Hi everybody, we're just waiting here for a little bit until we have everybody here and are ready to go so I might be a little bit awkward silence for a second, but you can look at our smiling faces until we're starting here. So just a few seconds here and then we'll then we'll get going with things so.
Thanks for holding tight.
OK, let's do this thing. Sorry, I just blanked off the screen there. I pressed the wrong button for a second. Great to see you. My name is Ben.
And it looks like we have a couple guests today from mostly Colorado, maybe California as well. So shout out to you.
This is the session for the teacher preparation program at CSU, and so if you're in the right place, congratulations, good on ya.
And we're excited to talk about teaching in.
Yeah, in the in the in Colorado, so I'll go ahead and just a couple housekeeping things before we get started here.
Juliana Searle
11:03:03 AM
Hello! Welcome! Thank you for being here!
If you've never been on this platform before, there are couple tools to connect with us. Since we can't really see you face to face or interact with your like video, the chat function over on the left hand side of your screen is the best way to interact with us. So if you want to use that, all you gotta do is just click on the chat and you can type in a question and that goes to the whole group. There's a small group of us here, so feel free to ask as many questions as you like if you have more of a private question that you don't want to send out to everybody, you can just.
Tree Santana
11:03:12 AM
Hi
Use the questions tab over on the left hand side that will just go to both Juliana and myself, but besides that we have kind of some content material that will go through just to walk through. What does it look like to become a teacher and explore that here at CSU?
Then we'll have some time as we go throughout to answer some questions, and then at the end also answer some more questions so.
That will be the main way that we interacted through that chat or questions tool. I'll go ahead and get started now with our presentation. Mean Juliana will be kind of going back and forth just so you can get a couple different voices and perspectives on becoming a teacher at CSU. So to start things off, yeah, so this is the teacher preparation program.
CSU basically we are within the school of Education and a unit within the school of Education and we believe that teaching is one of the best professions in the world. That the future depends on teachers and that's that quote that you can see there.
Yeah, we're really committed to this. We love this job. We love this teaching field and excited that you're looking into it.
Just do some introductions here really quickly. So my name, like I said is Ben Bongers. I'm an academic advisor here at CSU. Another term that you could hear his academic success coordinator. Really, I'm here to help accelerate your success at CSU, help answer questions about classes and schedules, as well as talk about what is teaching look like. How do you get there once you're? There are some things you can do to help yourself out, maybe some career paths you can take that kind of stuff. I just a little introduction was actually a student at CSU.
In the human involvement family studies Department, and then I graduated and never left essentially so I stayed on here and have been in this role now for about five years, and it's awesome. I love CSU. Fort Collins is amazing. I actually was born out in California in Northern California.
In a town called Pleasanton and then lived kind of an hour.
East of the Bay Area San Francisco area. So just a little shout out to our California participant, Juliana. Do want to introduce yourself.
Yeah Hi, Good morning everyone. I believe it's still morning where everybody is at. My name is Juliana's are all my pronouns. Are she her and hers an I am also here as an advisor so I support our students in the teacher preparation program in a few different ways. I'm my primary role with advising is as the student teaching coordinator, so I I really support and.
Help all teacher candidates engage in the last full time teaching internship called student teaching. So really support students as there finishing up in our program in transitioning into their careers as teachers. So that's where I really get to support all of you. And then Ben and I work really closely as an advising team to support all students in our program. Really excited for you all to be here today and to share more about your program. An options at CSU.
A little bit background about myself. I've been in the.
The teacher preparation program here at CSU for a little over 10 years now in various roles, but largely in a in a support advising role throughout most of my time here an I am a Colorado native born and raised in Cala rado actually attended CSU for both my undergraduate and Masters degree and I'm really happy to be raising my own two children in Fort Collins is well now.
Suggested I give you all a little bit of information about the teacher preparation program at CSU.
As Ben mentioned, we are the Center for educator preparation. The Center for educator preparation is where all of the teacher preparation coursework is housed. We are a center within the school of Education and we really support and how is all of the coursework for preparation of teachers and principals. We are a nationally accredited program so we are recognized and accredited nationally by the council for accreditation of educator educator preparation.
And then we're also a state approved program, so we are staying approved by the Colorado Department of higher education and the Colorado Department of Education as approved as a program that is approved, prepared teachers. We meet Colorado requirements for teacher and principle preparation.
So today we're just going to do a little bit of an overview on what it looks like to become a teacher and how do you do that. Coming through CSU, there's it's kind of confusing to be honest at times, and so that's why we're hoping to kind of clarify some things and make it a little bit more obvious. So just in general, some things that will be going through with teacher licensure in Colorado. If you're not sure already. Basically, bachelors degrees in general education are not really what you get.
