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Innovative Education Program at D’Youville to Prepare Teachers for New Curriculum

Buffalo, New York – August 01, 2012 – D’Youville College has developed a new academic program that will better prepare students for a career in teaching and enhance their opportunities for advancement.

A new “Liberal Studies for Education” major is designed to immerse the student in elementary teacher education right from the beginning of their college career while also requiring courses in everything from math and science to literature and history.

“By including courses in teaching early on in this new curriculum, the student will know upfront if they like the field or not,” says Dr. Hilary Lochte, chair of the Education Department at D’Youville who helped create the new program.

Preparation of the new curriculum was a cooperative effort involving various academic departments including liberal arts and education. “It was a logical fit drawing on the other departments for their input.”

Included in the student’s first year will be a seminar in education, and historical foundations of education in the U.S. course. Later, they will take courses in classroom management and student motivation, technology in education, education assessment and evaluation and a variety of other courses.

“We are ahead of the movement toward the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in teacher education that is now formulated and will be voluntarily implemented nationally,” according to Lochte.

Three years ago, the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers agreed to coordinate a state-led, voluntary effort to develop core academic standards in English language arts and mathematics. After much collaboration from teachers, administrators and other experts the final Common Core State Standards were released in 2012. Today, 45 states have formally adopted these voluntary standards, referred to as the “common core.”

“Before the new CCSS academic standards varied significantly from state to state. Now, students from Massachusetts to Mississippi to Montana will be held to the same high standards, which is important both for educational equity and addressing the reality of student mobility our society today,” wrote Cheryl Scott Williams, executive director of the Learning First Alliance in Washington, D.C., in Educational Horizons magazine.

“Exposing students to a diverse set of content knowledge courses in the Liberal Arts, mathematics and the natural sciences prepare them to effectively work with the Common Core when they become teachers,” Lochte said.

D’Youville’s five-year program will start in this fall and students completing the program will graduate with both bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

Lochte believes this revised program will help address the shortage of teachers that is looming in New York State because of the aging of teachers. Forty-two percent of New York teachers are 57 and older according to the New York State Education Department.

In addition, the Department of Education predicts a shortage of teachers in bilingual education, chemistry, earth science, physics, special education and technical education.

D’Youville offers a master’s degree in Special Education and Teaching English as a Second Language, which can add extra credentials to a student’s resume.

Lochte pointed out D’Youville’s five-year programs feature undergraduate tuition for all five years and are designed to have the student in the workplace with a master’s degree, faster. “You can complete the teacher education requirements in five years instead of what used to take five years or more.”

Today, it is recommended that teacher education programs should be five years as the norm, according to a recent study conducted by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation.

D’Youville was one of the first institutions nationwide to inaugurate five-year programs in a number of majors in addition to education.

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Contact: D’Youville Admissions at 1 800-777-3921 or Dr. Lochte at lochteh@dyc.edu