Campus Buzz

Students Taught a Class Act

She stood in front of a room of wide-eyed second graders – all waiting to hear what she had to say. A few years ago, the situation would have scared her. But on this day, her first day of student teaching, Susan Walker (M.S. ’04) adopted a relaxed smile and greeted her new class.

Walker had painstakingly prepared herself for that special moment from the day she started her first class at NYIT four years earlier.

Dr. Dolores Burton, coordinator of NYIT’s childhood education program, says a commitment to field experience is one of the main threads woven throughout the program. The others are promoting diversity and harnessing the power of technology to teach.

Statistics show that the program is successful – for the last three years, 100 percent of NYIT students have passed New York State’s Elementary and Secondary Assessment of Teaching Skills-Written Exam and for the last two years, 100 percent have passed the state’s Liberal Arts and Sciences Test (LAST). But it is the confidence shared by alumni like Walker, as well as the results they achieve in the classroom, that showcase the department’s ability to produce quality teachers.

A December 2004 graduate, Walker is now substitute-teaching where she originally taught as a student last fall, in the West Islip School District in New York. “Every issue I confronted during student-teaching was something we had discussed in class. I knew exactly how to react.”

NYIT’s childhood education professors are committed to translating theory into practice, Burton says. Field experience starts early in the program and continues with increasingly challenging elements until the students graduate. “Our students observe quality teachers in action first,” she says. “Then they explore different educational philosophies and strategies, work with small groups of students, and begin to understand child development in a clinical fashion rather than just in theory.”

At the same time, student teachers are introduced to the diversity they will encounter in the classroom – those with special needs, English as second language learners, and different cultural backgrounds.

“Teachers may face extremely diverse populations, and they need to know how to teach every student,” says Burton. “From the very beginning, we teach them that all children can learn.”

Lastly, all childhood education classes at NYIT emphasize the importance of technology in the classroom. Students are taught to use emerging technologies to create lesson plans, gather information and solve problems. They are also taught to teach children how to use technology.

“Today’s first graders are going to be working in careers that don’t even exist yet, on equipment that doesn’t exist yet,” says Burton. “They need to learn how to adapt to new programs and skills.”

When students begin teaching in their senior years, Burton says, their training gives them the ability to walk into a classroom knowing they are fully prepared to meet the challenge of developing young minds.

Walker says it worked for her. “After all that practice, I knew I had the skills to deal with any obstacles that came my way,” she says. “This is not an easy field, and every day brings new challenges, but thanks to my NYIT education, I’m ready to meet them head on.”

Send feedback and story ideas to alumni@nyit.edu.