Standard IX Exit Criteria
Swarthmore College Education > State Review
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The Program in Education has a published set of exit criteria, including grade point averages and PRAXIS test requirements, the courses required in the specific certification subject areas and the courses required in professional education. The requirements in professional education and in the specific subject areas can be found in Appendix J, the Sophomore Paper. See also Exit Criteria Checklist in Appendix E. A list of the professional education competencies required for successful completion of the certification program, together with information about which Education course or courses afford an opportunity to learn them, and how these competencies are assessed, is available in the Topics in the Professional Sequence, Appendix A. As the Topics in the Professional Sequence document indicates, the development of the learning principles, skills and concepts required in PA 354.33 are assessed at several points during the certification sequence through a variety of evaluation strategies. These include written and oral exams, essays, class presentations, projects, and case exercises. During student teaching, each certification candidate creates a student teaching portfolio, including a number of required assignments and some assignments of the candidate's choice. This portfolio is shared with members of the seminar and is available on-line as well as in hard copy form. At the conclusion of the Curriculum and Methods seminar, competencies that can not be directly assessed during student teaching are examined in both a written and an oral examination. In addition, competencies specifically developed during student teaching are formally documented and evaluated twice during the semester using the Student Teaching Checklist, Appendix B. The Student Teaching Competency Checklist, which is completed by the College Supervisor, the Cooperating Teacher and the student is part of each candidate's permanent file. The Teacher Education Committee, which reviews all candidates' dossiers, is responsible for final recommendation for certification. For additional detail about the final evaluation process of teacher certification candidates, see Standard VIII.
Swarthmore certification candidates are prepared to deal with diverse student populations in a number of courses and field placements.
- In Introduction to Education, the implications of
P.L. 94&endash;142 are addressed as part of the extension of equal
educational opportunity. Students also consider the implications
of using behavior modification techniques with pupils who have
special needs. In Educational Psychology, readings and class
discussions address issues of management and instructional
planning for pupils who vary in their strengths, needs and
interests, including regular education pupils and pupils
identified as exceptional relative to their classmates. In
Adolescence, students examine the social, and psychological
dynamics experienced by students who have a range of learning and
social differences. In the Curriculum and Methods Seminar,
students (a) review both the laws and the referral process for
placement in the least restrictive environment; (b) review tests
used in placement and interpret results of these tests; (c) adjust
their own lesson plans and teaching strategies to accommodate
children with varying disabilities (i.e. physical, emotional,
learning); (d) write at least one of the narrative reports for
their portfolio on a student with some type of special need; and
(e) examine the IEP process. During student teaching,
certification candidates also review ways to alter curricula and
adapt teaching strategies to meet the cognitive, affective and
physicals needs of exceptional students in their classes and
discuss ways to work with both parents and other school personnel
in support of students with special needs. They also confer with
the Cooperating Teacher and other special education faculty or
counselors in their school about specific students in their
classes. In addition, student teachers observe in a resource room
or special education class for the grade level they are teaching.
The Program in Education offers Special Education, which some
certification students take as an elective. Field placements in
this course are made in resource rooms or special facilities
offering services to pupils with special needs. If a Swarthmore
student requests it, their placement in Introduction to Education
can also be in a resource room.
- Working with students from diverse ethnic, racial, economic
and language backgrounds:
Students at Swarthmore have numerous opportunities to examine the particular needs and challenges of teaching and learning in urban school settings which are increasingly serving large majorities of low income students, students of color and/or students who are limited English proficient. In Introduction to Education, the syllabus includes several readings which deal explicitly with the structural, demographic and teaching situations in urban settings and issues of social class, race, ethnicity and language learning that must be addressed (i.e. Anyon, Kohl, Kozol, Fine, Meier, Nieto). They also consider proposals for educational reform, curricular approaches and teaching strategies that have proved useful in promoting academic engagement and achievement of students in urban schools. Students have the option of doing their Introduction to Education field placement in an urban school, and about one quarter of the students choose to do so.
