OWU’s teacher preparation program in Elementary Education is committed to helping you become a knowledgeable, caring, competent professional who is dedicated to nurturing the intellectual, social, and aesthetic growth of children. Your knowledge will be deepened by many opportunities to work directly with children in a wide variety of field and student teaching experiences. The Elementary Education Major leads to a Primary License (Grades PreK-5).
About the Major
Preservice elementary education teachers pursue their general liberal arts education requirements while taking foundational education courses. Once accepted into the education program, preservice teachers will take a carefully sequenced set of discipline-specific courses and accompanying field experiences to prepare them for the roles and responsibilities of working in elementary schools. Preservice teachers will pursue in-depth study of educational theory, evidence-based instructional strategies, assessment of student learning, and differentiated support for academic and behavioral goals. Coursework includes an emphasis on strong reading and literacy instruction, subject specific instruction, classroom and behavior intervention, collaboration, and assessment. Pedagogy is made relevant by application in planned field experiences in elementary classrooms. The culminating experience for the Elementary Education licensure program is the 15-week student teaching experience supervised by both university faculty and experienced educators.
