|
|
Newsletter Volume 2 |
Fall 1997 |
The new Diné Teacher Education Program is a collaborative program between Diné College (formerly Navajo Community College), Arizona State University's College of Education, and ACEPT. Developed and based at Diné College's Tsaile Campus, the program offers a bachelor's Degree from ASU in K- 8 elementary education.
The aim of the program is to produce Navajo teachers with B.A. degrees in Elementary Education through preparation approaches that promote Navajo philosophy, culture, history, language, and literacy. The objective is to produce teachers who understand Navajo values and beliefs; speak, read, and write the Navajo language; know Navajo culture and history; and can integrate the Navajo language, culture, and history with mainstream knowledge through bilingual-bicultural teaching approaches.
Tommy Lewis, President of Diné College, Dan McLaughlin, Education Specialist, and Ben Barney, Director of the Diné Teacher Education Program with the 1996 NSF ACEPT Scholars.
Since opening its doors in 1968 as the first Indian-controlled institution of higher education in the United States, DinŽ College (DC) has provided post- secondary education tailored to the unique cultural, historical, and socioliguistic situation of Navajo learners. In 1978, DC initiated an Associate of Arts degree program in Elementary Education. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, DC developed plans for offering a four-year teacher education program and becoming a four-year college as a whole.
In 1994, planning for DC's four-year teacher education program took place in earnest. An accreditation visit took place in February, 1995. The external evaluators agreed that the proposed new four-year program was much needed, and that the curriculum and logistics that had been developed up to that point held much promise, yet because adequate funding for faculty and library resources had not been identified, accreditation could not be granted at that time. The external evaluators recommended that DC identify necessary funds, build up library resources, address facility needs, and streamline academic offerings. They recommended that Diné College then request another accreditation visit. Faculty and administrators at Diné College took on the evaluators' recommendations as a challenge, and have focused for the past two years on achieving the goals set in the accreditation report, and establishing a first-rate teacher preparation program.
To facilitate establishing a four-year teacher preparation program in a timely manner, DC conducted negotiations with a variety of post-secondary institutions with the aim of creating a collaborative arrangement for launching the new program. In January, 1996, DC chose to offer the program in collaboration with Arizona State University. ACEPT, initiated in the summer of 1995, provided a natural setting for the partnership established between DC and ASU, since DC was a founding institution in the Arizona Collaborative.
The new DC Teacher Education program began in Fall, 1996, with an initial cohort of upper-level students at DC's Tsaile Campus. A second cohort of students will begin classes in Fall,1997. Additional cohorts of upper-level students will begin each Fall.
Designed by Diné College faculty in collaboration with ASU and ACEPT faculty, the program's curriculum is based on Sa'ah Naaghai Bik'eh Hozhoon, the Diné system of values and beliefs that place human life in harmony with the natural universe. The primary outcome of this system is t'aa ho ajit'eego-efficacy, self-confidence, initiative, responsibility, critical thinking, and courage to act. The following aspects of the new program have been designed to help participants achieve t'aa ho ajit'eego.
Approximately half of the upper-level courses are taught in Navajo and require a wide variety of oral and written assignments, including lesson plans and teaching materials, in the Navajo language.
The program offers only one minor-in Navajo Language, History, and Culture.
Each semester features an integrative seminar designed to make connections across the courses and to measure course content against Diné notions of thought, planning, action, and reflection.
Diné Teacher Education Students work on their bilingual cases in the computer lab.
The curriculum incorporates case- study approaches for developing strong foundational knowledge about teaching. Narratives in English and Navajo that describe actual experiences in Navajo schools are used to pose professional and ethical dilemmas and to serve as a basis for action and critical reflection. The cases are written by professionals already working in Navajo schools. They are also researched and produced by program participants as a function of the program's course-work.
An apprenticeship model for practice teaching enables program participants to put foundational understandings to actual use in the classroom. Observation, peer-evaluation, guided practice, and independent practice take place over the full course of the upper-level teacher education program. Practice teaching is both extensive and developmental rather than focused and limited to one set of experiences at the end of a course of study.
The ACEPT project has helped in four key ways with the development of the Diné Teacher Education Program. First, ACEPT faculty at ASU have worked with DC math and science instructors and teacher educators for the past three years to reconceptualize the sequence of lower-level math and science course requirements prerequisite to entrance to the Diné Teacher Education Program. Second, the same group has incorporated into the teacher education program's science and math teaching methods courses ACEPT's modules approach to science and math learning called "Patterns in Nature". Third, ACEPT has provided the opportunity for K-8 teachers from the Navajo Nation, who have also served as cooperating teachers in the new four-year teacher education program, to participate in ACEPT's Patterns in Nature summer workshops and courses held annually at ASU's Main Campus. Finally, ACEPT has played a central role in planning for, and beginning to implement, a Curriculum Center for the Diné Teacher Education Program.
Next Article
Previous Article
Volume 2 Contents
| ACEPT Home | Newsletter Home | Help | Search |
| Frames | No Frames |