Introduction to Teacher Education
About This Handbook
Handbook Content Non-Binding, Subject to Change Statement
This handbook has been prepared for the purpose of furnishing prospective and current students, as well as other interested persons, with information about the Teacher Education program at the University of North Dakota. Information contained in this handbook is subject to change without notice and is not to be interpreted as creating a binding obligation on the institution or state. Updated handbooks are published annually and posted on the Teacher Education website.
Accreditation
Our programs are fully approved by the North Dakota Education Standards and Practices Board and accredited by the National Council for Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP, formerly NCATE).
Title II
Programs preparing teacher educators and other school-related personnel at the University of North Dakota comply with the Title II Higher Education Act and have reported their information to the North Dakota Educational Standards and Practices Board.
UND Teacher Education: Tradition, Mission, Vision
A Tradition of Excellence
Welcome to Teacher Education at UND! At the University of North Dakota, we have a proud and long tradition of teacher education. In fact, UND has been educating teachers since it opened its doors in 1884. We currently graduate approximately 150 new teachers per year who enter classrooms in North Dakota, Minnesota, and across the nation. Many have been named “Teacher of the Year” in their states and districts, while others have served leadership roles in professional organizations and schools. Our graduates are highly sought after by schools locally, regionally, and further afield. With teacher shortages across the United States, your options for employment are numerous.
We are the largest teacher education program in the state of North Dakota and currently offer coursework leading to 28 different areas of teacher licensure or credentialing. Situated in the College of Education and Human Development, our programs span three colleges and 17 different departments. We also offer Masters and Doctoral degrees for educators pursuing advanced study, including Educational Leadership (to become a principal or school superintendent). All of this means that as a student in Teacher Education at UND, you have a wide range of opportunities available to you as you determine where you want your teaching career to take you!
Our programs are designed to give you real-world experiences in PK-12 schools and
classrooms while you take courses that prepare you to teach and advocate for a diversity
of learners. You can choose to enhance this preparation with study abroad as well
as student teaching placements around the United States and internationally.
All of our teacher education programs as well as our graduate programs in Educational
Leadership and School Counseling are approved by the North Dakota Educational Standards
and Practices Board and are nationally accredited by the Council of Accreditation
for Educator Preparation (CAEP). All tenure-track and tenured faculty members hold
doctoral degrees and are active scholars and researchers. Many are nationally recognized
in their respective fields, as well as being recognized, individually and collectively,
for teaching, research, and service to the UND community and the state. You can be
assured that the education you receive at UND is of the highest quality and will prepare
you for a successful and rewarding career.
CEHD Mission Statement
- The College of Education and Human Development (CEHD) is dedicated to promoting healthy human development and learning across the lifespan. In line with this mission, CEHD values and integrates human and cultural diversity into all its activities. Both undergraduate and graduate students are encouraged to cultivate the skills and self-awareness necessary to become effective, ethical professionals and leaders in schools, higher education, and human service and wellness organizations. As CEHD graduates, they empower individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities to make informed decisions and lead fulfilling, productive lives. In doing so, CEHD graduates play a crucial role in fostering a healthy economy and improving the overall quality of life.
- CEHD employs multi-faceted approaches to education, relying on teaching, research, and service in the education of students. The continuing development of effective and innovative instructional methods provides excellent service and education to diverse groups of students, including those both on and off the UND campus. The array of disciplines within the college emphasizes basic and applied research with implications for individual development and social change. This emphasis is reinforced by the professional service provided by faculty, many of whom are involved in service in mental health, wellness, and teaching roles. Within all three domains – teaching, research, and service - we attempt to form partnerships with community, state, tribal, and national organizations and government, as well as schools and human service agencies, to provide a more comprehensive effort to foster human development and learning. We seek to develop mutually supportive partnerships with historically underserved populations, especially the American Indian.
CEHD Vision Statement
CEHD engages with stakeholders to find solutions to societal and educational challenges through impactful teaching, research, and outreach. We create an environment where students, faculty and staff collaborate as an innovative and diverse community.
Our Beliefs About Teaching and Teacher Education
It’s All About Learning
At UND, our teacher education programs are structured around a conceptual framework in which educators play three crucial and intersecting roles.
- Educators as Learners
- Educators as Practitioners
- Educators as Advocates
Educators as Learners addresses our goal of developing educators who are committed and passionate about the continuing process of learning about many things, especially the process of teaching, and who will in turn guide their students in becoming lifelong learners.