In order to become a teacher, you get a degree in your content area. So what you want to teach and then you get a license to teach that so like for example, if you wanted to teach English, you'd have an English degree, an education, basically concentration within that to get English license, how that works at CSU is our unit. The Center for educator preparation collaborates with six different colleges on campus, so six different units essentially.
That have all sorts of different content areas available to provide both your content coursework as well as your education coursework before you graduate, so that within however many years you're looking to be here, you will be able to both the expert in your content area as well as get your teaching license.
And that's basically all you need to do is, once you get here, will walk you through the steps that you need to to get your teaching license and you'll be ready to go once you leave this. This slide is basically listing out the different content areas that are available to you. If you want to come through CSU to become a teacher, so you'll see there's three different main areas. There's a pre K through grade 3, their secondary, which is middle school in high school. And then there's grades K through 12. That's really across the gamut of page ranges, and that's just kind of a list of.
A brief snapshot of the different content areas that we have available for students to choose to get their teaching license in.
And that's not a silly exhaustive list in Colorado, but that's what CSU has available. So just take a look at that list. Really quick. See if you can relate to any of those, or are wondering what any of those are. Feel free to ask questions in the chat if you have questions about what those look like in different school settings, but you do get a license in Colorado to teach based on the age of the students as well as the content area at times, and that's why you see we've split it up into those three different areas.
Our program at CSU then is essentially based on a professional development school model.
And really, what that means is we really really value getting students into classrooms to do what teachers are doing to practice. Being a teacher, we don't think you can learn to be a really good teacher by just reading a book and sitting in a chair. You gotta try it. You gotta practice it. And so that's the main thing that we're trying to do with. This program is get you doing what teachers are doing in interacting with students in the same way that teachers are as much as possible, and we do that mostly through partnerships with local schools and local school districts. And so will place you in those schools really from the beginning of the program.
To get field experience and you're not just sitting in the back of the classroom, you really are interacting with those students working in small groups or working with the instructor of that classroom to provide really interactive experience for both you and those students. As you're learning how to become a teacher and then as well those mentor teachers. Those classroom teachers are giving you feedback along the way. Some coaching along the way to really help you fine tune your skills as an educator.
Yeah, so 800 hours plus field work in local schools is what you end up getting throughout the program. It's a little bit of a gradual release, so essentially you'll start in your education coursework with some field experience, course work, and then as you keep going, they'll be more an more time in the classroom with each with each next step in the education program. Essentially, it culminates with a student teaching experience, which is what you might expect really, really awesome experience full time.
In the classroom, you have a stay with where that is actually, which is kind of kind of fun, so you can give some preferences for where you'd like to student teach, and it's a really interactive experience. Feels like a transition semester for sure, because you're kind of on your way into the teaching profession at that point and you're doing, you know what a full time teacher would be doing as well, so it's really exciting. That's where the bulk of those those 800 plus hours of field experience come from. So you really get to build your toolbox and become.
Really confident in your skills as an educator.
So basically how we do that here at CSU, it's a. It's a couple different ways we do it, but for the most part like I mentioned, we partner with a couple different apartments around campus and students.
Indicate an approved major when they're applying into CSU or switch to an approved major so there's there's certain majors at CSC that you have to have declared. If you want to go to the teaching route, anything that was really on that list of endorsement areas that we were talking about earlier. Anything from like English, social studies, math to art and early childhood education and music. There's also different options, but you will choose your major in the content area you want to teach.
You'll have an approved degree like a degree advisor in that major to walk you through your content courses. So like your English courses or your math courses, or your art courses, and then you also have either myself. For Juliana are really both of us to walk you through kind of the education side of things as you prepare to become a teacher. Once you graduate, and that's really what that last point is is talking about is is we're going to support you through the process, not only with registration and policemen in your education coursework.
But also other areas related to teacher licensure. Like I said, sometimes it can just be a little well. I guess a lot too to navigate and so that's why we're here is to help support you through that process and walk with you every step of the way so that by the time you graduate, you're ready to get your teaching license. I'll just take a second right there and just say, I know this is a lot of information to, and it's maybe 4 in and not something you've heard before. And so if you're feeling overwhelmed or like you don't know what's going on.
Feel free to just ask some questions in the chat, will also have some time after what kind of done with this presentation to to walk through some of that. So just keep those in mind. You don't need to be the expert in this, we just want to give you a little bit of a look into what this might look like for you here at CSU.
Well, and that being said, You know, I think that that's a great segue, as Ben just mentioned into this next slide that we're giving you a taste of things. But know that this is a little bit in the future an we definitely are here to support along the way so you don't have to to know it all now. Something to think ahead about is that there is admission required into the teacher preparation program at CSU. So as Ben mentioned, you would choose you would choose one of those approved majors. Anna concentration of Education within that major.
