This course provides an overview of Florida’s educator certification pathways and career options in education in accordance with Florida Statutes. Topics include: key educational philosophies; professional ethics; legal responsibilities, including mandatory reporting for child abuse and neglect; the Florida Educator Accomplished Practices (FEAP); key instructional practices associated with effective teaching of students with exceptionalities; Florida’s state academic standards; and historical, legal and financial foundations of the Florida education systems. Students will explore effective teaching strategies in classroom management, educational technology and the foundations of all student learning needs. Includes a minimum of 15 hours of required clinical experience in a variety of school settings.

This course focuses on the social and legal factors related to PK-12 teaching, including school safety, ethics, legal aspects, and the roles and responsibilities of substitute teachers.

This course examines human growth and development across the lifespan, focusing on the biological, cognitive, and socio/emotional processes that shape development. This course will explore important issues in life-span developmental theory and research. Further, this course is designed to help students consider how the theory and research can be applied to enhance their personal and professional lives.

This course prepares teacher candidates to apply learning theory and assessment principles to classroom teaching situations. This course involves the study of principles of traditional and alternative assessment strategies. It helps the teacher candidate obtain skills relevant to the development and use of classroom assessments. Teacher candidates must attain a basic understanding of the principles of measurement, formative and summative assessment strategies, test construction, performance assessments; and reading and interpreting data from state achievement tests. The course will help teacher candidates understand the content measured by state tests and use the data to improve student achievement. Teacher candidates will participate in a clinical setting within this course. Required: Admission to the Elementary Education B.S.

This course requires a teacher candidate to demonstrate pre-professional FEAPs, Reading, and ESOL competencies during a 12-14 week, full-time internship, under the supervision of a certified classroom teacher, in a public school approved by the department and the school district. A minimum of 37.5 contact hours per week are required. Supervising teachers and an LSSC field coordinator will observe the intern and provide feedback on their performance. To be eligible to enroll in EDF 4945 all required coursework must be successfully completed and Executive Director (or designee) permission is required for enrollment.