Seidel School Receives Grant to Redesign SSU's Teacher Prep Program

SALISBURY, MD--The Council for Basic Education in collaboration with the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education awarded Salisbury State University s Seidel School of Education and Professional Studies $44,000 for a three-year project to redesign SSU s teacher preparation programs and ensure that teacher candidates have the content knowledge and pedagogical skills to support K-12 academic standards. The proposal, written by Dr. David Anderson, designates Dr. Geraldine Rossi as the Standards-based Teacher Education Project (STEP) program coordinator, and Dr. Don Cathcart, SSU interim provost, as co-director. Under the STEP program, SSU in collaboration with K-12 area schools, Wor-Wic and Chesapeake community colleges will establish a faculty roundtable to create a consistent and integrated list of institutional goals for the regional K-16 community and a strategic list of activities to infuse a standards-based approach throughout the K-16 community in the region.

Through STEP, SSU will integrate the learning expectations defined by local and state K-12 standards into their teacher preparation programs in three ways. An institutional analysis will access current liberal arts curricula and teacher preparation programs to determine how they align with student learning expectations set forth in relevant K-12 standards. The faculty roundtable will help redesign courses and experiences for teacher candidates more closely articulated with K-12 standards and new teacher assessment standards. And, an accountability system to find out how well teacher candidates know the content of the subjects they will teach will be implemented.