UH-Clear Lake School of Education named finalist for award

University of Houston-Clear Lake’s School of Education and its consortium of 10 area schools districts have been selected as one of two national finalists for the Distinguished Program in Teacher Education Award. The winner will be announced in New Orleans during the annual Association of Teacher Educators meeting, Feb 24 -27.

The award recognizes and honors outstanding teacher education programs that demonstrate strong, viable partnerships between education agencies such as local school districts and institutions of higher education in the preparation of quality teachers.

UH-Clear Lake’s program under consideration for this prestigious award is its Pre-Service Internships I and II, a program which allows candidate teachers to receive valuable hands-on teaching experience in the classroom with supervision and feedback from a team of experienced educators that includes a university supervisor, a district supervisor, and a mentor teacher among others.

“Our faculty and local school representatives have worked diligently to establish a teacher preparation program of the highest quality,” says UH-Clear Lake School of Education Dean Dennis Spuck. “The internship is the capstone course of this program, where we ensure that future teachers demonstrate the highest level in teaching proficiencies. 

“We are thrilled that ATE has recognized the excellence of our program at the national level by selecting us as one of two finalists for its prestigious Distinguished Program in Teacher Education Award.”

The internships are performed at specially designated professional development schools within each of the 10 independent school districts including Alvin, Clear Creek, Brazosport, Dickinson, Galena Park, Goose Creek Consolidated, La Marque, Pasadena, Pearland and Texas City. Teacher retention rate among these pre-service teachers trained has been found to be approximately 71 percent after seven years, as compared to 50 percent nationwide. These participating schools have also shown significant improvement in student achievement as well as teacher development.

UH-Clear Lake representatives will present an overview of the program, in addition to preparing an exhibit for display during the conference weekend.

For more information about teacher education at UH-Clear Lake, visit the School of Education Web site, http://soe.uhcl.edu.