Professional Excellence and Growth

Candidates develop the knowledge, skills and dispositions essential for a successful career in the field of education. These skills include, but are not limited to, mastery of subject matter and pedagogical theory, instructional design and assessment, approaches for motivating learners, inquiry, reflective practice, leadership, classroom management strategies, and, for our leadership candidates, the ability to design and implement a strategic vision that involves all stakeholders in creating a positive learning environment in which all students can achieve their potential.

Community and Diversity

Candidates learn that students construct knowledge in a myriad of individual ways that are influenced by such factors as ability, ethnicity, social environment of home and school, primary language, and gender. It is important for candidates to learn to recognize such individual student differences and adapt their instruction and strategic vision to individual student needs and to do so in a variety of diverse communities and classroom settings.

Leadership and Service

Candidates develop qualities that prepare them for further professional development and leadership roles in the school, profession, and community, where they will serve and act as advocates for all students.

To realize our vision, we have identified a number of concrete mission objectives:

1. Provide discipline-based professional education of the highest quality for undergraduate and graduate teacher and leadership candidates.
2. Integrate research and theories of the disciplines with diverse field experiences, and create educators who will continue to grow and synergistically combine evolving expert knowledge with pedagogy that exceeds state, national, and professional standards.
3. Integrate diversity into the academic and clinical experiences to enhance the continuous cross fertilization of ideas.
4. Build and strengthen partnerships within the University and with the regional community. 
5. Provide leadership and professional development for the educational community of the region and beyond. 

The aim of our teacher education programs is to prepare candidates who:

1. Understand how learners grow and develop, recognizing that patterns of learning and development vary individually within and across the cognitive, linguistic, social, emotional, and physical areas, and designs and implements developmentally appropriate and challenging learning experiences.
2. Understand the individual differences and diverse cultures and communities to ensure inclusive learning environments that enable each learner to meet high standards.
3. Work with others to create environments that support individual and collaborative learning, and that encourage positive social interaction, active engagement in learning, and self motivation.
4. Understand the central concepts, tools of inquiry, and structures of the discipline(s) s/he teaches and creates learning experiences that make these aspects of the discipline accessible and meaningful for learners to assure mastery of the content.
5. Understand how to connect concepts and use differing perspectives to engage learners in critical thinking, creativity, and collaborative problem solving related to authentic local and global issues.
6. Understand and use multiple methods of assessment to engage learners in their own growth, to monitor learner progress, and to guide the teacher's and learner's decision making.
7. Plan instruction that supports every student in meeting rigorous learning goals by drawing upon knowledge of content areas, curriculum, cross-disciplinary skills and pedagogy as well as knowledge of learners and the community context.
8. Understand and use a variety of instructional strategies to encourage learners to develop deep understanding of content areas and their connections and to build skills to apply knowledge in meaningful ways.
9. Engage in ongoing professional learning and use evidence to continually evaluate his/her practice, particularly the effects of his/her choices and actions on others (learners, families, other professionals, and the learning community), and adapt practice to meet the needs of each learner.
10. Seek appropriate leadership roles and opportunities to take responsibility for student learning, to collaborate with learners, families, colleagues, other school professionals, and community members to ensure learner growth and to advance the profession.

The aim of our educational leadership programs is to produce candidates who:

1. Develop and demonstrate the skills needed to work with a board of education to facilitate the development of a vision of learning for a school district that promotes the success of all students.
2. Demonstrate the ability to plan programs to motivate staff, students, and families to achieve a school district's vision.
3. Demonstrate the ability to bring together and communicate effectively with stakeholders within the district and the larger community concerning implementation and realization of the vision.
4. Develop a sustained approach to improve and maintain a positive district culture for learning that capitalizes on multiple aspects of diversity to meet the learning needs of all students.
5. Demonstrate an ability to assist school and district personnel in understanding and applying best practices for student learning.
6. Collaborate with families and other community members.
7. Respond to community interests and needs.
8. Demonstrate a respect for rights of others with regard to confidentiality and dignity and engage in honest interactions.
9. Demonstrate the ability to combine impartiality, sensitivity to student diversity, and ethical considerations with their interactions with others. 
10. Make and explain decisions based upon ethical and legal principles.
11. Espouse positions in response to proposed policy changes that would benefit or harm districts and explain how policies and laws might improve educational and social opportunities for specific communities.

Both sets of proficiencies are aligned with the D-TALE (formerly PEP) and Stony Brook University missions, the D-TALE themes, New York State standards, and INTASC/ELCC standards (respectively).