They expand their creativity and problem solving skills and learn the basic concepts and skills related to effective teaching and learning. All education courses emphasize sound principles of child development and learning. They utilize instructional strategies that maximize the psychosocial, cognitive, moral, and physical development of those being taught. The Education Department considers the humanistic approach to be central for the development of future teachers. Concepts from history, philosophy, theology, and psychology prepare graduates to have the background necessary for the formulation of their own philosophies of education.
Students observe, demonstrate, and reflect upon child development and teaching.
These experiences, provided in a variety of school settings and grade levels, enable students to connect theory with practice prior to their formal field-based student teaching experience. The program includes a solid core of education courses that provide graduates with a thorough understanding of those strategies needed to effectively work with pubescents and adolescents in secondary schools. The programs combine the College's intensive major in human development or interdisciplinary studies with a second major that prepares students professionally through a series of courses that focus on teaching and learning. The programs of study are unique because they combine the best of what is thought and taught in early childhood education and special education or elementary education and special education. Education graduates are therefore prepared to meet the challenges brought by the mainstreaming or inclusion of students with special needs into general education classrooms.