Introduction to Teaching and Learning is designed to help you form a learning community with your cohort group, create a relationship with your advisor, and learn what it means to be a good teacher as you begin to understand what teaching is about. We can learn from others and your fellow students will help you develop a variety of perspectives and ideas about your work.

In our cohort we will read about an experienced 5th grade teacher, Ms. Zajac, and her class in Holyoke Mass. and make four visits to a kindergarten class in Burlington Vermont where you will select, read, and evaluate how well your student understood the story and benefited from your instruction.  We will compare these two classes demographically to have a sense of what it means to be a teacher in a diverse world and share reflections about your own teaching experience.

Course Goals:

• To help you select your major concentration and create a 4 year study plan
• To help you become a reflective thinker and begin or build upon your portfolio.
• To enable you to plan, implement and evaluate a reading activity with a K student.
• To ensure you begin an adivising notebook
• To inform you about teaching resources