Teacher Academy Overview

 

CB East Teacher Academy Program Mission Statement

The purpose of the CB East Teacher Academy Program is to grow, foster, and empower the next generation of educators in our community.

Students will participate in classroom instruction on learning theory, instructional strategies, and the role teachers play in a community. Students will also be placed with a CBSD mentor teacher; students will learn from CBSD teacher mentors by observing their mentor teacher, leading and facilitating small groups of students in the classroom, and teaching lessons alongside their mentor teacher.

By sharing the craft, art, and power of the educational field, the CB East Teacher Academy’s core goal is to continue creating an authentic, shared, and empowered learning experience for our students and our community.

The program's foundations are part of the “Grow Your Own” movement, which has been developed as one answer to the teacher shortage in America. The program also hopes to give students career internship experience and to continue connecting our larger CBSD community together.

CB East Teacher Academy Program Objectives

1. Foster a love of teaching children
2. Learn the intricacies of the craft of teaching and learning, from learning theory and educational history to careful planning and high impact instructional strategies
3. Observe strong instruction in action by developing CBSD teacher mentors
4. Research and learn about education as a career, about how the profession works, and about how to best prepare for the profession
5. Build a "Grow Your Own" style teacher pipeline to help sustain the teaching profession
6. Develop responsibility, professionalism, and leadership in our student leaders
7. Connect students, teachers, and parents through the K-12 continuum

 

Teacher Academy Instructional and Experiential Focuses

 

The Teacher Academy program is built around an elective class called Principles of Teaching. The course has two components:

 

1. Instruction: 2-3 days a week the high school students meet with their instructor where they learn the principles of teaching—from why teachers teach and how they learn about their learners, to the ins and outs of planning, instruction, and classroom management, all the way up to how our profession works as a career.
2. Internship: 2-3 days a week the students are placed in a CBSD teacher's classroom. That teacher will ideally be the grade or content area that the student would eventually like to teach, and they will act as the student’s mentor teacher for the semester. The student will observe, work with small groups of students, and, eventually, lead the class alongside their mentor teacher and do some "real teaching."