Mar 28, 2024  
Mansfield University 2019-2020 Undergraduate Catalog 
    
Mansfield University 2019-2020 Undergraduate Catalog [Archived Catalog]

Professional Studies in Secondary Education, Bachelor of Science in Education


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Offered by the Department of Education and Special Education


Professional Studies in Secondary Education Degree Program with Concentrations in Earth & Space Science, English Language Arts, Mathematics, and Social Studies

Mission: The Faculty of the Mansfield University Professional Studies in Secondary Education Program are dedicated to the development of excellence in all aspects of our program.  It is the primary mission of the Professional Studies in Secondary Education Program (within the teacher education unit at Mansfield University) to prepare educators to serve the region, the Commonwealth, and the nation. Our graduates will be able to make reflective decisions that are grounded in accepted theory, research, and practice. These decisions will enable the teacher to adapt instruction to individual adolescent differences and to changing conditions within schools and society. (Revised November 2017)

Vision: The Professional Studies in Secondary Education Program at Mansfield University prepares graduates with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to be reflective secondary teachers who believe all students can learn and help them to do so. These reflective and highly effective education professionals seek to contribute positively to their schools, districts, and communities.  They will foster and encourage content-related experiences while appreciating diversity across cultures. (Revised November 2017)

Values: Teacher education programs at Mansfield University advance the theme, “Teacher as Reflective Decision-Maker.” This theme derives from a knowledge base and conceptual framework based on Danielson’s Four Domains of Effective Teaching: Planning and Preparation, the Classroom Environment, Instruction, and Professional Responsibilities. Candidates are prepared to teach in accordance with the professional standards of the Pennsylvania Department of Education and of national teacher education societies.  In addition to this, the Professional Studies in Secondary Education Program places an emphasis on the following:

1. We will promote character.  Our faculty and students will exemplify the highest standards of ethical behavior, incorporating respect for self, others, and our surroundings. We will devote ourselves to the holistic development of individuals, fostering personal accountability, honesty, and advocacy through character education. Courage, integrity, and honor exemplify our core values.  As the art of teaching demands honesty and integrity, so too will we expect our department to promote and encourage these values in all we do.

2. We will foster scholarship.   We will model a life of intellectual curiosity, celebrating the creation and dissemination of new ideas in education and the concentration areas.  We will embrace the use of rigorous, responsible, and critical inquiry to understand, acquire, and share knowledge.  We apply what we learn by recognizing that each of us is both student and teacher engaged in the continuous pursuit of learning.  We will therefore maintain a faculty dedicated to the highest standards in teaching, content knowledge, and scholarship.

3. We will enhance culture.  We will serve and lead the region and beyond in promoting global diversity and cultural awareness.  We will accomplish this mission by working collaboratively across disciplines.  Through open discourse, we will create meaningful experiences that compel us towards deeper understanding on the inter-connectedness of the disciplines.

4. We will advocate service.   Knowledge invests us with the power and responsibility to improve our world, and to act as advocates and agents of positive change.  We will be engaged with our community.  Our students, faculty, and staff will partake in volunteerism and service activities as a natural outgrowth of the University Mission in order to impact lives now and in the future.   We encourage and actively promote on our campus and surrounding community an awareness of the importance of the role of teaching and the disciplines in the enrichment of the human spirit and knowledge of the influences that affect the world. (Revised November 2017)

 

Professional Studies in Secondary Education Program Student Learning Outcomes
(approved Summer 2018)

A. Understanding the Organizational Structure of the High School

Candidates will document professional growth through reflection that supports continuing critical and constructive self-assessment in their developing ability to:

     • Make curricular decisions that are grounded in the social, philosophical, and historical foundations of education.
     • Engage adolescents in activities related to their interpersonal, community, and societal responsibilities.
     • Develop classrooms as communities of practice that are learner-oriented.
     • Utilize student assistance and student support programs that attend to the intellectual, social, and emotional needs of adolescents.
     • Participate in professional organizations related to a subject-area specialization, academic discipline, and/or teaching.
     • Interact with various professionals that serve adolescents (e.g., school counselors, social service workers, home-school coordinators).
     • Understand the philosophy of secondary education.

B. Understanding and Applying Adolescent Development, Cognition, and Learning Fundamentals

Candidates will support and maintain positive classroom environments that are conducive to student learning by demonstrating their ability to:

  • Recognize and implement the major concepts, principles, theories, and research related to adolescent cognitive, social, sexual, emotional, and moral development.
  • Design and implement strategies that encourage students’ positive self-esteem, self-efficacy, and motivation.
  • Identify and respect the range of individual and cultural differences of all adolescents and the implications of those differences in teaching and learning.
  • Identify how the development of all adolescents occurs in the context of classrooms, families, peer groups, communities, and society.
  • Design and implement strategies that provide students with appropriate skills in making the transition from middle-level to high school, and then to full citizenship (work, college, military, etc.).
  • Incorporate knowledge of adolescent development into educating students in goals setting and decision-making.
  • Create and support learning environments that promote the healthy development of all adolescents.
  • Demonstrate effective adolescent behavior strategies for the classroom.

