Middle Grades & Secondary Education Concentration

Students will learn to construct a framework for supporting and teaching reading in the content area. We will focus on developing research-based methods, strategies, and procedures for designing instruction that supports literacy in each of the core disciplines: Math, Science, English, and History. We will develop skills in assessing reading levels and teaching vocabulary development and reading strategies. Students spend two hours a week in a field experience.

Examines ways to structure the learning environment and to organize and implement instruction to best meet students’ needs and maximize their learning. Addresses teaming, scheduling, teacher-based guidance/advisories, service learning, and family connections. Participants will explore and have direct experience with a variety of planning strategies. They will analyze existing organizational structures and propose improvements upon or justifications for existing practices. Students will spend one-half day per week working in middle school classrooms.

Students in this course explore the underlying principles of middle and secondary-level pedagogy that will prepare students for student teaching and for a professional position in a middle/high school classroom. Champlain students will explore content-specific methods within the broad framework of middle and secondary methods. Students spend one full day each week in a field experience.

Students will investigate and implement differentiated instruction as a philosophical approach to meeting the instructional needs of all students in a middle/high school classroom. We will also examine and apply differentiated learning strategies to real life situations. Differentiating lesson plans and instruction will be modeled throughout this course. This course will include a two-three hour field placement in a differentiated classroom.