Educators as Practitioners focuses on developing educators who can take an active role in promoting the learning of all students. In our programs, you will learn about educational settings and diverse learners while engaging in multiple, authentic experiences in schools that challenge you to apply your growing knowledge and skill.
Educators as Advocates is directed at the development of educators who will advocate with and for students. We expect our graduates to be committed to meeting the educational needs of all their students in a caring, non-discriminatory, and equitable manner. Additionally, we help our educators recognize the existing inequities in schools and society and adopt a proactive stance that will challenge such inequities and improve educational opportunities.
What You Will Learn in our Programs
Several key tenets in teacher education guide the design of our programs: that learning and teaching are complex; that teaching expertise develops over time, and that teacher growth occurs through reflection, feedback, and practice. As such, our programs integrate field experiences in schools, coursework, and working closely with faculty and mentor teachers. Our programs adhere to national teacher education standards that articulate what effective teaching and learning looks like, and the skills, knowledge, and competencies teachers must possess to effectively educate all students.
In our programs, you will specifically learn (based on the 2015 Interstate Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium Standards):
- How learners grow and develop and how to implement developmentally appropriate and challenging learning experiences.
- To use understanding of individual differences and diverse cultures to create inclusive learning environments and differentiated instruction that enables each learner to meet high standards.
- How to work with others to create environments that support individual and collaborative learning and that encourage positive social interaction, engagement, and self-motivation.
- The central concepts, tools of inquiry, and structures of the discipline you wish to teach.
- How to engage learners in critical thinking, creativity, and collaborative problem solving related to authentic local and global issues.
- To understand and use multiple methods of assessment.
- To understand and use a variety of instructional strategies to encourage learners to develop deep understanding and connections of content areas.
- To use evidence to continually evaluate your practice, particularly the effects of your choices and actions on others.
Our teacher education programs are rigorous, challenging, and all about learning. We take pride in preparing and graduating the highest quality teachers who are as committed to teaching and learning as we are!
Programs of Study
The link below will take you to all of our Undergraduate Degrees, Graduate Degrees, Accelerated/Combined Programs, Minors, and Certificates. We encourage you to talk with an advisor about how to maximize your program of study to best prepare for today’s diverse classrooms and the employment market. You can find more information at the TLPP Academics website.
- Credential - This term refers to authorization to perform in a specialized area of education that also requires teacher licensure. Special Educators, Reading Specialists, Principals, Counselors, and Superintendents in North Dakota have advanced preparation in these areas and are credentialed by the Department of Public Instruction.
- Endorsement - An endorsement is an authorization to teach in an area in addition to one’s major field or area of licensure. Often an endorsement is gained by earning an academic minor.
- Minor - You are encouraged to consider pursuing a minor; minors can be taken from a variety of fields to support and enhance your major and/or to help develop knowledge and skills in extracurricular, non-academic areas. Please meet with a professional adviser to declare a minor.
Areas of Teacher Shortage & Employment Trends
While all our graduates are generally successful in finding employment as teachers, there are several key teacher shortage areas across the state and nation. Some of our graduates find that there are more job opportunities available to them if they are licensed or endorsed to teach in two or more areas. The demand for teachers also differs significantly between states; however, in general, the highest shortages of teachers are in large urban cities and in rural areas. Please talk with one of our professional advisers about current employment trends and ways to maximize your hiring potential.
Essential Studies Requirements
Teachers are highly skilled people who need to be able to integrate knowledge from many different content areas in their role as an educator. As such, UND’s Essential Studies requirements are an important part of all teacher education programs. UND’s Essential Studies program requires courses in Communication, Quantitative Reasoning, and Diversity, as well as emphasizes critical and creative thinking skills and information literacy. These skills are essential to all teachers. The Essential Studies program also provides students with a breadth of knowledge in social sciences, humanities, science, and fine arts, meaning that your study at UND will prepare you with both a liberal arts foundation and professional education study.
Many of our teacher education programs require specific courses to meet Essential Studies Requirements. Visit Essential Studies to see a complete list of categories and acceptable courses. Please meet with your professional advisor if you have any questions.
Learn more about Essential Studies
Field Experiences
Field experiences are a key component of all Teacher Education programs at UND and where you will put into practice what you have learned in your coursework. Our sequence of field experiences has been designed to allow you to interact with a diverse range of students and experience a variety of school settings.
Beginning with TL 250: Introduction to Education, many of your Teacher Education courses will require you to spend time in P-12 classrooms working with students and teachers. Each field experience has been designed with specific objectives to help you progressively develop your teaching abilities.
