Program Learning Outcomes for Master of Science in Teaching (MS4T)

Candidates who successfully complete all required components of the Master of Science in teaching program at SUNY New Paltz will:

• Content Knowledge: Demonstrate content area mastery by fulfilling the entrance requirements as stipulated by the program.

• Planning: Be able to plan lessons in early childhood/childhood education that are standards-based, clear and organized, rely upon a variety of appropriate instructional strategies and appropriate technologies, and differentiate instruction, providing opportunities to promote appreciation of diversity, tolerance, and inclusion in safe, democratic, and equitable learning environments.

• Assessment and P-12 Learning: Be able to choose, design, and implement authentic and appropriate formative and summative assessments to evaluate student learning, consider assessment data when making instructional decisions, and identify effective or problematic teaching moments as they are occurring in order to facilitate student growth in specified content, cognitive skills, and/or social skills.

• Pedagogical Practice: Demonstrate the ability to maximize student learning by incorporating content and pedagogical content knowledge, appropriate and effective technology, and a variety of developmentally and contextually appropriate evidence-based instructional strategies to make learning meaningful for students while teaching.

• Classroom Experience: Participate successfully in 3 fieldwork placements with a minimum hours of 120 prior to student teaching. Complete 2 student teaching placements demonstrating knowledge of best practices in early childhood/childhood education.

• Dispositions: Exhibit the knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary to practice an ethically informed and self-reflective philosophy, participate effectively in institutional change, and develop respectful relationships with students, families, communities and colleagues.

• Professional Skills and Disposition: Develop respectful relationships with students, families, communities and colleagues, practice an ethically informed philosophy, and participate effectively in institutional change.

• Culturally Responsive Practice and Social Justice: Understand and apply practices that promote respect, inclusion and equity in teaching, learning, and student development based on social identity markers including, but not limited to, race, gender, class, sexual orientation, disability, language, religion, culture, national origin, epistemology, and family life.

• Democratic Citizenship and Student Advocacy: Respect education as a human right and a foundation to active inclusion and participation in public life, and aspire to be agents of change in response to persistent barriers to equal educational opportunity.

• Critical Thinking: Identify, analyze, and evaluate different methods of planning, assessing, and teaching in order to develop well-reasoned arguments that support pedagogical decisions.

• Information Management: Use technology and basic research techniques in order to locate, evaluate, and synthesize best-practices concepts in content knowledge, planning, assessment, and pedagogical practice.