Teacher Preparation

Secondary Teacher Education for English Learner Integration – STEELI

Began: 7/1/2007

The Secondary Teachers for English Learner Integration (STEELI) is a five year National Professional Development Project funded by the U.S. Department of Education for teacher educators and prospective teachers of the Single Subject Credential Program at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) in collaboration with the Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD) in Los Angeles County and the Garden Grove Unified School District (GGUSD) in Orange County. The STEELI Project is an innovative collaboration, which includes the Single Subject Credential Program (SSCP), various subject matter departments (e.g., Math, Science, English), the College of Education, and the Center for Language Minority Education and Research, as well as the LEA partners (the two Unified School Districts (K-12) of Long Beach and Garden Grove).

Currently, a majority of CSULB teacher candidates are placed in school districts with a high percentage of English Learners. The total population of English Learners is 24% and 47% for Long Beach Unified and Garden Grove Unified, respectively. Although both districts have made excellent progress in improving the achievement of students at the elementary school level, the education attainment of English Learners at the secondary level still lags behind that of native English speakers. Both Districts will benefit from having secondary education teachers who can provide both content instruction and academic language development to English Learners.

The Project focus is on curricular and instructional improvement with two sub-groups. These sub-groups include: (1) higher education faculty and instructors teaching core courses within the SSCP, and (2) prospective teachers in the credential program (teacher candidates). Addressing both of these subgroups simultaneously will be critical to making changes at the K-12 level that will support students at risk of educational failure. The overarching and immediate goal of the project is to improve teacher education faculty’s and candidates’ understanding of the academic needs of English Learners (EL), and their ability to model and implement instruction that supports limited English Learners’ acquisition of language, literacy, and content. To achieve this goal, the Project has identified four major goals that will provide the framework for professional development design and implementation plan for the targeted audiences: (1) Core faculty in the Single Subject Credential Program (SSCP) acquire appropriate knowledge and skills to effectively prepare prospective teachers of English Learners in public schools through professional development, (2) SSCP syllabi are revised to ensure that they are closely aligned with California Standards for Teachers of English Learners, (3) Graduating teacher candidates in SSCP are better prepared to meet the needs of English Learners in public schools, and (4) SSCP evaluation plan is revised to better measure the effectiveness of our program and candidates on impacting English Learners.

High-Quality Minority Teacher Preparation Project (HQMTP)

Began: 3/3/2003

A federally-funded "Transition to Teaching" project, the HQMTP provides an innovative, alternative certification program for mid-career professionals from the Latino and Southeast Asian communities recruited to become K-12 teachers, with an additional priority for candidates who have prior teaching experience.

Last update: 3/12/09

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