Field experience placement procedure
- Field experience placement requests and confirmations will be arranged by the Office of Teacher Education and not by the candidate.
- Students will complete a Field Experience Placement Request for the semester in which
the field experience is scheduled to occur. The Field Experience Placement Request
will be distributed by the Office of Teacher Education via UND email. Field experience
placements will be delayed if the request is not completed.
- If you are out-of-area or have limited transportation, you must submit your Field Experience Placement Request as early as possible.
- The Office of Teacher Education will complete the placement process, which includes
several stages that require input from various stakeholder groups:
- Student
- UND faculty, staff, and/or advisors
- School cooperating teacher
- School district administration
- After you submit your Field Experience Placement Request, please be patient. Field
experience placements can take up to two weeks or longer to confirm.
- Monitor your UND email (including your spam folder). Each school district has its own placement procedures and may have its own requirements before a placement can be confirmed.
- The Office of Teacher Education will confirm and communicate field experience placements with the course instructor. The course instructor will communicate field experience placement details to the student.
- All field experience placements are final. Due to the volume of requests received, the Field Placement Coordinator cannot guarantee specific field experience placements. The best decision was made based on your location preference, your placement need, and school/teacher availability.
- If you need to update or cancel your Field Experience Placement Request, you will need to email the Field Placement Coordinator.
Important information regarding field placements
- Students must have a completed fingerprint background check (FBI & NDBCI background check) through ESPB and keep the background check up to date.
- Hours spent fulfilling one course’s field experience requirement cannot be double-counted to fulfill another course’s field experience requirement.
- School sites within the surrounding 60-mile radius of UND (Grand Forks) are considered local placements and can be confirmed as a field experience placement.
- Candidates will be required to sign a Statement of Understanding regarding field experience policies before their first Teacher Education field experience. This Statement of Understanding will be for the duration of their time in the Teacher Education program.
- For T&L 250, students can complete additional hours as long as the cooperating teacher, principal, course instructor, and student are all on board with that happening, but are not allowed to enroll in any credits of T&L 486 for the additional hours.
- If the student is enrolled in a T&L 486 Field Experience and chooses the route of picking up additional hours, the cooperating teacher, principal, course instructor, and student all must be in agreement with the additional hours. Then the student can enroll in additional credits at the rate of 30 hours per credit.
Progression of Teacher Education Field Experiences
The list below shows this gradual release of responsibility, from early field experiences where you will be responsible for working with a small group of children or assisting the teacher, to, by the end of student teaching, having full responsibility for all instruction, assessment, and management.
Progression of Coursework
- T&L 250: Introduction to Education
- Educators as Learners: 30 hours of observation & participation
- Focused Field Experiences: Brief Teaching & Assessment Activities (sample classes below)
- T&L 433: Multicultural Education
- T&L 335: Foundations of Reading
- T&L 432: Learning Environments
- T&L 486: Methods Field Experience (concurrent with Methods classes)
- Educator as Practitioner: Designing & Teaching Full Lesson Plans (60 hours)
- T&L 487: Student Teaching
- Educators as Practitioners & Advocate: Full Teaching Responsibilities
Courses with Required Field Experiences
| Course | Title of Course | # of Hours | During Class Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| T&L 250 | Introduction to Education | 30 | No |
| T&L 252 | Child Development | 3 | No |
| T&L 310 | Introduction to Early Childhood Education | 6 | Yes |
| T&L 311 | Observing and Assessing Children | 6 | Yes |
| T&L 313 | Language Development and Emerging Literacy | 8 | Yes |
| T&L 322 | Administration and Leadership in Early Childhood Ed | 10 | No |
| T&L 328 | Children’s Literature | 1 | Yes |
| T&L 333 | Methods and Materials: Pre-Kindergarten/Co-requisite T&L 486 Field Experience: 2 Credit | 60 | No |
| T&L 335 | Foundations of Reading | 2 | Yes |
| T&L 336 | Social-Emotional Development and Guidance in ECE | 6 | Yes |
| T&L 341 | Foundations of Middle Level Education | 5 | Yes |
| T&L 350 | Development and Education of the Adolescent | 10 | No |
| Art 461 | Methods and Materials: Teaching Middle and Secondary School Art/Co-requisite T&L 486 Field Experience: 2 Credits | 60 | No |