In Educational Psychology, students read seminal studies of pupil learning as part of the Smart Schools, Community of Learners, ATLAS, and Mather School Program projects—reform efforts situated in urban settings. As part of the Educational Psychology class, students also discuss and experience learning through techniques designed to provide individualized instruction in terms of both classroom planning and management. These include methods of cooperative learning originally developed for work in desegregated schools. In addition, students discuss the process of labeling and strategies for helping others (as well as themselves) become more conscious about labeling and the need to overcome the self-concept issues that labeling introduces.
In Adolescence, students read research that challenges traditional developmental theory from the perspectives of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and ethnicity. Students also read case studies and short stories written by men and women from a wide variety of backgrounds and research studies of the school experiences of students from the non-dominant culture. Through these readings they learn about variations in identity development, peer and family relationships and school experience that are influenced by race, class, ethnicity, sexual orientation and language background.
In Teaching the Young Learner (taken by all students who plan to be certified in elementary education in the joint program with Eastern College), students read about cross-cultural approaches to the education of young children and study theoretical approaches to learning and teaching that accommodate different social and cultural perspectives and contexts. Students then use cross-cultural approaches and socially situated theories to interpret the classroom-based data they have collected on particular children and to interpret curricular approaches to the teaching of elementary-age children.
If students take certain elective courses, they also deal substantively with issues related to cross-cultural learning and teaching. In Urban Education, which is taken by at least one-half, or more, of the students being certified, the first half of the course deals with issues of teaching and learning, including issues of language and dialect, assessment, teacher expectations, classroom management and discipline, cultural and cognitive style differences, and multicultural curriculum and teaching strategies. The second half of the course deals with policy issues, including desegregation, bilingual education, compensatory education, decentralization, school choice, and current reform efforts. In Urban Education all students do a ten-week field placement, one-half day a week, in an urban school in Chester or Philadelphia. At the conclusion of the semester, they write a paper based on some aspect of their field placement. For those students who take the School and Society elective, additional aspects of multicultural education are explored, i.e., school structural features which inhibit or promote tolerance and understanding in integrated schools; cultural difference versus cultural deficit explanations of academic performance of varying ethnic and social class groups; and psychological and social problems faced by minority students in desegregated and integrated schools. In Gender and Education, students examine in depth the impact of gender on access to education, educational attainment and achievement, teaching and administration, and curriculum. The interaction of race, ethnicity, and social class with gender is a central aspect of this course.
Teaching students from diverse backgrounds and with diverse needs is integrated throughout the Curriculum and Methods seminar and can be found in the following topics in the Professional Sequence booklet: Topic #3 (Lesson and Unit Planning) and Topic #l3 (Individualization) include tailoring of plans to meet individual differences both in preparation and in background; Topic #7 (Teaching Strategies) includes a range of effective techniques; Topic #8 (Classroom Management and Control) includes exposure to a variety of techniques dealing with personal interaction; Topic #9 (Test Construction) and Topic #10 (Feedback and Assessment in the Content Areas) include a review of cultural bias in content as well as the interpretation of findings relative to norms for a population; Topic #11 (Reading, Writing and Speaking) includes a review of different approaches and strategies to meet needs of pupils of varying backgrounds; Topic #13 (Individualization) includes a variety of techniques applicable to the needs of students from varying social and cultural backgrounds. Finally, Topic #15 (Multicultural, Non-racist, Non-sexist Education) focuses on students' understanding and interactions with students from diverse backgrounds.
In the course of doing required field placements and student teaching, all certification candidates have worked with at least some students whose racial, ethnic, social class and/or language backgrounds differ from their own and with students with special needs. About 25% of all graduates have done practice teaching in an urban setting. In addition, by the time they graduate, the majority of teacher certification candidates have had summer internships, camp counseling jobs, or tutored in a setting where a majority of the children are of color and/or low income. A large percentage of Swarthmore Education students, as is also the case for the whole student body, also engage in volunteer work, many of them in the city of Chester, a low-income, predominantly African-American community.
