Welcome Elementary Education Teacher Candidates!

The faculty and staff of the University of Florida, College of Education’s, Elementary Education program wish to welcome you! You are beginning the challenging, but exciting, journey of becoming a professional educator. The BAE Elementary Education initial teacher certification program (K-6) with Reading and ESOL endorsements prepares the next generation of teachers to be leaders in the creation of more equitable classroom experiences for all children they will serve throughout the entirety of their teaching careers.

Our program is intentionally designed to develop Teacher-Candidates’ competence in working within current school systems while simultaneously cultivating the knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary to challenge existing systems that at times fail to support the learning needs of all children regardless of race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, language, and other differences.

To prepare teachers who help all learners thrive in and outside of school, our program is centered on developing Teacher-Candidates’ skills through modeling and applying instructional strategies that reflect the cross-pollination of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Culturally and Linguistically Sustaining pedagogy (CLSP) (CAST, 2018; Paris & Alim, 2017; Waitoller & Thorius, 2016). It is our role to facilitate your development as a future teacher through coursework and fieldwork that complement and inform each other, merging theory and practice. Each year brings with it a new set of challenges and opportunities. All are designed to develop the best teachers the State of Florida has to offer and to prepare you to be as successful as possible from the first day you walk into your very own classroom.

This handbook contains helpful information you will need for each new experience and milestone you will experience throughout this program over the next four semesters. We look forward to working with you and welcome to the exciting field of education.

Have a wonderful year!

The Faculty and Staff of the Elementary Education Program