SOE Teacher Preparation Claims

The students we admit:

• Have a college education with a comprehensive subject matter content and a broad liberal arts background.

Our goal is to admit students who graduated from an undergraduate program with a degree in a particular subject area and a record of success with coursework in that subject.The subject areas include history, biology, chemistry, English, elementary education, Spanish, and similar degree titles.

• Have demonstrated effective teaching skills.

For students entering the professional certification degree titles, we rely on letters of reference, transcript review, successful student teaching experiences, and teaching experience as indicators of competent teaching skills.

The students we graduate:

• demonstrate pedagogical content knowledge: they use research, theory, and practice to guide instructional decision-making.

We expect students at both the initial and professional certification stage to develop skills as reflective practitioners, guided by relevant research, theory and practical knowledge. In order to make appropriate instructional decisions and teach a diverse group of students, our students will engage in coursework to develop their pedagogical content knowledge. Many of the readings, discussions, and assignments will enable teachers to continue to develop this knowledge by engaging them in conversation about schooling and about their own teaching. We expect students to learn from the experiences of others, both peers within their courses and the peers from the broader educational community (e.g., professional articles). We anticipate students will continue to develop skills from their earlier education, including effective uses of technology and relevant subject-matter knowledge. However, we will focus on how to use this subject matter knowledge within educational settings.

• demonstrate effective teaching skills in their area of specialization.

For our specialization options (e.g., Literacy Specialization), we do expect teachers to demonstrate teaching competence in their particular specialty and we use the practicum experiences to teach and assess these skills.

Reading Department MS Literacy Competencies

Overarching Goal for our Masters Program

Our program is designed to foster in our students a set of closely interrelated dispositions, pedagogical knowledge and teaching skills. For example, we expect that our graduates will be caring and responsive observers and listeners who theorize about their teaching and learning and know how to research their own practice. To do this requires that they know how to document and analyze students' learning and to critically analyze their own teaching. Our program is organized to produce self-extending learners who do not stop learning when they leave the program--who find learning about teaching and learning intellectually engaging, and who are professionally active, participating in professional networks. We expect our graduates to develop a model of inquiry into teaching, learning, and language, including their own. We have also organized experiences in the program such that students will develop facility in communicating with others about literacy teaching and learning, and in building collaborative solutions to instructional problems. We expect our graduates to be readers and writers themselves.

Pedagogical Content Knowledge

Within their chosen level of instruction, our graduates will have a firm, research-based and theoretically-grounded understanding of:

•  language and literacy development: the nature, breadth, and depth of and the overt markers of that development.

•  individual and cultural differences: knowledge of economic, academic, social, and cultural diversity; use of this knowledge to inform instructional decisions.

•  methods and materials: the range of techniques and materials appropriate for literacy instruction.

•  literacy in society: societal changes in literacy usage, and implications for teaching and learning both inside and outside the classroom.

•  task difficulty: relation to student learning, independence, and development.

•  assessment of literacy: the value and properties of assessment methods and instruments.

•  prevention and solution of literacy difficulties: management of the classroom context to prevent difficulties in the acquisition of literacy as well as to solve learning difficulties when they occur.

•  technology: understand the nature and functions of information technologies in contemporary literacy practices; use relevant information technologies for teaching and assessment.

• organization of instruction: organization, regulation, and reform of literacy instruction.
•  NYSED standards and core curriculum: knowledge of English Language Arts, Social Studies, Mathematics, Science and Technology.

•  self-extended learning : how to engage critically with professional text and research to extend learning, including success with their own professional reading and writing.

Teaching Skills

We expect graduates from our program to be proficient in the following:
•  basic teaching routines: nurturing children's language and literacy abilities individually and in groups. They should have appropriate strategies for developing specific reading and writing competencies such as comprehension, critical reading, studying, vocabulary knowledge, word knowledge (phonological insight, spelling, and analysis), composing, revising, and editing. Each will be taught emphasizing the development of strategic flexibility and self-extending learning.
•  children's literacy development: documenting and analyzing reading, writing, speaking and listening, both through observational practices and through more formal techniques such as the Early Literacy Profile and standardized tests.
•  instructional decisions: matching learners with appropriate materials and creating independent learners; analyzing and solving instructional problems that arise in the regular or instructional support classroom, especially as they relate to learners who are struggling, or whose literacy abilities are so advanced that they need additional challenges.
•  learning communities for students: generating productive contexts such that children learn from one another as well as from the teacher.
•  learning communities for teachers: generating productive contexts for independent and collaborative learning among educators.
•  prevention and solution of literacy difficulties: managing the classroom context to prevent difficulties in the acquisition of literacy as well as to solve learning difficulties when they occur.
•  communication: collaborating with colleagues, other specialists, parents, and the public on literacy issues showing sensitivity to different perspectives and different language.

See how we put these competencies into practice:

•   in our admissions policies and procedures

•   in our master's degree courses