Making Adolescent Young Adult Education Content More Relevant For Students

Over the years, we have seen students enter and leave the College of Education. They come, apply, receive the list of required classes, and are on their way to receiving a degree in adolescent young adult education. The question we must ask ourselves is, "Are we giving them the best schedule of classes to take in order to become the best teacher that they can be?"

We need to answer "no." Students are receiving a well rounded education; however, several classes are repetitive and several are not taken by the students. The current course content teaches our students to be good teachers, but we want them to be exceptional teachers. In the concentrated areas of education, such as mathematics, science, and language arts, the students are receiving adequately strong base of knowledge. The educational classes, however, are not measuring up to their potential.

The Adolescent Young Adult Education program should require students to spend more time in the classroom. Currently, only three classes besides student teaching require classroom observation. This is not enough experience to become an outstanding teacher. The Early Childhood program places students in the classroom starting during their sophomore year and continuing until they graduate.

Another problem is that our classes are very repetitious. For example, we offer a course called Characteristics of Learners with Exceptionalities that teaches what each exceptionality is, how to recognize it, and how to adapt lesson plans to accommodate each exceptional student. This is an excellent course because teaching exceptional students requires additional time and dedication. However, after taking this particular course, students are required to take at least three other courses that cover the same information. This repetition in the beginning of the course causes students to become bored with the class and pay less attention later when new material is introduced.

Several improvements could help. We could combine the new material in the three classes into one class, and replace the repetitive content with other useful topics such as ways to deal with parent/teacher conferences or what to expect from an interview. Our campus already offers programs similar to these, so we would not have to hire teachers. These classes should be a requirement for graduation.

Another improvement is to set up partnership programs for Adolescent Young Adult Education. In partnership programs, students work with one school for a whole year. During each quarter, students would be assigned a different teacher within the school. Students would frequently assist their cooperating teachers by grading papers, setting up projects, tutoring students, and helping teach lessons. Such experiences give students a better understanding of real life classroom situations with more opportunities to witness what works and does not work in the classroom. The Early Childhood program has this for their students. Students are not required to participate in a partnership; however, they do have the opportunity. Why shouldn’t we give Adolescent Young Adult Education students the same opportunity? Organizing a partnership program would not cost Ohio University very much money. The only expenses would consist of paying someone to find a cooperating school and possibly providing compensation for the cooperating teacher. If the College of Education would not want to pay the cooperating teacher, they could always give them credits since teachers always need to renew their licenses.

Over the past year, I have been interviewing teachers about the course content that they received in college. The majority of them felt they were not prepared for some of the important challenges of a teacher, including not being prepared for handling disciplinary problems, parent/teacher interactions, and job interviews. My roommate is majoring in the Early Childhood program, which allowed me to compare and contrast the two programs and see which ways are the most beneficial for educating future teachers. The greatest benefit for her was participating in a partnership program.

By improving our program, our students will become more confident teachers able to succeed at higher levels in their careers. Please review this proposal and consider the changes. These inspiring young minds will be representing Ohio University.