Elementary Education

Department Chair: Linda Button

The Department of Elementary Education administers programs that prepare students for teaching at the elementary level, as well as graduate and endorsement programs. US News and World Report, in its Education: 2002 Graduate School Rankings, rated the Elementary Education Program 18th nationally. This places the program at the same level as programs at the University of California-Berkley and the University of Washington. The undergraduate degree program prepares teacher candidates to become emerging professionals who are able to perform proficiently in the elementary school classrooms in increasingly complex, diverse and technologically advanced communities. Four themes run through the Elementary PTEP Program: reflection, integration, collaboration, and modeling.

The Undergraduate Program
The Elementary Professional Teacher Education Program is designed to help teacher candidates acquire a breadth and depth of knowledge of content related to the Colorado Model Content Standards and the curriculum of elementary schools, as well as the Performance-Based Standards for Colorado Teachers. The Elementary PTEP is also designed to provide teacher candidates with opportunities to acquire content knowledge, understandings and skills to become competent professional educators. The program includes three components - general education, the Interdisciplinary Studies Liberal Arts Major, and Professional Education.

Prospective elementary teachers have had solid preparation in their knowledge of subject content, pedagogy, diversity, and professionalism and the opportunity for integration in classroom-based settings. The design of the Elementary PTEP reflects the important contributions and professional commitment of Elementary PTEP faculty and colleagues in Arts and Sciences, Health and Human Sciences, Performing and Visual Arts, and partner schools. Faculties have worked together to assure that the Performance-Based Standards for Colorado Teachers, Colorado K-12 Model Content Standards, and the Colorado Rules for Educator Licensing are used to guide the program. Another key feature of the program is the partner school model of preparing teachers in which candidates are provided opportunities to learn and practice teaching in a variety of authentic settings in schools representative of a diverse society.

Highlights of the Elementary Professional Teacher Education Program:

- The design, implementation, assessment, and mediation of the program is done in close collaboration with faculty from the partner schools. This partnership currently involves thirty five elementary schools in six different school districts.
- The service learning component of the program offers candidates the opportunity for early field experience in the schools. This experience provides opportunities for candidates to tutor students in reading for forty-two clock hours.
- Two carefully sequenced, comprehensive, semester-long integrated curriculum and student teaching blocks provide candidates the opportunity to integrate knowledge of content addressed in general education and the core of the new major with knowledge of pedagogy.
- Assessment of candidate proficiency in meeting the Performance-Based Standards for Colorado Teachers is performance-based. Analyses of teacher work samples, audio and video samples of teaching, portfolio development, and focused observations of instruction help document what candidates know and are able to do.
- Teacher candidates complete 800+ hours of early and continuous supervised field experience affirms the importance of practicing and applying knowledge, skills and professional dispositions in authentic contexts. The partner schools with whom the university collaborates afford candidates opportunities to work with richly diverse student, family, and community populations.
- Foundational coursework and experiences ground candidates in understanding about schooling for a democratic society, typical and atypical child development and learning, standards-based education and assessment, educational applications of technology, professionalism in education, and the realities of teaching and learning in diverse educational settings. The program is designed to be completed in four years.

Unique Aspects of the Elementary PTEP Program

The Elementary PTEP is a field-based program that relies heavily on the modeling of best practices during field placements to develop competent teacher candidates. The Elementary PTEP faculty have cultivated a cadre of 35 elementary schools in the geographic area to provide high quality placements for 300+ students per semester who are participating in field experiences ranging from the Service Learning Project that can occur as early as the sophomore year, to the final full-time student teaching experience at the end of the senior year. It is necessary to have at least one school for every 4-10 teacher candidates to keep numbers of teacher candidates at manageable levels in each school.

Principals and teachers at the partner schools speak very highly of the quality of the teacher candidates and the faculty who serve as liaisons between their schools and the Elementary PTEP. A key factor for developing such positive relationships lies with the relationship of the particular faculty member who supervises teacher candidates in the school and the continuous field placements that are characteristic of the newly revised program. In particular, partner school faculty identity the efforts of particular PTEP faculty who supervise EDEL 480 for providing professional development related to mentoring teacher candidates during the 10-week placement and for continued communication and problem solving with school faculty throughout the experience.

PTEP faculty members meet with school leaders as a feature of the program. These meetings are held for reflection and subsequent refinement as well as to inform partner school faculty and principals and UNC faculty of program expectations. Suggestions and responses to possible program modifications and to the general operation of the program are also elicited.

The primary methods courses, reading, language arts, mathematics, social studies, science, health, art, music, and physical education are taught in two integrated semester blocks. That is, the content represented in reading/language arts, science, and health is taught as an integrated course during one semester. Likewise, the mathematics and social studies educators together deliver the methods content to the teacher candidates. Instructors from different departments and different colleges work together to integrate a variety of content areas, methods and techniques.

Graduate Programs

Master of Arts in Teaching: The M.A.T. Degree in Elementary Education

The Master of Arts in Teaching is a graduate degree program that provides elementary teachers with the content knowledge and pedagogical skills needed to enhance their own professional development. Teachers enter the program, take classes together, and graduate as a group or "cohort" - each cohort has a membership of approximately 20 teachers. Teachers collaborate with one another to complete a series of learning and assessment projects in an environment characterized by mutual respect and support - a support system that remains consistent in membership from semester to semester. Moreover, teachers create the curriculum based on topics and issues that are of interest and concern to them and the school district in which they teach. University faculty serves as facilitators, guiding teachers in the design of a curriculum development project, an action research project, and a professional development portfolio. The Master of Arts in Teaching program empowers elementary teachers as school leaders for the purpose of improving student learning through standards-based curriculum, authentic instruction, and performance-based assessment.

