Overview
Spark
Teacher Education Institute is partnered with Marlboro Graduate School to provide an intensive one-year field-based
program leading to certification at the elementary, middle school or
secondary level, and/or a Marlboro master's degree.
As
a Spark participant, you will spend a full year interning in a
classroom, working side-by-side with a skilled mentor teacher, learning
to integrate social justice and equity content into the mainstream
curriculum.
- Design authentic learning experiences for diverse learners.
- Work to build and manage a democratic community of learners.
- Learn to promote cooperative skills and cooperative learning.
- Foster social responsibility among students.
- Bring the world into the classroom.
One
or two days a week you will attend seminars with a diverse cohort of
adult learners, led by Spark faculty members who join content area
expertise with teaching for social justice.
- Learn current best practices for your endorsement area.
- Explore language and literacy development.
- Compare theories of child and adolescent development.
- Develop strategies for working with exceptional learners.
- Examine educational policy and law.
Key Program Components
The Year-long Internship
The interns participate in all aspects of school life including teacher meetings, team meetings, extracurricular activities, and other teacher duties, and they become integral members of the teaching staff at their placement sites. As the intern gains experience in the classroom and leads activities, the mentor teacher observes and provides feedback. Faculty advisors visit interns to observe their teaching and to communicate with mentor teachers, principals and others in the school community. This immersion in the life of the school provides a context for theory and allows interns to connect graduate coursework with examination and development of classroom practice.
Placements
Interns are placed by the program in settings appropriate to their learning and career goals. Most placements are in the tri-state area surrounding the Marlboro campus location in Brattleboro VT, but other settings are possible, provided the intern is still able to attend weekly full-day seminars on campus.
Intensive Institutes
Each semester commences with an intensive Institute. The inaugural Institute (mid-August for Summer Intake and early January for Winter Intake) provides preparation for an internship in a public school setting and an introduction to important social and educational issues. The mid-year Institute (in January for Summer Intake and mid-August for Winter Intake) extends opportunities for in-depth examination of critical issues in education and society.
Seminars
During the academic year, one or two day-long seminars weekly are designed to address material described in the program course descriptions. Using texts, films, discussions, group work and projects, students develop critical questions and answers about historical content and the pedagogy of democratizing the classroom and school community. Experienced faculty members from a variety of fields facilitate examination and analysis of internship experiences. Students develop an understanding of the global, national and local contexts in which schooling takes place, and of ways to teach effectively within those contexts while working for educational reform and social justice.
Content Area Tutorials
Interns gain competence in teaching their subjects through the advice and feedback of their mentor teachers, by observing, reading, reflecting, writing lesson plans and especially by teaching.
In
addition, the program provides endorsement area tutorials for the interns,
each subject-specific group meeting four times a year or more. Interns come to
these formal tutorials with questions and with contributions from their
classrooms such as lesson plans and student work. The tutorial
instructors lead discussions about questions and issues and present
innovative and state-of-the-art teaching practices in the content area.
Support Teams
The Support Team for the intern includes a program faculty member, an on-site field advisor, and a mentor teacher. The Support Team assists the intern in the design and implementation of the Individualized Learning Plan (ILP) and evaluation of learning. Each intern’s Support Team meets three or four times during the year (and more if needed) for planning and ongoing feedback and support. The interns meet on a daily basis with their mentor teachers, and weekly with the program faculty in on-campus seminars.
Individualized Learning Plans
Each student works with his or her Support Team to formulate an Individualized Learning Plan (ILP) for meeting personal goals and program expectations, including teaching competencies consistent with state standards for teacher certification.
Action Research
This research is a vital part of the link between theory and practice. Students learn to investigate questions relating to their practice, such as the economic and political context of the school and community, integrating cultural knowledge with subject matter, and assessment of teaching methods. Each student designs and completes a field-based action research project.
Exhibitions
Each semester culminates in an
Exhibition, with presentations by the students highlighting curricular projects and critical reflections. These are celebratory events, to which visitors are warmly welcome.
Portfolios
Students develop portfolios to demonstrate the content knowledge and pedagogical competencies required for state licensure in the endorsement area. Included will be artifacts such as lesson plans with reflections, examples of student work, essays, photos, communications with parents and colleagues.