But then, during your typically sophomore or junior year you would. Formally you will formally apply into the teacher preparation program and this is really just a checkpoint to make sure that you're on track in order to successfully complete program. We don't want people to take all of our classes that we know are not going to be able to successfully successfully finish out the program, and so this is really our checkpoint to make sure that you are on track.
And that we have everything that we need from you to move forward in your coursework.
And so you'll learn about these requirements in your first education course that you take it CSU. But just to put this on your radar is we do have a GPA requirement for admission and graduation from the teacher preparation program. So at 2.75 GPA and that's calculated from your CSU coursework, so not necessarily high high school coursework, but coursework at CSU, that 275 GPA. You Additionally will have to have a letter of recommendation or recommendation from.
A faculty member, a teacher, advisor, instructor, somebody within the field of education that can support your successful admission and completion of the teacher preparation program.
And then last but not least, 20 hours of experience working with children in some sort of supervisory role. So if you have experience is now, it's anything within at that time that you apply during your sophomore or junior year. Within five years of that time period. So five years previously have to have a minimum of 20 hours of experience, so coaching, tutoring, mentoring any of those types of experiences in count.
And again, we'll talk about this more in those early education classes, and if you don't yet have those experiences, give you some ideas for opportunities that you can engage in. But we put this on your radar now so that you know the importance of.
Keeping track of these things as you move into the teacher preparation program at CSU. So again, not things that you need to know now necessarily, but just having the back of your mind as you start to think about or consider.
The teacher preparation program here at CSU.
And then would you mind moving to the next slide?
Or anything you want to add.
Let me know if that is slide that you can see now.
I do not. I still only see the admissions requirements. I don't see the next slide up there.
Do you see a different slide now?
So while Ben is working to get that slide up, I'm in it, I'm going to keep chatting with you all.
So one of the things that a lot of students wonder is, you know, after going through the program, what does that mean? We keep saying teacher preparation program, teaching license. What does this even mean? And so just want to, you know, ground in this understanding that CSU does not actually hand out the teaching license. Like I mentioned at the beginning, we are a state approved program. So we are seen by the Colorado Department of Education as being a program that has been approved to prepare teachers.
And so the Colorado Department of Education is actually the entity that hands out the teaching license. We need this help you to fulfill all the requirements to be able to apply for your license through the Colorado Department of Education. That being said, we know that not all of our graduates will plan to stay in Colorado after graduation, and so it's important to know that teacher licensure is overseen by the Department of Education in each individual state across the country.
And so for those of you that are wondering, like doesn't make sense for me to do the teacher preparation program at CSU, even though I don't know if I'm going to stay in Colorado after.
System information for you all to consider. So Colorado is a state approved, nationally accredited program and.
There is very high reciprocity with the Colorado teaching license, so even though you are meeting state requirements relationship in Colorado, there is high reciprocity with a Colorado license. Cala rado has pretty strict requirements for licensure who is fairly easy to transfer that license to other states.
However, the thing that I always tell folks is that there are state specific requirements that you might have to complete to formally get your license in another state, and I think the the very biggest one to consider is.
The like a state specific licensure exam, so most of the time the licensure exam that Cala rado requires its nationally administered exam is accepted in other states. But, for example, the state of Wyoming requires every licensed teacher and their state to take a Wyoming history exam. Anna US constitutions test, regardless of what their teaching. So that's just a very simple example of what someone might have to do to get a teaching license in Wyoming.
All of this to say, I am the licensing officer at the University, so I help folks get their teaching license after graduation and I have never had a graduate not be able to get licensed in another state, so there might be some small hoops to jump through, like an additional masturbating like that. They've never had a student have to retake another program in order to get it in license, so depending on what your plans are after graduation or a lot of times people don't know what their plans are after graduation.
There are a lot of different options for you and so feel like that's really important to think about with keeping that career goal in mind. To that, you're working towards a career as a licensed teacher in K12 setting and that our program can really help you to get there whether you're in Colorado or elsewhere after graduation.
I, I think that is I'm still not seeing those other slides pop up then.
Which Luckily we don't have many more slides left really. The the last thing we have for you all is just an opportunity to you know we have a handful of minutes left with you today, so just an opportunity to ask some questions of us either about the teacher preparation program about.
What teaching means anything that you all are still wondering after the very brief amount of information that we shared today and then, if we're not able to pull up these slides, I will. We will type our contact information into the chat so that you can have our information. If you want to reach out to us to set a time to talk to us individually about your specific situations.
Yeah thanks, thanks Julianna 4.