The following 14 program outcomes are based on the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), and the Performance-Based Standards for Colorado Teachers. Graduates of the M.A.T. program in elementary education:

- are responsive to the needs and experiences of individual students - based on culture, economics, language, innate learning abilities, and exceptionalities - when developing and implementing curriculum, instruction, and assessment.
- use theory and research in child development to design age-appropriate curriculum and learning experiences that support students' acquisition of knowledge, skills, and dispositions.
- cultivate students' abilities to make informed decisions as citizens of a culturally diverse democratic society and interdependent world.
- know and use major concepts and tools of inquiry from the academic disciplines to create meaningful, integrative, value-based, challenging, and authentic learning experiences for students.
- design and adapt curriculum, instruction, and assessment based on knowledge of students, learning theory, subject matter, curriculum standards, and community resources to teach students who are diverse in their development, back grounds, and approaches to learning.
- use a variety of different curricula, instructional strategies, and assessment techniques to develop students' critical thinking, problem-solving and decision-making skills in ways that transfer to real-world situations.
- use effective verbal, non-verbal, and media communication techniques to foster inquiry, collaboration, and a positive classroom environment in which students feel free to take risks in their learning.
- apply knowledge of individual behavior and group dynamics to motivate self-directed learning and active engagement in cooperative learning.
- use formal and informal assessment strategies to evaluate student learning and strengthen instruction that promotes continuous development of the whole child in a standards-based curriculum.
- are professional problem solvers who make decisions by reflecting on their practice in the light of theory and research in education.
- continually evaluate the effects of their decisions and actions on students and parents in collaboration with other school professionals
- are lifelong learners who cultivate this disposition in students; teachers model lifelong learning for others by taking advantage of opportunities to learn and grow professionally.
- collaborate with colleagues, administrators, and other professionals to improve school effectiveness by providing leadership in the areas of curriculum development, professional staff development, and as mentors for novice teachers.
- establish and maintain positive collaborative relationships with members of the community and families to promote students' intellectual, social, emotional, and physical growth.

Structure of the M.A.T. Program
The M.A.T. program begins during the summer, requires 30 semester hours of course work, and takes a year and a half (six semesters) to complete. During the initial six-week-long summer session (July-August), you complete two courses, Elementary Curriculum and Introduction to Graduate Research (six credit hours). In the fall (September-December) teachers take a Teacher as Researcher course and Instruction in Language Arts and Literacy (six credit hours). In the spring (January-May) participants may take an Assessment in Language Arts and Literacy course and Multicultural Education (six credit hours). During the following summer, teachers take two electives (six credit hours). In the fall (September-December participants take one elective course, a Capstone Seminar (six credit hours) and graduate. A typical three credit hour course is taught for three hours, once a week, for fifteen weeks. However, alternative scheduling for most classes is possible; for example, a cohort might decide to meet for a class over several weekends rather than after school or in the evenings.

The Elementary Education faculty believes in a hands-on, experiential, activities-based curriculum for teachers as well as for children. This philosophy of education does not lend itself well to long-distance, electronic delivery systems. Moreover, courses offered on-line or through correspondence make the cohort approach a much less personal and powerful experience. After school, evening, and weekend formats make this program "do-able" for busy teachers.

The Elementary Post Baccalaureate Program

The Elementary Post Baccalaureate Program is an initial licensure for graduate students who have a bachelor's degree in any area. Depending on a student's background, some liberal arts courses may need to be completed prior to completing the program. The program also satisfies half of the requirements for a master's degree in elementary education. The Post Baccalaureate Program is designed to be a cohort program, or group of students who participate together throughout the program. The program begins each summer session, and is completed in three semesters (summer, fall and spring) by the following May. This is a rigorous program, which requires a full time commitment; therefore, it is strongly recommended that the applicant does not try to maintain a full time working position. In most cases, courses are offered at the graduate level and have a strong practical experience base to them, providing teacher candidates with opportunities to learn theory and obtain practice in the various subject areas that comprise the elementary-school curriculum. Students will complete both a practicum field experience and student teaching experience in an elementary education classroom upon completion of the program.

Elementary Education Faculty

Listed by degree granting institution, rank, research/teaching areas and editorial board memberships

Linda Button, Ed.D., University of Northern Colorado
Assistant Professor of Elementary Education

Reading and writing, using standards and assessment to guide instruction, university/public school partnerships, and evaluating the effectiveness of literacy instruction.

Editor, Colorado Communicator

Gary Fertig, Ph.D. University of Wyoming
Assistant Professor of Elementary Education

Social mechanisms of learning in groups, young learners' development of historical thinking, and acqiosotopm of cultural understandings

Judy Nickerson, Ed.D., Northern Illinois University
Assistant Professor of Elementary Education

Curriculum and instruction, literacy, special needs, and urban education

Barbara Z. Pariso, MS., Barry University
Adjunct Instructor of Elementary Education

Carol Picard, Ph.D., Colorado State University
Assistant Professor of Elementary Education-Math

Elementary math methods, using technology to improve instruction, math manipulatives to improve instruction, and electronic surveys to inform instruction

Dr. Fredrick L. "Rick" Silverman, Ed.D., University of Houston
Professor of Elementary Education and Reading

Integrating mathematics, social studies, naturally occuring mathematics in children's lives, and other disciplines