Required Courses for All Humanities Secondary Education Concentrations

All Humanities concentrations (English, French, Spanish and History) require the following courses for completion of the degree program.

EDCI 3136: Secondary School Reading in Content Subjects

The content and focus of the course is the use of reading strategies exclusively in the content areas of science and mathematics. This course is required for students pursuing secondary science or mathematics teaching certificates. Secondary School Reading in Content Subjects enables students to be perceived as and educated to be both subject specialists and teachers of reading.

Science and mathematics teachers have historically focused on content acquisition rather than the competencies required to enable content acquisition. The purpose of literacy is to increase the learning of critical content. In this course, science and mathematics teachers must shift their thinking about curriculum design and delivery, moving away from simply covering the available content to instead focusing on organizing curriculum experiences around compelling critical content and then developing plans and teaching routines which ensure that all students master that content.

One of the goals of an educational system is to help students become more strategic readers. A reading program that implements successful comprehension instruction increases students’ interest and success in reading, providing students the intrinsic motivation needed for continual learning. Learning to read and reading to learn are interrelated processes that lifelong learners use to refine and expand what they currently know and believe about the world.

EDCI: 4005 Student Teaching

An underlying philosophy of the GeauxTeach program is that with extensive, individualized, and ongoing coaching, pre-service teachers’ skills will improve at an accelerated rate. The GeauxTeach Student Teaching program is an important part of this coaching. In addition to the mentoring provided by the classroom teacher to which the apprentice teachers are assigned, trained observers with considerable teaching experience observe and provide extensive feedback. Because apprentice teachers have taught at various levels in previous GeauxTeach courses, they assume teaching responsibilities quickly in their final semester as a student. Student teachers concentrate on teaching lessons each week in which they demonstrate competency of the particular state standards.

The purpose of Student Teaching is to offer GeauxTeach students a culminating experience that provides them with the tools needed for their first teaching jobs. Students are immersed in the expectations, process¬es, and rewards of teaching. When making placements, each student teacher’s characteristics and abilities as well as the cooperating teacher’s teaching and mentoring styles are taken into consideration. The hope is that the complementary strengths of the GeauxTeach student teacher and cooperating teacher will generate a synergism that benefits both people professionally.

Student Teaching reinforces and augments teaching strategies that students have developed through their coursework and field experiences. The program also attempts to fill in any gaps in students’ professional development. In particular, Student Teaching focuses on classroom management and time management strategies, parent/teacher communication strategies, school culture and school dynamics that make up an effective middle school and high school system, legal and logistical issues in teaching, the final portfolio, and state certification examinations.