AEED - Elementary Education, K-6 (K-8 Self-Contained)

At Midland, preparation of teachers is philosophically grounded in the liberal arts and aligned with the University Mission: to learn and lead in the world with purpose. The education program mission is to prepare culturally responsive educators who demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and dispositions needed to build a culture of learning, understand content, plan and deliver effective instruction, support ALL learners, and model professionalism. In order to fulfill these missions, courses of study include general liberal arts courses, core educational coursework, and endorsement specific coursework. Students will have field experiences in many of their beginning courses and throughout their program. They will have a culminating clinical experience for each field or subject endorsement.

A Midland University Teacher Candidate:
A. Builds a Culture of Learning…
• Recognizing how a student’s development, self-esteem, motivation, behavior, and diverse backgrounds and experiences impact learning.
• Demonstrating a variety of strategies including social interactions, building positive relationships and fostering collaboration, and managing student behavior within the school environment.
• Creating a classroom community that considers and respects individual differences by adapting to meet diverse learning and socialization needs, promoting positive social interaction, while including all students in physically and emotionally safe ways.
B. Understands Content…
• Demonstrating knowledge and understanding of concepts, skills and principles of the discipline in order to create meaningful teaching and learning experience, inclusive of all student backgrounds.
• Utilizing central themes, tools of inquiry, and thinking models to structure and guide the learning process.
• Including the relevant, academic related vocabulary to reflect a global perspective.
• Knowing how individual learning progresses in order to help the struggling or the advanced learner.
• Aligning teaching with the content standards to promote diverse experiences.
• Providing students with meaningful applications and individualized feedback.
C. Plans and Delivers Effective Instruction…
• Using multiple, relevant formal and informal methods to assess learner needs and progress and using assessment data to inform future instruction.
• Developing and utilizing a variety of instructional approaches, student background, tools of inquiry, and digital and interactive technologies to engage students in rich experiences and reflection aligned with standards and collaboration skills.
• Expecting and motivating students to think critically, creatively and to problem solve using a variety of resources, experiences and perspectives to enhance understanding and to develop global awareness.
D. Supports ALL Learners…
• Setting high expectations, knowing that all students have the capacity to learn.
• Ensuring that all students have strategies to reach their learning goals.
• Collaborating with families, educators and the community to provide the appropriate meaningful experiences/resources.
E. Models Professionalism…
• Demonstrating responsibility, preparedness, engagement, respect, courtesy, concern, commitment, reflection, strong ethical and moral decision-making, readily seeking and accepting feedback, and shaping positive change.
• Using effective communication techniques to build productive relationships with students, parents, colleagues, and the community.
• Continuously seeking opportunities to advance their own learning while promoting based on cultural, linguistic, and lived experiences.
• Being a passionate advocate for all students and the profession.

The Midland Teacher Education Program is approved by the Nebraska Department of Education. A copy of Midland’s current Title II Institutional Report on the Quality of Teacher Preparation is available upon request and on the NDE website: https://www.education.ne.gov/educatorprep/about-the-programs/title-ii-reports/

Additional Available Endorsements:
Coaching (7-12)
Early Childhood (PK-3)
English as a Second Language (PK-12, PK-8)
High Ability Learner (K-12)
Info Tech (PK-12)
Special Education (K-8)
Theatre (7-12)