The Educational Materials Center includes numerous curriculum materials and resources for working with students with exceptionalities; with students from diverse ethnic, racial and language backgrounds; as well as with issues of gender, sexuality and social class. As a result of a Mellon grant to the College, the Education program was able to significantly increase our holdings of books and computer software on these topics.
Issues of multiculturalism and diversity are topics that receive ongoing consideration not only in many courses in the Social Sciences and Humanities but also through the extracurricular activities on campus. Throughout the school year, College forums and lectures examine the cultural experiences of and the social structures that impinge on diverse ethnic, racial, language and social class groups. Some of these forums are organized by student groups (e.g., Women's Center, Black Cultural Center, Queer-Straight Alliance, The Intercultural Center, HOLA (Latino) SAO (South Asian) and Pacific Rim Organization), and other lectures and events are organized by academic departments or the Dean's Office. Every year there is a Sager Symposium which deals with some aspect of gay, lesbian or bisexual experience, as well as other major colloquia or symposia dealing with issues of diversity. The College has an Intercultural Center, which is the locus of many educational, political and cultural activities on Campus as well as a Black Cultural Center and the Women's Resource Center; the latter two have existed for over 30 years. The College has just this year hired a new Associate Dean for Multicultural Affairs.
- Dealing with issues of human development and individual
differences:
Studies in human development are a key element of many of the courses in the Education Program and a thematic core that integrates the offerings of the certification program. At all levels, theory and research about human development are learned in a context that permits their observation and application in field settings. In Introduction to Education, students are first introduced to various developmental theories and how they can inform classroom practice. In Adolescence, students study a range of traditional theories of adolescent development as well as newer theories that emphasize the interaction between psychological development, social categories and individual differences. Study of human development is central to the design of the Educational Psychology course. Students examine models of learning and development early in the term and with this base proceed to study indicators of learning such as planning, strategy use, metacognition, and the development of representational competence. Students use what they have learned in these classes as they work in Curriculum and Methods and Student Teaching. Readings on these topics focus on problems of practice, and the seminar discussions which follow emphasize the interaction between individual development and classroom process, providing undergraduates with practical strategies for taking individual needs into consideration as they plan and implement their lessons.
A knowledge of the process of cognitive development is central to much of the course work in the Education Program. This theme is first established in Introduction to Education through reading the work of Piaget, Holt, Vygotsky, and Bruner. In the Introductory course, students apply these concepts to the analysis of case material, to the planning of lessons, to designing a thematic curriculum unit and to the analysis of field observations. The theme is further developed in Educational Psychology where both cognitive and affective development is viewed as basic to understanding student learning generally and individual differences in learning more specifically. The theories of Piaget, Karmilof-Smith Vygotsky, and Freire, together with the research of Gardner, Sternberg, and Cole, are used to provide students with a basic overview of student learning. Psychological and educational research on both typical and atypical development is used to detail: (a) the role of prior experience in learning and development; (b) the mechanisms involved in the process of learning; (c) indicators of learning; (d) influences on learning; and (e) the implications of knowledge about student learning for teaching. Students tutor a student throughout the term on a weekly basis. In addition, they develop research questions, format data, conduct analyses, and write interpretations of findings as part of their weekly laboratory work on student learning. In Adolescence, students study theory and research on physical, cognitive, psychosocial, affective and moral development (e.g. Erikson, Miller, Gilligan, Kohlberg, Perry, Hill, Savin-Williams) and examine the relationships among theory, research, and adolescent experience. Students' papers in this course include a theoretical analysis of a case study and the analysis of interviews conducted using moral and cognitive developmental protocols. As a final project in Adolescence students select one area of research and write a review of current empirical work. Thus, students develop a solid foundation in developmental issues prior to the student teaching experience. Finally, in the Curriculum and Methods seminar, teacher education candidates, who teach a wide variety of content and age groups, discuss developmental issues. This seminar composition necessitates continued consideration of developmental concepts with respect to both curriculum and instruction across the K-12 range of schooling. Tasks and discussions that address the developmental differences and needs of students through academic context and classroom processes for teaching are explicitly built into the seminar.
