Dr. Joen Rottler and Rebecca S. Hill

We believe Waldorf College, an ELCA college in Forest City, Iowa, has discovered a new approach to teacher preparation. We are preparing fully licensed elementary education teachers in a three-year fast track format that emphasizes a hands-on experiential model. Based on the unique design of the program, it lends itself well to preparing the traditional college student, as well as presenting continuing education opportunities for the in-service teacher.

How can a student earn a bachelor’s degree in three years? The Waldorf program involves a traditional two-semester school year. In each of the next two years there are three semesters, the traditional two, plus a third semester which runs from the end of April to the end of July. Therefore, the students are completing eight semesters worth of course work, but are finished in three years. It is a very attractive alternative for students who have their goals set and want to enter the work world to achieve them.

With one entire semester during the summer months, practicing teachers are able to take advantage of the courses that are offered. The program was developed with great input from our stakeholders, such as teachers, school administrators, and parents. The college incorporated these stakeholders’ knowledge of what skillful teachers need to know into the program. This included using practicing educators to teach some of the courses, a large experiential component, and adding a reading endorsement.

Teachers and administrators from surrounding schools are hired as adjuncts to teach some of our courses. This allows our students to benefit from their knowledge of current best practices and how it actually works in the classroom, while providing summer employment for the teachers.

Field based experiences are also a very integral component of the program. Students are able to learn from class work and have the opportunity to implement learning theory into real life experiences. It also allows practicing teachers to take college courses and use their own classrooms to accomplish their field experience hours.

Specifically, the reading endorsement at Waldorf College is designed to provide both preservice and inservice teachers the knowledge and skills needed to teach reading in the classroom. Additionally, the reading endorsement is also designed to provide the assessment skills and instructional strategies needed to assist elementary students in learning to read for meaning. The reading endorsement prepares the preservice and inservice teacher for individual and small group instruction for students needing more time to learn.

The coursework begins with a focus on language development and guided reading strategies, followed by methods for teaching reading and writing content areas. The basis of the content area reading and writing methods is an integrated approach, specifically in social studies. As with most of the Waldorf College Elementary Education program, each course has a field/clinical experience in an elementary school setting. The supervised clinical experiences provide opportunities for preservice and inservice teachers to apply their learning from class to reading instruction with real students in real classrooms. The preservice and inservice teachers learn to conduct running records, which is an assessment of students’ reading levels and use of reading strategies. They learn to design and teach small group and large group reading lessons. They also learn to implement content area reading and writing methods.

All education students in the elementary education program take the above reading classes and clinical experiences. Only education students working on the reading endorsement continue with the reading endorsement course sequence and continue taking reading courses in the summer/spring semester. The additional courses for those seeking a reading endorsement focus on diagnostic and individualized reading. The purpose of the courses is to equip the preservice and inservice teacher with the knowledge and skills to provide special reading instruction to elementary students who need extra reading instruction. These courses at Waldorf College are taught by teachers from partner elementary schools in the area. The teachers are reading specialists in the partner schools who have the knowledge of the most current instructional methods in teaching reading and years of successful teaching experience. These reading specialists take advantage of their elementary schools’ summer reading programs by placing the Waldorf College preservice and inservice teachers in the summer programs to provide a hands-on experience with struggling elementary readers. Using inservice reading specialists and partner elementary schools summer reading programs adds value to the Waldorf College reading endorsement for both preservice and inservice teachers.

We believe Waldorf College has discovered a new approach to teacher preparation. Because of the unique design of the program, it lends itself well to preparing the traditional college student, as well as presenting continuing education opportunities for the in-service teacher.

For more information call the Waldorf College Education Department at 641-585-8488, or e-mail rottlerj@waldorf.edu or hillb@waldorf.edu
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