The Elementary Education Program has joined with Jefferson County elementary schools, including King, Byck, Sanders and Bowen, to construct a new program partnership. This will enable elementary education majors a chance to gain teaching experiences while attending IU Southeast.
Gloria Murphy, dean of the School of Education, provided some insight on why the Education Department chose to utilize these four schools.
“The reason why we hand-picked these schools to do a partnership with us is because these schools have diverse settings and environments,” Murphy said.
The reason why the Education Department made changes to the program is to introduce students into schools quicker.
“Another reason is to assist teachers and for students to learn about schools and how they function,” Murphy said.
Walter Ryan, program coordinator for the Education Department, explained why they made changes to the program.
“What we have done is reconstructed the school experiences for our students,” Ryan said. “We go to schools and talk about the experiences we want our students to have.”
Ryan also said the Elementary Education Program schedules courses around the school’s schedule.
The program partnership is divided into four different blocks — Child Looking at the Child, the Literate Child Language Arts, Integration and Student Teaching.
The Child Looking at the Child entitles children seeing younger students in the classroom.
The Literate Child Language Arts occurs when the department selects progressions from a small group of information to a larger amount.
Integration involves taking more elementary courses in order to integrate curriculum and students. Different subjects will now be integrated, such as language arts and social studies. These two subjects are combined so teachers can educate the skills needed to achieve high levels of successes in math and science classes.
“In order to do well in science and math classes, you must know how to read or write well,” Murphy said.
The new program partnership allows the IUS faculty to spend time with students in order to gain knowledge about happenings in the schools so they can assimilate it into teaching and course work. Another new addition to this partnership is meeting accreditation standards to feel more school experience.
Murphy said the teachers in the schools will have more say in regards to what students experience.
The schools will also benefit having additional adults in the building. Students will benefit by building a network and aiding with employment. Walter said society will also benefit because they will gain better teachers.
Drew Paige, elementary education senior, said the program allows students to become great teachers at the elementary level. She also said the faculty does an excellent job of preparing future educators.
“I like how all of the subjects are broken up into separate classes,” Paige said. “It’s really great, and you have a lot of fun.”
By LYNN BAILEY
Staff
lfbailey@ius.edu
