be the one at fault when they don’t get it.
5
Professional and Ethical Behavior
As a teacher there will be tasks you are asked to do above and beyond your normal classroom duties:
· parent teacher conferences,
· professional development,
· coaching,
· attending P.T.A. or other functions.
Professional and ethical behavior includes:
· behaving in a manner that does not violate the law or put students in harms way,
· criticizing other teachers or the administration in public,
· talking about your students to others not permitted to have that information,
· not cheating on TCAP or GATEWAY tests
The question: are you a professional or not?
· Do you keep up with your area of expertise?
· Do you attend conferences?
· Do you find outside sources for information if you need help in a particular matter?
· Do you do more than show up at 8:00 and leave at 3:00?
How will YOU answer these questions?
6
Developing the TEP Portfolio
The purpose of the portfolio is to give your advisor and other faculty a record of your growth as a prospective teacher. You will include all kinds of documents and a caption that explains why that document is included. The portfolio will be set up in a standard format using the following information. You can however, individualize it with the kinds of paper you use, whether you decorate the front with something other than just the required title, and any other personal touches you choose to use. Your portfolio basics will be completed in this course.
Needed for your portfolio:
3 ring binder; 2 or 3 inch will do
Dividers with clear tabs
Page protectors for your documents
Portfolio Divisions (Use dividers with clear tabs for this)
Each of the following items should have its own tab.
Table of Contents
Professional Philosophy
Professional Goals
Resume
Conceptual Framework
Knowledge, Skills, and Application
Diversity
Technology
Assessment
Reflective Practice
Diversity
Technology
Assessment
Professional and Ethical Behavior
Diversity
Technology
Assessment
7
Goals
Goals refer to long and short term professional goals. This is not where you indicate you would like to remodel your kitchen or add a workshop to your garage.
Where you do want to be in one year? What do you want to accomplish over the next two years? These are short term goals.
Where do you want to be in 5 years? 10? These are long term goals.
Again, we are talking professionally speaking. Would you like to start work on a master’s degree in 5 years? Graduate with honors in two years? Have an assistant coaching position in 5 years?
Look at goals you might attain professionally.
Philosophy
Your philosophy should tell us something about you. How do you feel about students? Or how they should be taught? Do you feel comfortable using corporal punishment? How do you want to present the content you have worked hard to acquire? The following is an example:
My Educational Philosophy
All students should have an equal opportunity to learn in a safe and equitable environment. I believe that education should be experiential in nature, so students should be active participants in their own education. The teacher’s duty is to provide experiences for students that not only enhance their knowledge in subject matter content, but also develop cognitive skills through inquiry and discovery learning, and problem-based instruction, in an environment that encourages questioning, critical thinking, and social action.
In science education, I believe the teacher should establish an environment that develops a community of science learners who come to understand that all students can be scientists, can conduct scientific inquiry, and participate as problem solvers to the betterment of society and the natural world.