2016 News
USF College of Education Urban Teacher Residency Program Featured on ‘WEDU Quest’
(Tampa, Fla. — July 15, 2016) The USF College of Education's Urban Teacher Residency Program, an award-winning
teacher preparation program that helps students get real-world teaching experience
before having a classroom of their own, was featured on WEDU's Quest program Thursday
evening.
The Urban Teacher Residency Program is a partnership between the Hillsborough County
Public School district and the College of Education that was created for undergraduate
students within the elementary education program of the department of Teaching and
Learning. Students in the program learn to teach by taking courses that are highly
embedded in elementary classrooms and schools, and that are often co-taught by elementary
school faculty.
"We are so fortunate that this program is a partnership between Hillsborough County
and USF," said Sarah van Ingen, PhD, co-director of the Urban Teacher Residency Program.
"It's the power of that synergy between us that really allows our teacher preparation
program to be so unique and innovative."
Instead of the traditional 15-week internship program that teachers-in-training are
often exposed to, the Urban Teacher Residency Program has students become teachers
on day one. Students receive more than 2,000 hours of instructional time in the classroom,
as compared to 700 hours in a traditional internship program.
The program has been nationally recognized for the hands-on experience that it provides
to teachers-in-training. In partnership with the Hillsborough County Public School
district, the Urban Teacher Residency Program was previously honored to receive a
prestigious i3 Federal Grant from the U.S. Department of Education to support the
program's innovative model of teacher preparation. As a recipient of this grant, the
residency is seen as a national model for what is possible in teacher preparation.
"When students are in their coursework, we have really redesigned that coursework
to be explicitly linked to their teaching," van Ingen said. "So when they're in their
university classes — which we actually teach in an elementary school building — they're
learning about techniques that are shown to be very effective with children who are
diverse linguistically, socioeconomically and culturally. We're teaching them strategies,
and then they have that same day to go and apply those strategies."
To view the full segment on the Urban Teacher Residency Program, please view the clip
from WEDU Quest in the video below.