The Teacher Professional is committed to helping all students reach their highest potential.
In order to achieve this goal, candidates must prepare themselves to recognize and appreciate the capability for development in all individuals and must be competent in a way that will insure that development. They must appreciate differences and prepare themselves to be successful in teaching a diverse population of students. Candidates must also know and be able to communicate the content that they will teach and understand the ways in which their teaching area connects to a broad body of knowledge and skills. Before completing the Mars Hill College program, candidates will develop habits and dispositions that will continue their growth as Teacher Professionals; they will be reflective about their practices and engage in collaboration with their colleagues. They will develop leadership skills, and above all they will respect and care about their students.

Program Goals

The program aims to prepare teachers who are:

• Knowledgeable about the content they will teach and appreciative of the ways their teaching area connects to the broader curriculum.
• Aware of how students learn and develop and are able to produce learning opportunities that foster inquiry, collaboration, and interaction.
• Competent in a variety of instructional principles and strategies, including proficiency in the use of instructional technology, assessment tools, and community resources.
• Committed to helping all students reach their highest potential through valuing individual differences and using diversity to strengthen the classroom learning environment.
• Dedicated to displaying appropriate teaching dispositions including personal and professional integrity, self-reflection, collaboration, and continual professional development.

Program Expectations for Candidates becoming Teacher Professionals

Candidates are expected to display the knowledge (Liberal Arts and content-specific knowledge), skills (theory and practice of the teaching profession), and dispositions (professional values and ethics) appropriate to a Teacher Professional. Working collaboratively, the members of the Teacher Education Unit have identified characteristics that reflect appropriate knowledge, skills and dispositions and have integrated these characteristics into the coursework and experiences that are required of candidates. In order to progress successfully through the Teacher Education Program, candidates must provide evidence that they are developing these characteristics and meeting established standards.

The progress of candidates is evaluated through course grades, grade point averages, standardized tests, field experience assessments, interviews, and conferences. Candidates participate in reflective practices and create products that they then collect into a working electronic portfolio of “evidences.” Before completing the program, candidates revise their working portfolios to create Teacher Professional Portfolios which will display selected evidence of their preparedness. As a formal process, assessment of candidate progress takes place at four different points called transitions.