Faculty from the School of Arts and Sciences were invited to participate in an activity designed to align courses in Arts and Sciences with courses in the teacher preparation area of Elementary/Special Education. Part of this effort focused on courses in ten different subject areas that meet the All-University Requirements in Elementary/Special Education at SCSU. The project calls for aligning one course in each of these 10 areas using the framework of the accrediting body for all teacher preparation programs at SCSU, the National Accreditation Council on Teacher Education (NCATE). This framework involves illustrating good examples or models of course syllabi including discrete and measurable learner outcomes that are linked to an assessment of those outcomes and modes of teaching and learning that describe the variety of instructional approaches used in the course.

The outcome of faculty involvement in this task was to produce and/or refine their course syllabus to demonstrate NCATE alignment and address the diverse learning styles of our students. It is important to mention that we did not ask faculty to change the content of their courses, but only to align one of the courses they teach with NCATE standards that meet the diverse needs of our students.

Invitations were extended to one faculty member from each of the following departments: Art, Anthropology, Computer Science, Foreign Language, History, Mathematics, Earth Sciences, Philosophy, Physics, Geography, Psychology, Chemistry, and English. Faculty were required to attend an initial 90-minute meeting to explain the grant and establish procedures, followed by two 1-hour meetings prior to the submission of the completed revised syllabus. Faculty were supplied with a syllabus template in NCATE format to guide them during the revision process. Faculty syllabi were scored according to a rubric developed to assess the extent to which the revised syllabus reflected addressed the needs of diverse learners.

The following Arts and Sciences faculty have participated in this activity to date:

Anthropology

Michael J. Rogers
ANT 101 Introduction to Cultural Anthropology

Chemistry

Gregory S. Kowalczyk
CHE 120 General Chemistry I

Gerald Lesley
CHE 121 General Chemistry II

Computer Science

Lisa B. Lancor
CSC 200 Personal Computer Applications

Earth Sciences

James F. Tait ESC
ESC 140 Oceanography

English

Christopher Dean
EDU 490 English (Secondary School)

Foreign Languages

Elena Schmitt
EDU 491 Methods and Materials for Foreign Language Teaching in Elementary School

Geography

Christopher Lukinbeal
GEO 100 Man and His Environment

History

Julian C. Madison
HIS 110 United States I

Michelle C. Thompson
HIS 100 Western Civilization to 1500

Mathematics

Richard DeCesare
MAT 106 Mathematics for Elementary Education II

Maria Diamantis
MAT 105 Mathematics for Elementary Education I

Philosophy

Krystyna Gorniak-Kocikowska
PHI 370 Philosophy of Education

Physics

Karen Cummings
PHY 101 Inquiries in Elementary Physics

Psychology

William M. Sherman
PSY 370 Educational Psychology