{"id":103583,"date":"2019-10-15T10:10:17","date_gmt":"2019-10-15T14:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/?p=103583"},"modified":"2023-11-17T15:36:24","modified_gmt":"2023-11-17T20:36:24","slug":"grow-your-own","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/grow-your-own\/","title":{"rendered":"Growing Teachers for the Community"},"content":{"rendered":"

Florida needs new teachers. According to the Florida Department of Education, critical teacher shortage areas for the 2019-20 school year include science, language arts, mathematics, reading and several other subjects.<\/p>\n

The department also states that these areas represent \u201cwhere postsecondary institutions do not produce enough graduates to meet the needs of Florida\u2019s K-12 student population.\u201d Lake County Schools, which serves more than 42,000 students at 59 elementary, middle and high schools, is no exception.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a shortage of certified teachers,\u201d says Stephanie Luke, a math and science education instructor at UCF and chair of the Lake County School Board. \u201cAs a school board member, I\u2019m critically aware of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

To address the problem, a growing partnership between the UCF College of Community Innovation and Education<\/a> and Lake County Schools created a pathway for high school students with an interest in becoming teachers to earn a bachelor\u2019s degree and become certified to fill the county\u2019s vacancies. The Tavares Teaching Academy, now in its second year at Tavares High School, is designed to not only introduce students to the profession with specialized courses and hands-on classroom experiences, but also provide impactful collaborations with UCF elementary education<\/a> faculty and students. By cultivating teachers within the community, this grow-your-own program was conceived to deliver a self-sustaining supply of new educators.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe vision of this program is to produce highly qualified graduates who are from Lake County and will come back to teach in Lake County,\u201d Luke says. \u201cWe know that if they come through this program from high school to UCF, they will be ready to go \u2014 and we\u2019re really excited about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Creating a Pathway<\/h2>\n

The partnership path leads Tavares Teaching Academy graduates to Lake-Sumter State College, where they will earn an associate\u2019s degree that qualifies them for admission to UCF through the DirectConnect to UCF program<\/a>. Upon achieving their bachelor\u2019s degree and Florida state teacher certification, which they can complete at UCF\u2019s elementary education program on site at the UCF Connect South Lake Center in Clermont, participants are guaranteed a job interview with Lake County Schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to grow the teachers who know about the culture and community in Lake County,\u201d says Bonnie Watkins, the Tavares High School teacher who leads the academy. \u201cOur hope is that these experiences solidify [the students\u2019] desire to become teachers and fulfill the needs in our classrooms.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Marni Kay, UCF instructor of reading education, the value of the academy is to place qualified, passionate, purposeful teachers in classrooms.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe critical teaching shortage is the reason the Tavares Teaching Academy was started to intentionally show high school students what college will look like for them,\u201d she says \u201cWe\u2019re working to grow our own right in Lake County so that they\u2019re able to start in Lake County schools, do service-learning partnerships with kids in their own community, and then become teachers in the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Watkins, the strength of UCF\u2019s elementary education program and its presence in Lake County are key to the partnership.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur students receive the benefit of shared resources from UCF, as well as advice from a UCF instructor,\u201d she says. \u201cWe work together to create valuable field experiences that are essential to the success of the Teaching Academy program.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fueling Collaboration<\/h2>\n

Building a pathway for future teachers also involves bringing the high school and college students together for collaborative events and mentoring. The groups recently met at UCF Connect South Lake Center in Clermont to celebrate International Dot Day, a recognition of the works of children\u2019s author Peter H. Reynolds. Thirty-five UCF students worked with 17 Teaching Academy students through six educational stations that reinforced the methods they\u2019ll use one day to teach children to read. It\u2019s this type of hands-on, practical experience that will fuel their success when theory becomes reality in their own classrooms.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so important to connect the research into action,\u201d Kay says. \u201cWe model for students what they can do in their own classrooms and help them develop successful teaching strategies.\u201d<\/p>\n

It all adds up to Tavares Teaching Academy graduates who are better prepared to succeed in college \u2014 and in leading a classroom after they graduate from UCF and become certified by the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese students will have a head start because they will have already spent time in front of a class,\u201d Luke says. \u201cIn fact, as college instructors, we\u2019ll need to step it up when we have this level of student coming in.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the high school students, spending time with their college counterparts helps reinforce why they participate in the academy.<\/p>\n

“I enjoyed the opportunity to work with students who have the same passion as me, but are also role models since they’re older,\u201d says Ashley Ellixson, a Tavares High School junior. \u201cMeeting new people who are from different walks of life, but who also share the same interest, was an eye-opening experience.”<\/p>\n

And there are benefits for the UCF teaching students, as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like a role model, trying to help the high schoolers understand what the expectations of being an elementary education student are at UCF,\u201d says junior Kira Dowling. \u201cIt\u2019s giving back to the community because these students are going to be in my position one day.\u201d<\/p>\n

The connections the students will build during the program are valuable beyond what the coursework will produce, because, as the instructors explain, teaching is a team effort.<\/p>\n

\u201cTeaching is not an isolated event,\u201d says Kay. \u201cTeaching should be a community partnership, because in the end we\u2019re all in it to serve students.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UCF and Lake County Schools are building a local pathway to supply new teachers to meet an urgent need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":103741,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"lazy_load_responsive_images_disabled":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[17177,1323,1521,17929,15761,17303],"tu_author":[],"class_list":["post-103583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colleges","tag-college-of-community-innovation-and-education","tag-direct-connect-to-ucf","tag-elementary-education","tag-main-site-stories","tag-pegasus-briefs","tag-ucf-connect"],"yoast_head":"\nUCF partners with Lake County Schools on local teacher training pathway<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The UCF College of Community Innovation and Education is helping Lake 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