C. Pedagogical Competence: Planning and Preparation

Candidates will plan and prepare effective instruction in the content area that leads to student learning by demonstrating their ability to:

  • Use effective instructional principles, especially those that draw on the research on pedagogical content knowledge in course content.
  • Make decisions about curriculum and resources that reflect an understanding of adolescent development.
  • Use materials designed explicitly for the secondary grades.
  • Utilize subject-specific methodologies.
  • Incorporate technology into instruction appropriately.
  • Create lessons that support literacy across the curriculum.
  • Apply PA core standards into both short-term and long-term instructional goals.
  • Design educational experiences that help students communicate using various tools and means.
  • Create lessons that demonstrate an understanding of literacy both broadly and in discipline contexts.
  • Utilize literature, classic texts in different genres, commercial reading materials, electronic-based information and locally created materials.

D. Pedagogical Competence: Instruction

Candidates will deliver effective and appropriate instruction in the content area that leads to student learning, as demonstrated by their ability to:

  • Employ teaching and learning strategies that consider and capitalize upon the developmental characteristics of all adolescents.
  • Use effective comprehensive instructional principles responsive to the needs of students.
  • Deliver curriculum that is relevant, challenging, integrative, and exploratory.
  • Incorporate adolescents’ ideas, interests, and experiences into instruction.
  • Design successful interventions responsive to the needs of individual students.
  • Integrate technology and other resources appropriately in order to prepare students for higher education, full citizenship, and the workforce.
  • Prepare students to gain, process, and use information in different contexts.
  • Demonstrate the adaptation of educational or subject-specific research in lessons.
  • Differentiate instruction, assessment, and management strategies to represent a broad spectrum of learning abilities, learning styles, multiple intelligences and interests.
  • Develop inclusionary practices that respect differences and encourage students to work together to maximize their own and one another’s learning.

E. Educational Assessment

Candidates will use norm-referenced, criterion-referenced, dynamic (value-added), formative, summative, and benchmark assessments as a basis for aligning individual and group instruction with increasingly complex curricular goals, as evidenced by their documented ability to:

  • Utilize assessment practices which match instructional strategies, are culturally relevant, and authentically measure student performance.
  • Continuously monitor the results of interventions and alter instruction accordingly.
  • Use multiple assessments (authentic screening, diagnostic, formative, benchmark and summative) that are developmentally appropriate for adolescent learners, including graduation and end-of-course examinations.
  • Implement technology in student assessment and measures.
  • Use assessment data to guide instruction.
  • Strategically tutor students whose assessments indicate need for additional instruction.
  • Use multiple assessment strategies that effectively measure student mastery of the curriculum in more than one way.
  • Design assessments that target academic standards and Assessment Anchor Content Standards in subject areas.
  • Develop assessments that impact instruction, facilitate learning communities, and support diverse students’ development and learning.
  • Apply assessments that help reveal readiness in making the transition from school (to work, to higher education, to military service, to full citizenship, etc.).

F. Professionalism

Candidates will conduct themselves in accordance with Pennsylvania’s Code of Professional Practice and Conduct for Educators and the Mansfield University dispositions policy, as demonstrated by their documented ability to:

  • Act as positive role models, coaches, and mentors for all adolescents.
  • Communicate deep content knowledge in the subjects taught.
  • Serve on an advisory program, co-curricular activities, and other programs supporting the curriculum.
  • Uphold high professional standards.
  • Utilize research and data-based decision-making.
  • Participate fully in grade and building level structures.
  • Develop effective teaching practices and focus on continual improvement within the teacher-preparation apprenticeship model.

G. Accommodations and Adaptations

Candidates will be able to demonstrate core knowledge in the following areas and the ability to use that knowledge effectively to plan and implement effective instruction with students who have disabilities:

  • Types of Disabilities and Implications for Learning
  • Cognitive Skill Development to Ensure Achievement of Students with Disabilities in Standards Aligned System to include All School Environments
  • Assessments
  • Literacy Development and Instruction in Core and Intervention Areas
  • Effective Instructional Strategies for Students with Disabilities in Inclusive Settings

H. English Language Learners

Candidates will be able to demonstrate core knowledge in each of the following areas and the ability to use that knowledge effectively to plan and implement effective instruction with students who are English Language Learners:

  • Language
  • Culture
  • Standards-based Instruction
  • Assessment
  • Professionalism

 I.    Subject Matter Content Candidates will demonstrate mastery in the content, processes, and related concepts in the discipline areas respective to their individual areas of preparation.

Total Credit Hours: 94 - 99


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