Teachers College Of San Joaquin

Teachers College of San Joaquin

Five Progressive Schools of Education

June 29, 2011 | 8:58 AM | By Sara Bernard

Flickr: conbon33

If the way we teach and learn is changing, the way that teachers learn should be changing, too. What are schools of education doing to keep ahead?

The following is a handful of examples of teacher education schools and programs whose progressive, tech-infused approach toward 21st century teaching is helping educators enter the classroom well-prepared.

Teachers College of San Joaquin in Stockton, California, emphasizes “multiple learning pathways,” or the need to approach an academic subject from many different angles to accommodate different learning styles, and in linking the real world to the classroom. TCSJ was also the first college of its kind to trade textbooks for the iPad, so that all prospective teachers well-versed in using the iPad for everything from their own edification (watching instructional videos, say) and that of their students (teachers-in-training are encouraged to use the iPad as a tool in their classrooms and then bring the results back to their peers at TCSJ).

California State University-Fullerton has a one-to-one laptop cohort program that plunges a group of student teachers into the world of interactive whiteboards, digital media tools, and Web 2.0 teaching strategies, as well as the opportunity to teach in local one-to-one laptop schools as part of their field work. Also, CSU-Fullerton just graduated its first class of doctorates concentrating in community college leadership.
The University of Central Florida is one of the very small number of schools of education that offer virtual-school training options for teachers-to-be. Through a partnership with Florida Virtual School, the nation’s first public online school, UCF education students can choose the instructional technology and media track in either the master’s or PhD program and apprentice with virtual school teachers. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Learning Methods, California State University Fullerton, Emporia State University Teachers College, Florida Virtual School, professional development, schools of education, teacher-training, Teachers College of San Joaquin, University of Central Florida

Rethinking What’s Taught in the Classroom

May 31, 2011 | 2:53 PM | By Tina Barseghian

Flickr:Seattle Municipal Archives

By Ana Tintocolos

Talia Ortega, a fifth-grade teacher, and Katie Burns, a sixth-grade teacher, are the two educators at the center of a school transformation at Nightingale Elementary School in the Stockton Unified School District in Northern California. They both enrolled in Teachers College of San Joaquin after feeling frustrated with Nightingale’s boilerplate practices.

They say the hallmarks of the new Nightingale will be based on a teaching philosophy that incorporates 21st-century learning, encouraged at Teachers College.

Ortega and Burns say it boils down to this: Nightingale will keep its core academic subjects – reading, math, science, history. But instead of teachers drafting their own lesson plans in isolation, the entire teaching staff will collaborate to build a learning plan that taps into a career theme using hands-on projects and/or technology in their class.

For example, if Nightingale teachers collectively decide that health will be the school’s academic focus for the month of June, then a week of instruction might look like this: Student read biographical books about cancer survivors in English class; they create an interactive timeline of cancer treatment discoveries in history class; they understand oncology counts in math; and finally there might be a visit to a nearby cancer research center for science class. Continue reading →