Teaching and Leadership
The Teacher and Leadership program serves as the learning community and administrative umbrella for most of the School of Education’s undergraduate and graduate teacher preparation programs. Teaching and Leadership also is home to graduate preparation programs in school leadership and teacher education, doctoral programs in teaching and curriculum, science and mathematics education, special education, and educational leadership.
All Teaching and Leadership programs are designed to prepare early childhood, elementary and secondary classroom teachers and special educators by teaching them how to empower and challenge their students. Teaching and Leadership students also learn how to become leaders in the schools and communities they serve and within the education profession.
Education for All
Teaching and Leadership faculty members share the belief that for all people, learning occurs through active engagement in the process of learning. The role of the teacher is to create conditions that enable and challenge students to learn to the full extent of their abilities. Our graduates learn to presume competence on behalf of all their students and that everyone is capable of learning.
Because children come to schools from a variety of backgrounds with different knowledge levels and ways of learning, approaches to instruction must be flexible to accommodate the needs of all students. Teaching and Leadership graduates understand that children are capable of learning in many ways and that heterogeneous learning environments allow students to learn how to learn in different ways while teaching them to respect each other and support each other's learning.
Just as schools are responsible to the students, parents, and communities that support them, so too are individual teachers. Teaching and Leadership graduates are prepared to assume roles of responsibility within the schools and communities they serve. Within the classroom, our graduates understand the need to be accountable for what their students have learned; they also take responsibility for finding new and better ways for all students to learn more effectively.
Committed to Continuous Improvement
Since no one teacher is likely to be completely knowledgeable or skillful at every approach to instruction, or equally effective at working with every student, students in the Teaching and Leadership program learn to scrutinize their own teaching skills and to work closely with colleagues to improve their instructional techniques.
There is no simple or assured way of embodying all of these principles in one single practice, and there are a multitude of views as to how important issues should be addressed. For that reason, the faculty members in the Teaching and Leadership program share their different perspectives on these matters openly and candidly with each other and with their students. This ongoing dialectic helps students and faculty members alike make informed choices that over time improve instructional practice.
Through its commitment to intellectual openness, the Teaching and Leadership program fills a pivotal role within the university as a learning community that bridges the university and public schools and as a forum for continuous exploration, discussion, and debate about the challenges facing education today.