| Lang 400 | Methods and Materials: Teaching Middle and Secondary Foreign Language/Co-requisite T&L 486 Field Experience: 2 credits | 60 | No |
| Engl 423 | Methods and Materials: Teaching Middle and Secondary English/Co-requisite T&L 486 Field Experience: 2 credits | 60 | No |
| Musc 441 | Methods and Materials: Teaching Middle and Secondary Music/Co-requisite T&L 486 Field Experience: 2 credits | 30 | No |
| Musc 440 | Methods and Materials: Teaching Elementary Music/Co-requisite T&L 386: 1 credit | 30 | No |
| T&L 400 | Methods and Materials: Teaching Middle and Secondary Math/Co-requisite T&L 486 Field Experience: 2 credits | 60 | No |
| T&L 400 | Methods and Materials: Social Studies Composite/Co-requisite T&L 486 Field Experience: 2 credits | 60 | No |
| T&L 400 | Methods and Materials: Science Composite/Co-requisite T&L 486 Field Experience: 2 credits | 60 | No |
| T&L 410 | Teaching Reading and Writing in Elementary TEAM/Co-requisite T&L486 Field Experience: 2 credits | 60 | Yes |
| T&L 430 | Social Studies in Elementary (TEAM) | 60 | Yes |
| T&L 440 | Math in Elementary (TEAM) | 60 | Yes |
| T&L 470 | Science in Elementary (TEAM) | 60 | Yes |
| T&L 411 | Primary Reading & Language Arts | 5 | Yes |
| T&L 414 | Corrective Reading Practicum | 50 | Yes |
| T&L 415 | Language & Literacy Development of English Language Learners | 2 | No |
| T&L 432 | Learning Environments | 15 | No |
| T&L 433 | Multicultural Education | 10 | No |
| T&L 453 | Methods and Materials: Kindergarten | 60 | No |
| T&L 465 | Middle Level Curriculum and Methods | 60 | Yes |
| KIN 400 | Strategies for Teaching Physical Education in Elementary | 45 | Yes |
| KIN 400L | Strategies for Teaching Physical Education in Elementary | 45 | No |
| KIN 410 | Methods & Materials: Teaching Secondary Physical Ed | 30 | Yes |
| KIN 410L | Methods & Materials: Teaching Secondary Physical Ed | 30 | No |
Field Experience Specifics
- Students will complete 30 hours of field experience during Introduction to Education. The field experience is an interactive observation where students are expected to interact and help students, communicate with the cooperating teacher, and demonstrate competencies found in the Level 1 Disposition. This course requires successful completion of the 30-hour field experience so the student may use their Level 1 Disposition to apply for admission to the Teacher Education Program.
- The cooperating teacher will complete the Level 1 Disposition for the student and their time in the classroom toward the end of the field experience.
- Students will complete 10 hours of field experience during Development and Education of the Adolescent. The field experience requires students to visit/interview one adolescent in a classroom setting during multiple short periods of time (30-60 minutes each time). Students will develop a case study for their Critical Task assignment.
- Critical Task: The Child Study Critical Task requires the teacher candidate to demonstrate an understanding of how learners grow and develop, recognizing that the 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. The teacher candidate observes and assesses one or more child(ren)/adolescent(s) and prepares a paper detailing what was learned.
- Students will complete 50 hours of field experience during the Corrective Reading Practicum. The field experience requires students to observe, interact, and assess students in a literacy classroom setting. Students will work with children and the cooperating teacher to plan corrective reading assessments and interventions.
- Students will complete 15 hours of field experience during Learning Environments. The field experience hours are completed over 3 weeks with 5 hours of observation each week. The field experience requires students to observe specific aspects of the classroom during each visit. The student is expected to take notes, ask the cooperating teacher about assignments and assessments, and inquire about classroom strategies.
- Students will complete 10 hours of field experience during Multicultural Education. The field experience requires students to work with and observe students from various backgrounds.
- Music Education: T&L 386 – Elementary Music Methods (30 Hours) and T&L 486 – Secondary Music Methods (30 Hours)
- Kinesiology: KIN 400L – Physical Education in Elementary (45 Hours) and KIN 410L – Secondary
Physical Education (30 Hours)
- Students will complete 60 hours of field experience during their Methods and Materials Field Experience. This pre-professional interactive field experience will require students to work with an entire classroom and cooperating teacher to develop and teach multiple lessons in their discipline. Students will reflect on their effectiveness and management with the mentorship and guidance of their cooperating teacher. This field experience is typically completed the semester before your Student Teaching semester.
- The Level 3 Disposition will be completed by the cooperating teacher and field experience supervisor toward the end of the field experience. A successful Level 3 Disposition during your field experience is required to student teach.
Contact Information
Questions about the Teacher Education Program can be directed to the Office of Teacher Education.