Our TLLSC faculty collaborate with over 70 schools, cultural institutions and community agencies to support your learning and effectiveness as a future educator. Rather than isolating teacher preparation in university classrooms, TLLSC sets teaching and learning in the places where children and families are served. Undergraduates work alongside expert teachers in urban classrooms in high-need, high-performing schools and community organizations.

School and community partner visits begin in your first semester. Instead of clinicals or placements, all TLLSC undergraduates engage in continuously supervised field-based learning. You will meet with your cohort and faculty in the field, where you engage in designed learning experiences where your work impacts teachers and children. Over four years, these guided experiences support your learning, reflection, professionalism and practice.

The Education major is a four-year program with over 1200 hours of field-based learning. However, hours alone do not make teachers effective. TLLSC is intentionally sequenced with a curriculum designed and refined to ensure that your knowledge, skills and confidence grow with experience.

Our strong relationships with partner sites ensure that this is possible. Our graduates enter the field with significantly more classroom experience than nearly any other teacher preparation program. The depth and breadth of these experiences shows – our graduates are highly sought after and nearly always hired before or immediately upon graduation.

Our program is focused on preparing future educators who serve all learners, including students from diverse social, emotional, behavioral, cultural, linguistic, developmental and academic backgrounds. Our programs emphasize the importance of accommodation and individualization for students with disabilities and those labeled as English Learners (ELs).

Faculty and students co-navigate complex systems and social justice issues in real schools and classrooms. Over time, we work with you to build your awareness and capacity as a changemaker. We also provide extensive opportunities for community-based service.

Teacher candidates transfer knowledge and skills when they experience authentic practice with guidance and mentoring. In addition to collaboration with teacher educators from the school, community, and university settings, TLLSC utilizes professional learning communities (PLCs) to foster meaningful collaboration among teacher candidates. Through PLCs within the teacher candidates’ specific areas of specialization (e.g., elementary, secondary and special education), guidance and collaboration among candidates and faculty in similar areas of interest and expertise come together to dialog and learn from one another.

Undergraduates meet in a PLC with others in their major for three weeks at the end of every semester. These PLCs provide opportunities for professional development, exploration of topical issues, guest speakers, additional field-based learning opportunities, and many other types of learning experiences.

All Education BSEd programs lead to educator licensure and near certainty of a teaching position upon graduation. In addition, all majors earn an English as a Second Language (ESL) endorsement, and many are also entitled to the International Baccalaureate (IB) certificate. Some majors include licensure in multiple areas; for example, graduates with the Early Childhood/Special Education BSEd earn general and special education licensure, as well as credentialing in early intervention.

In addition to built-in credentials, our program offers a host of minors and endorsements to enhance your knowledge, skills and marketability.

During the first three sequences (semesters) of the program, students engage in a range of experiences across contexts and settings with birth to grade 12 children. Students take a series of modules (courses) in each sequence that gradually orient them to the fundamental concepts of teaching and learning and the importance of understanding the role that communities play in the education of children. Students will be in school and community placements working with university faculty, teachers, and community professionals supporting the development of students and exploring the many facets of education. At the core of these experiences is a commitment to social justice in education and the School of Education’s guiding principles as expressed in our conceptual framework. 

Sequence 1: Introduction to Teaching, Learning and Leading with Schools and Communities

Sequence 2:  Exploring Schools as Learning Environments and Communities

Sequence 3: Policy and Practice in Urban Classroom

View courses and curriculum here.

In the second phase of the program students choose a concentration – Early Childhood Special Education, Elementary Education, Bilingual Elementary Education (Spanish), Middle Grades, Special Education or Secondary Education. In their fourth semester of the program they delve deeply into that concentration and begin to develop the knowledge and skills needed for that area of specialization within teaching and learning. In the fifth and sixth semesters of the program, students continue to hone their knowledge, skills and dispositions of teaching and learning at their specific grade or age level and within particular content areas. They learn the importance of teaching reading and literacy skills across grade levels and content areas and how to use data to inform instruction. Students also broaden their scope of teaching to incorporate a global framework and engage their students in service to the local community as they make global connections.

Sequence 4: Specializing in an Area of Teaching and Learning

Sequence 5: Literacy and Data Use

Sequence 6: Integrating Content, Cultures and Communities

View courses and curriculum here.

In the final phase of the program students participate in a year-long internship (sequences 7 and 8) in a single school. In the first semester, students spend up to three days in the school and in the second semester they are in the school five days a week. This allows them to become immersed in the school, classroom instruction, and day-to-day operations during the first semester. Students then take on full-time responsibility for the classroom(s) in the second semester. This offers a unique opportunity for students to make an impact on the lives of children and their families at this early stage in their career. 

Sequence 7: Putting It Together: Developing and Implementing Rigorous and Relevant Instruction and Assessment

Sequence 8: Mastering Teaching, Learning and Leading

View courses and curriculum here.