Standard II

The teacher candidate has acquired a professional knowledge base about public schooling in a democratic society, learners, language, learning, and learning environments and integrates that knowledge into personally meaningful frameworks. 

the public school enterprise

·         The teacher candidate understands the mission of public schooling in a culturally diverse, democratic society and the dynamic relationship between school and community.

·         The teacher candidate understands the forces (e.g., social, political, economic, legal, historical, philosophical) that impact public schools and how these forces functions as variables in all decisions about purpose, practice, and policy at all levels of the educational system.

·         The teacher candidate understands how public schools are organized, financed, and governed.

·         The teacher candidate understands the various roles and responsibilities of teachers and understands the importance of developing a well-defined sense of professional identity and affiliation in various professional communities.

·         The teacher candidate knows the legal rights and responsibilities of students, parents, teachers, and other school personnel.

·         The teacher candidate understands how his or her own cultural background influences perceptions of diverse learners and interpretations of their learning behaviors.

·         The teacher candidate understands how students/ cultural backgrounds influence perceptions of schooling, teachers, and learning.

·         The teacher candidate is committed to equal educational opportunity for all learners.

·         The teacher candidate appreciates and values human diversity.

·         The teacher candidate is committed to public school teaching as a professional career.

·         The teacher candidate understands the public school mandate to both assure and increase social equity.

·         The teacher candidate can profile a school, district, and community demographically, culturally, and structurally.

·         The teacher candidate conducts self-directed inquiry on controversial public school issues, demonstrating knowledge of resources and depth of understanding of the historical, philosophical, political, social, and economic influences on public schooling.

·         THE TEAHCER CANDIDATE DEMONSTRATES THE ABILITY TO USE KNOWLEDGE OF SCHOOL LAW TO INFORM PROFESSIONAL DECISIONS AND ACTIONS.

·         The teacher candidate demonstrates an initial understanding of a teacher’s mission.

·         The teacher candidate demonstrates awareness of professional ethics, professional dispositions, professional development, and professional community.

·         THE TEACHER CANDIDATE DEMONSTRATES UNDERSTANDING AND RESPECT FOR LEARNERS FROM CULTURAL BACKGROUNDS DIFFERENT FROM THEIR OWN.

learners

·         The teacher candidate knows the stages of cognitive, social, emotional, moral, physical, and language development; is aware that individuals vary in rtes of development; and understands how development in any one domain may affect performance I others.

·         The teacher candidate knows how students differ in aspects of their personal identities )e.g., culture, ethnicity, language, religion, gender) and understands how these factors influences the learning process.

·         The teacher candidate knows multiple intelligences theory, learning styles theory, and other models of learner preference and potentiality.

·         The teacher candidate understands the philosophy, resources, and policies governing delivery of services to special needs learners and strategies for addressing the needs of exceptional children.

·         The teacher candidate believes and expects that all children can learn and that all children have value.

·         The teacher candidate appreciates individual variation within each area of development, shown respect for the diverse talents of all learners, and is committed to help them develop self-confidence and competence.

·         The teacher candidate is sensitive to family, community, and cultural norms.

Performance

·         The teacher candidate can identify the learner’s stage of development by stage characteristics, administer tests to determine developmental stage, and predict learner needs and responses.

·         The teacher candidate can identify cultural influences on learner motivation, behavior, and academic performance.

·         The teacher candidate knows what information about individual students is relevant and how to get that information (e.g. learning style (s) preferences, dispositions, and attitudes).

·         The teacher candidate knows how to refer a student for testing, how to work with a resource teacher, and how to modify lessons to meet the needs of diverse learners.

learning

Knowledge

·         The teacher candidate understands competing theories of learning and their inherent philosophical assumptions. 

·         The teacher candidate understands the principles of constructivism.

·         The teacher candidate understands that student learning is influence by individual experiences, prior learning, learning styles/preferences, motivations and interests, strengths and needs, as well as by family , community, and cultural values.

·         The teacher candidate understands the importance of learner efficacy and how to nurture it.

·         The teacher candidate knows that conditions impede learning and what conditions enhance learning.

·         The teacher candidate knows competing philosophical/theoretical/research bases on human intelligence and the implications for teaching and learning.

·         The teacher candidate knows critical thinking and higher order thinking skills literature, and understands differences in ways of knowing and learning in different contexts.

Dispositions

·         The teacher candidate believes and expects that all children can learn and that all children have value.

·         The teacher candidate is flexible in approach to student learning and sensitive to the complexities and uncertainties of learning processes.

Performance

·         The candidate uses knowledge of competing learning theories to analyze and interpret teaching and learning episodes in case studies an in clinical settings.

·         The teacher candidate understands the principles of constructivism as applied to practice.

·         The teacher candidate designs learning experiences, environments, and feedback systems that nurture learner self-efficacy.

·         The teacher candidate aligns learning theory with the ways of knowing and doing in a given subject matter are for

the purpose of controlling learner out comes.

language and learning

Knowledge

·         The teacher candidate understands the relationship between language and learning and knows the research on literacy and learning.

·         The teacher candidate understands the social role of language in the learning process and how a student’s primary language system impacts his or her learning performance.

·         The teacher candidate understands the relationship between language and thinking and knows strategies to stimulate both critical and creative thinking

·         The teacher candidate knows various informal strategies for assessing the language literacy needs of diverse learners.

·         The teacher candidate knows various instructional strategies that can help learners with diverse needs use reading, writing, speaking, and listening to learn subject matter.

·         The teacher candidate know various strategies for helping students acquire technical (subject matter specific) vocabulary.

Dispositions

·         The teacher candidate accepts students’ language and literacy as the starting point for future growth and development.

·         The teacher candidate recognizes the power of language as a means of fostering self-expression, identity development, and learning.

·         The teacher candidate appreciates the cultural dimensions of language and values the use of multiple modes of communication in the classroom.

·         The candidate strives to find alternative pathways for literacy challenged students to learn subject matter.

·         The teacher candidate values an intellectually challenging learning environments for all learners, especially for low-performing learners.

Performance:

·         The teacher candidate designs lessons that enables students to learn content and simultaneously develop reading, writing, listening, and speaking proficiency.

·         The teacher candidate assesses student oral and written language proficiency and develops learning experiences to accommodate learner needs.

·         The teacher candidate designs learning experiences that promote creative and critical thinking.

·         The teacher candidate constructs long-range plans for developing students’ technical vocabulary.

·         The teacher candidate knows how to plan, implement, and evaluate various literacy-based lesson designs.

learning environment

Knowledge

·         The teacher candidate knows how to create a productive learning environment in which students work purposefully and cooperatively with each other in the social setting of the classroom.

·         The teacher candidate understands the principles of effective classroom managements and knows a variety of strategies to promote positive relationships, cooperation, and meaningful learning in the classroom.

Dispositions:

·         The teacher candidate believes that the teacher plays a critical role in establishing a positive climate in the classroom and the school and is committed to the expression and use of democratic values in the classroom.

·         The teacher candidate values the role that students play in promoting each other’s learning and realizes the importance of peer relationships in establishing a climate of learning.

Performances:

·         The teacher candidate creates a democratic environment for learning enriched by the diverse personal, family, cultural, and community experiences of individual learners.

·         The teacher candidate uses knowledge of human motivation and behavior to construct a developmentally appropriate plan for classroom management.