Jumpstart Workshops Give CED Student Teachers an Edge in Online Teaching
In preparation for teaching in an alternative modality this fall, College of Education Single Subject Credential Program faculty led discipline-specific workshops for student teachers from the College’s secondary credential programs. These workshops totaled 10-15 hours of preparation taken by the College’s student teachers. Meant to “jumpstart” their skills to teach remotely, these workshops aimed for student teachers to be able to familiarize themselves with a variety of digital tools and learning management systems used in local school districts. The workshops gave student teachers the opportunity to practice working with best digital practices and tools associated with their specific discipline. And they allowed student teachers to address lesson design and instruction specific to online learning, while also supporting online teaching in culturally responsive ways.
Creating a learning experience for the student teachers that clearly modeled Culturally Responsive Teaching practices allowed student teachers to both experience and reflect upon, “what effective instruction looks like, feels like, and sounds like in a face-to-face, blended, or an online learning experience,” shared Dr. Nina Wooldridge. “The Single Subject Credential Program faculty has been engaged in ongoing professional learning with the Caminos Project to ground our research, instruction, and course materials in Culturally Responsive Pedagogy (CRP) practices.”
Professor Gail Hamilton said, “Through a combination of asynchronous and synchronous activities, students learned about Zaretta Hammond’s recommendations for adapting culturally relevant pedagogy to distance learning. Students applied these ideas as they created lessons that they can use in their first days of teaching to get to know their students, their needs, and their strengths.” The highlight from the history/social science jumpstart workshop, shared Professor Hamilton, came from a workshop on synchronous teaching. Led by two student teachers from spring 2020, the workshop focused on strategies on planning and employing culturally responsive synchronous and asynchronous lessons.
