This course offers two perspectives for the AEEU program. The purpose of this course is to create an awareness of the teaching profession by reflecting about oneself, students, schools and classrooms as the foundations for becoming an educator. The course will also provide procedures and requirements for becoming a professional educator in three ways: 1) concerns and realities of entering the teaching profession, 2) the significance and value of student diversity, and 3) complex social, cultural, and academic realities of the classroom and school. This course is also designed to examine the institutional development of public education in the United States with an interpretation of political, philosophical, and social forces influencing general, special and inclusive education development including legal rights of students relative to special education.  The scope of this course is to study the philosophical, historical and foundational roles of schools, teachers and American society, and to explore American educational systems and focus on the conflict of values and critical changes experienced in education. Additionally, the philosophical forces, roles, ethical standards and professional guidelines in education will be addressed.

Included in this course is a survey and evaluation of children’s literature and exploration of different types of literature including plays, poetry, and trade books.

Candidates in this course will be introduced to various educational technologies to improve their own technology knowledge and skills. Participants will learn how technology applications can be used to create learning environments that strengthen problem-solving skills, and encourage communication, collaboration and reflection for students. Candidates will also discover the role of technology has in assessment, accessibility and education information, an overview of educational technology used in various content areas and technology in general used to meet the needs for varied exceptionalities such as mobility, prosthetics, orthotics, adaptive devices, visual technologies, hearing technologies as well as adaptive uses of computers. This course will also review the history of IDEA and focus on assistive technology in the law. They will use this knowledge to incorporate technology use throughout lesson plans in the remainder of the program. (6.4; 7.5; 8.5; 9.5)

Covers topics of elementary mathematics to meet the needs of students preparing to teach in the elementary school. Topics include sets, logic, systems of numeration, whole numbers, integers, rational numbers, real numbers, and informal geometry.

This course examines the multi-dimensional, factors (emotional, environmental, intellectual, occupational, physical, social, and spiritual) that affect optimal health. The course will develop and extend students’ understanding of public health principles; knowledge, tools, and motivation to teach wellness-related behavior, and the dynamics of health behavior change.

The focus of this course is to introduce teacher candidates to the following concepts: Students as Learners, Instructional Processes, Assessment, Analysis of Instructional Process, and Professional Development, Leadership, and Community. Teacher candidates will learn and employ effective curriculum planning through appropriate procedures and apply effective instructional practices to enhance the learning environment. A practicum experience is included in the course.

K-2 Integrated Literacy and Assessment provides emergent literacy theory to foster language development, create literacy rich environments for young children, assess and evaluate literacy learning, and provide differentiation and interventions for learners in the K-2 classroom. Based on the Common Core State Standards for College and Career Readiness, evidence-based primary literacy instruction includes modeled, guided, and direct instruction; age-appropriate skills and strategies; integration of reading/writing, listening/speaking, and viewing/visual representation for the emergent reader and writer. A semester-long practicum in which students observe, assess and diagnose literacy acquisition problems, tutor individual students, teach whole group and small group literacy lessons is included.

This course enables teacher candidates to use the major concepts of social studies (the integrated study of history, geography, people and places, economics, civics and government) and English language arts as well as individual performance data to plan, implement, and assess learning experiences with the goal to engage all students in critical thinking, creativity, and collaborative problem solving.  Personalized learning needs and supports are taken into consideration through the application of the principles of universal design for learning, technology, and intensive intervention as individually appropriate.  Activities related to teaching elementary students are embedded in a 3-6 grade field experience.

STEAM explores the natural connections between Science, Technology, Engineering, the ARTS, and Mathematics. Participants will discover how to integrate arts standards within the STEM content areas through Project-Based Learning frameworks to truly build an authentic STEAM teaching approach. This moves beyond simply using the design-process to truly being able to integrate ALL the arts in and through STEM. You will walk away with a series of strategies and sequences that will empower you to craft a STEAM initiative that works for you and your students.

The focus of this course and practicum is to help teacher candidates recognize characteristics of students with special needs, discover techniques and methodologies used to meet the needs of exceptional learners, build upon skills and dispositions of effective teaching, and develop collaborative relationships to best serve special needs students and their families.

This course is designed to assist students in developing strategies to effectively manage the classroom, build parent and community support, deal with school conflict and crises, and collaborate with other professionals. The course focuses on issues faced in classroom settings.

In this course, teacher candidates will review the structure of knowledge and curriculum. They will instructionally plan with infusion of differentiation with an emphasis on tiered instruction. Instructional alterations and decision-making will be based on formative assessment. A focus on brain-based teaching, 21st Century Skills, data analysis, reflection, understanding students’ prior knowledge, curriculum mapping and backward design among other things will enable teacher candidates to effectively construct and teach units to the K-12 student population.

Supervised student teaching experience in the elementary schools. Admission to student teaching is required.