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Academic Catalog

COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

Mission Conceptual Framework Degrees Awarded
Accreditation General Information Facilities
Praxis Examination Requirements Louisiana Teacher Certification Requirements Departments

O. Cleveland Hill, Ed.D.
Associate Professor of Health and Physical Education
Dean of the College of Education

Office: 220 Polk Hall
Phone: 448 4325

Mission [ Top of Page ]

The primary mission of the College of Education is to prepare teachers, administrators, school and psychological counselors, school psychologists, and support personnel to be effective decision-makers. Concomitant purposes are to provide undergraduates a foundation in psychology and to offer service courses in health and physical education as well as psychology.

An additional mission of the College is to afford professional services to area school systems. School systems receive these services through credit and non-credit workshops and faculty consulting tailored specifically to meet their unique needs. In addition, the Generations Teaching Generations Preschool, the Family Resource Center, the Family Service Center, the Nicholls Intergenerational Program, and the Psychology Training Clinic service area schools, university students, and citizens of the region.

The mission of the College of Education is accomplished by a faculty committed to teaching, to community service, and to research.

Conceptual Framework [ Top of Page ]

Programs of study in the College of Education are grounded in the Conceptual Framework of “Professional Educator is a Reflective Decision-Maker.” The College’s candidates are prepared in the core knowledge and skills needed to become culturally responsive inquirers, acting as curriculum agents, and engaging in professional praxis. These core components educate candidates to develop and maintain the dispositions of openness to cultural diversity, responsibility in the service of students, community, and profession; and belief in the transformative potential of education. The College’s core components and dispositions represent the University’s commitment to transforming the lives of students by working to ensure that all students become successful life-long learners.

Unit Outcomes (Candidate Proficiency)
  1. Preparation: Planning and Management
    1. The candidate will demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the content disciplines and how to integrate this general content knowledge to the particular contexts of the regions diverse ecological (i.e., culture, environment, and society) situations.
    2. The candidate will demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the philosophical and psychological underpinnings for the various theories of learning, empirical techniques, and knowledge of the diverse aspects of human intellectual, social, and physical development.
    3. The candidate will demonstrate the ability to apply content area and local ecological knowledge, as well as technological and profession-pedagogical skills and empirically derived knowledge of students to the local, state, and national curriculum standards and professional standards of practice.
  2. Implementation of professional-pedagogical competencies
    1. The candidate will demonstrate the ability to apply content area knowledge, local ecological knowledge, technological skills, professional-pedagogical skills and knowledge of student behaviors to construct learning environments (e.g., involving critical inquiry, problem-solving, and reflective decision-making) that adapt to students’ individual cultural, social, and developmental circumstances for the improvement of all students’ learning behavior.
    2. The candidate will demonstrate the ability to employ reflective strategies with effective verbal (oral and written) and nonverbal forms of communication to collaborate with colleagues, supervisors, parents, and community leaders to support the successful learning of all students.
    3. The candidate will further demonstrate the ability to apply research based teaching practices, and to access and reflect on the effectiveness of these practices to improve all student behaviors.
    4. The candidate will demonstrate the ability to get students of diverse cultural and development backgrounds to use language, as well as both mature and emerging technologies, to express themselves and engage in life-long learning.
  3. Evaluation
    1. The candidate will demonstrate knowledge of and ability to evaluate and apply various forms of formal, informal, and performance based assessment strategies to ensure the continuous behavioral, social, emotional, intellectual, and physical development of all students.
    2. The candidate will demonstrate the ability to engage in research based inquiry and reflective practices to continuously evaluate their own educational practices and experiences by explaining what they have learned and how they will apply this new knowledge to their future educational activities.
  4. Dispositions
    1. Candidates will exhibit an attitude of openness to diverse socio-cultural behaviors.
    2. Candidates will exhibit a belief that all students from diverse cultural, social, and intellectual backgrounds can achieve academic excellence.
    3. Candidates will demonstrate a belief that by engaging in democratic action they transform the curriculum, thereby serving the community by promoting social justice.
    4. Candidates will demonstrate a belief that in order to improve student behaviors and transform them intellectually they must become cultural-curriculum agents serving the community as a whole.
    5. Candidates will demonstrate assessment strategies that present all students in an ethical, just, and professional way that treats them as human beings rather than as technological resources.

