Teacher Education

Students completing this program should acquire the following skills and abilities:

• Compare a variety of assessment, diagnosis, and evaluation practices in collaboration with colleagues and families to guide the learning and holistic development of each student.
• Justify the importance of relationships with students, families, colleagues, and community agencies and is able to create and maintain those relationships to support children's learning and development.
• Evaluate cultural beliefs and biases; articulate and apply an understanding of how people differ in their perspectives and approaches; and create learning opportunities that are culturally responsive for students and their families.
• Predict student behavior and possible external stressors to effectively choose and implement strategies that support each student's success in the learning community.
• Discriminate data from a variety of sources to inform decisions about instruction, services, programs, interventions, and practices.
• Prepare plans based on theory, regularly analyze, evaluate, and synthesize results of their teaching practice and make appropriate changes that more fully serve each student and their family.
• Formulate and apply the central concepts of the arts, Language Arts, health and fitness, mathematics, science, technology and social studies, and identify resources to support student's growth across the disciplines.
• Construct and implement lesson plans that support individual student growth across the developmental continuum utilizing child development theory, including knowledge of typical and atypical developments.
• Value ongoing professional development to ensure research-based best practices, alignment with state and national standards and changing district-wide curriculum protocols.
• Appraise, implement, and monitor Individual Family Service Plans (IFSPs), Individual Educational Programs (IEPs), and 504 Plans in collaboration with families, as well as multi-disciplinary and multi-agency teams, to provide the services and supports necessary for the optimal growth of students with diverse abilities.