For kind of walking through the teacher licensure. In other states. A couple of both both Mitchell or Mitch. Whatever you go by, and.
Tree or yeah tree have said that they can see the slide, so I'm going to just keep it on this slide. That basically it says our question questions and contact information but.
Well, I'm now I'm thinking it's my computer because I can't see those questions, so it must be my screen.
So thanks tree and Mitchell and I'm sorry for my own. Well really I was just getting Benda Sweat a little bit and try to do some.
Yeah, no thank you. Thank you. We do have a couple of questions though so I will ask this if you want to just. I mean, do you have access to type in the chat? Chili on it, 'cause you can just put our contact info in there just in case anybody is not seeing the slide. So Mitch or Mitchell your question about the 20 hours sounds like you've had some experience working at a library in your hometown working with.
Juliana Searle
11:24:40 AM
Ben.Bongers@colostate.edu
Yeah, some events with with teenagers and a lot of the.
The people that you work with are younger than 18.
Juliana Searle
11:24:46 AM
Juliana.Searle@colostate.edu
Juliana Searle
11:24:56 AM
(970) 491-5252
Juliana Searle
11:25:10 AM
That phone number is to our main advising center and is the best way to contact us!
That definitely applies towards your your 20 hours. Really, what we're looking forward that 20 hours is experience working with school age kiddos in some sort of supervised or mentored setting. And so it doesn't necessarily have to be with kids that are younger than you. It can be with kids that are your age, especially if you're in high school right now is all sorts of opportunities for you to connect with with peers and people that are better. Yeah, in school, still in the P K12 system so.
Yeah, that definitely works. Or just some great hours. I would say continue to get some hours if you can. Obviously Kovid has had some impact on how we can participate in different volunteer experiences with other people in person. And so I I'm hoping and hopeful that that maybe would would be changed by the time some of you might be at CSU. But also, who knows? And so yeah, those those hours for the library work great.
And then Lauren similar question about the 20 hours.
It does not have to be so. Lawrence question was for the 20 hours of experience. Does it have to be with the age group you plan to teach? So for example, let's say Lauren wanted to teach early childhood education or elementary education. Does the experience have to be with that age group? No, it does not. We're looking for just any hours with kids. 20 hours would be great. I will say it helps, especially if you do want to go there early. Childhood, education, route to have experience working with.
Early childhood kids or considered to be in early childhood, so kind of ages 0 to 8 age range, but it's not necessarily. It's not all 100% necessary. I'll say definitely very, very helpful in the review process for like your application that you use as you go through that program.
But let's say you're looking at teaching middle school or high school students. It doesn't necessarily have to be with that age range of students. That kind of process to get into that program is a little bit less of an application and more of a check in to see that you've had some time working with kiddos, and so yeah, it does not have to be with the age group you plan to teach Julie on anything else that you wanted to add to that.
No idea, I was going to chime in and say yeah for early childhood I think it probably is more important that you have that zero to 8 age range, but for the secondary or K12. So if you're looking at any of like the K12 music or art or the secondary middle school in high school, it's obviously going to be a little bit more difficult for you to get experience with high schoolers. If you want to be a high school student when you pretty much are high school student yourself for just have recently graduated from high school and so we're really looking at that, you know.
Drive to 18 range for the secondary or K12 Program. An really open to any of that and it definitely doesn't matter if your experience is more at the elementary level, but you want to be a high school teacher, but for the early childhood education program, we would highly encourage that you get more experiences with that birth through age 88 range as Ben said, for early childhood education, that application review is a little bit more competitive I guess, as opposed to the.
Secondary or programs which are a little bit more of a chicken.
Great questions everybody. We have a couple minutes if you have some last minute questions, but if not then feel free to get off the call and just let us know. You can always reach out to us with. I'll put up that contact information again with this contact information. These questions with questions concerns whatever you, whatever you want. Whatever you need, we'll do our best to get an answer to you as soon as possible.
But probably for now I would be your best contact to reach out to just because I'm the main undergrad advisor for CSU students or perspective students who are going to or planning on going into education.
And yeah, I'll do my best to get back to you as soon as I possibly can. Email is great. You can also call me my numbers right there. I would say probably at this point email is better, so feel free to reach out. Thank you so much. I'm not seeing any other questions or anything like that. So thanks so much for being here.
I'm really excited you're looking at becoming a teacher, an hopeful to see you here in the in the near future.
Thank you all for being here today. We really hope that you will consider teaching. It's an amazing profession and we've got an awesome program here at CSU. So, like Ben said, reach out to him with questions if you have anything student teaching related or licensure related, I'm happy to help as well.
Great thanks everybody. Have a good one.
Ben Bongers
11:29:56 AM
Thank you! We'll see you later!