Degrees Awarded [ Top of Page ]

Accreditation [ Top of Page ]

The College of Education is fully accredited by the National Council for the Accreditation for Teacher Education (NCATE). The Department of Family and Consumer Sciences is fully accredited by the American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences (AAFCS). The School Psychology Program is fully accredited by the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP).

General Information [ Top of Page ]

The College of Education prepares teachers, resource and support personnel, and administrators for education service. The College's programs focus on the needs of individuals interested in the traditional elementary and secondary school environments. However, the development of innovative concepts is encouraged. Candidates are prepared for all areas of education from pre-school through adult years in both the public and private sectors. The knowledge and skills necessary for effective learning and teaching are provided to prospective teachers and other school personnel. In addition to programs of study leading to its degrees, the College offers credit and non-credit workshops designed specifically to meet the unique needs of area school systems.

Programs of study in the College are based on a conceptual framework that the professional educator is a reflective decision-maker. The knowledge-base provides for a broad general education, mastery of the content of instruction, and professional skills, dispositions, and competencies. The relative emphasis placed upon each of these aspects of the total education for teaching varies in accordance with the purpose of each program.

Besides insuring a broad general education and sound professional background and competence, the curricula offered provide valuable foundational education in psychology.

The College works closely with local and state groups to foster better teaching and higher professional standards.

Additional purposes of the College of Education are to offer:

  1. A Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology
  2. Psychology courses for students enrolled in other degree programs
  3. Health and Physical Education courses for students enrolled in other degree programs
  4. Graduate programs described elsewhere in this Bulletin

Facilities [ Top of Page ]

Observation and student teaching experiences are provided in teacher preparation centers located in South Central Louisiana as well as in Polk Hall and other campus buildings. The programs of these schools are influenced by such factors as available plant facilities, materials, equipment, established curriculum patterns, community attitudes, and the imagination of the professional personnel. Supervising teachers are selected because of the high quality of their teaching, their indicated competence to guide potential teachers and certification in supervision of student teaching (masters degree, three or more years of teaching, and EDAS 511). Effective in 2002, certified teachers in Louisiana who have been trained as assessment evaluators are also eligible to supervise student teachers. Effective in 2004, Teachers who have achieved National Board Certification are also eligible to Supervise Student Teachers.

Praxis Examination Requirements [ Top of Page ]

  1. A minimum score of 174 (321 computer-based) on the Pre-Professional Skills Test/Reading, 173 (318 computer-based on the Pre-Professional Skills Test/Writing, and 172 (317 computer-based) on the Pre-Professional Skills Test/Mathematics of the Praxis Examination is required for admission into the Teacher Education Program. All minimum scores are two points higher for entering freshmen to a University of Louisiana System institution effective Fall 2004, Nicholls State University is included
  2. All parts of the NTE/PRAXIS required for certification must be passed prior to student teaching. (Information on minimum passing scores available in the Dean’s Office.) NTE scores taken after September 1, 1999 are not valid for certification in Louisiana.

Louisiana Teacher Certification Requirements [ Top of Page ]

Upon completion of all academic requirements including graduation, student teaching and passing of the Praxis Examination or N.T.E. equivalent (if taken prior to September 1, 1999), the College of Education will submit all of the student's credentials to the State Department of Education at the request of the student for initial certification. However, a teacher already certified should see his or her employer to add-on a certification.

The existing Alternate Certification Program at Nicholls State University is no longer accepting new applicants. Teacher candidates presently in the program have until May 2005 to complete the program. A pilot Practitioner Teacher Certification Program was implemented in the summer 2001 as an Alternative Teacher Certification Program.

The Practitioner Teacher Program is an alternative route to teacher certification for persons holding a bachelor’s degree or higher and meeting the qualifications set forth by the Louisiana Department of Education. Information is available in the Dean’s office.

Admission to Practitioner Teacher Program:
  1. Have a bachelor’s degree from a regionally accredited institution of higher education.
  2. Have a Grade Point Average of at least 2.5.
  3. Successfully pass the Pre-professional skills component of the Praxis and the requisite content area test.

A teacher candidate admitted to pre-certification is allowed to register in undergraduate education and psychology courses provided the student meets the course prerequisite(s) and has a minimum 2.2 grade point average. A pre-certification candidate is not permitted to take any 500 level or methods courses.

Departments [ Top of Page ]