Introduction to Effective K-12 Teaching

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

Children across America spend ~14,000 hours in school from kindergarten through grade 12. How those instructional hours are spent dramatically impacts students’ academic and personal well-being. Many studies have demonstrated that teacher quality matters to students’ learning and long-term outcomes such as graduation and job placement. In this course, we delve into the essential principles of being an effective teacher. Building community, designing curriculum, reaching all students, and assessing students effectively are a handful of the principles we will explore together through articles about teacher practice, video examples of classroom practice, observations in a local classroom, and an opportunity to enact some of these practices in the course. Each student enrolled in the course will be paired with a Catholic school teacher in South Bend to observe throughout the seminar and teach one lesson in their class. By the end of this course, students will learn some core principles of effective teaching, gain an understanding of the complexities of being an effective teacher, engage in a semester-long partnership with an effective teacher, and practice some aspects of teaching in a Catholic school context. This course is highly recommended for incoming ACE Teaching Fellows as an introduction to teaching before their summer formation experience begins.