In this era of high stakes testing and school accountability grades, there is increased pressure on teachers to ensure lessons can be directly connected to standards. Problem-Based Enhanced Language Learning (PBELL) begins with an authentic problem. That problem can come from a topic that is relevant to you and your students, or from your instructional standards. Starting with standards is beneficial to ensure students acquire academic skills to the level of mastery over the course of the school year.
When the Spring 2020 semester started, ASU’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College had over 1,500 undergraduate and graduate teacher candidates placed in internships and residencies in over 450 schools. Six hundred and forty-six of those were working full-time in schools as residents.
On March 11, in response to the threats posed by COVID-19, ASU announced that, effective March 16, the university would transition to online instruction.
In the last four years, Lennon Audrain has earned an associate degree in elementary education from Rio Salado College, a bachelor’s degree in classics (concentrating in Latin) from The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University, and a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction from ASU’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College.
With schools across the nation closing amid concerns over the developing COVID-19 crisis, parents everywhere are finding themselves in a perplexing situation when it comes to ensuring their children don’t fall behind in their coursework.
“We’re in pretty uncharted territory right now,” said Brent Maddin, executive director of Educator Workforce Initiatives at Arizona State University’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College.
ASU’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College placed No. 13 among 393 institutions surveyed in U.S. News and World Report’s annual rankings of America’s graduate schools of education.
Working with dually classified learners can pose distinctive challenges for educators. Those diagnosed with special needs who are also English language learners (ELLs) have specific, unique needs (specifically struggles with language). These dually classified learners are identified with a disability and are eligible for both special education and English as a second language or bilingual services.
Editor's note: This story is part of a series of profiles of outstanding spring 2020 graduates.
Arizona State University graduate Nick Matula has been recently named lead of the Corporate Responsibility Team at the Verizon Foundation.
Matula has graduated with a social and cultural pedagogy master's degree at the School of Social Transformation.
For an April 16 article in Discover magazine, writer Leslie Nemo asked MLFTC Associate Professor of Learning Design and Technology Leanna Archambault to discuss how teachers are managing to continue working with their students during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Archambault’s answer: “They’re doing the best they can.”
What is the Next Education Workforce? Is your school ready for a new workforce model? Those questions and others are addressed in a new set of online pedagogical and professional resources from Arizona State University’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College.
By: Audrey Amrein-Beardsley, Arizona State University
Published in: Education Review, April 8, 2020