Ala. Admin. Code r. 290-3-3-.08

Current through Register Vol. 43, No. 1, October 31, 2024

Section 290-3-3-.08 - Elementary Education (Grades K-6)

(1)Rationale. This document brings attention to those elements that are distinctive to the elementary education program. These elements represent the essential elementary curriculum, instructional knowledge and abilities, and professionalism for the preparation of teacher candidates for Grades K-6. These standards build upon the Alabama Core Teaching Standards.

(2)Program Curriculum. In addition to meeting Rules 290-3-3-.03(6)(a)1. -4., 290-3-3-.03(6)(e)1. and 2.(i) and (vii), 290-3-3-.04, and 290-3-3-.05, the elementary education curriculum shall require a teaching field of at least 30 semester hours with at least 18 semester hours of upper-division credit. For candidates unconditionally admitted to a program December 15, 2020, and thereafter, the program shall require no less than nine semester hours of reading or literacy coursework, or both, based on the science of learning to read, including multisensory strategies in foundational reading skills.

(a)Development, Learning, and Motivation. Candidates know, understand, and use the major concepts, principles, theories, and research related to development of children and young adolescents to construct learning opportunities that support individual students' development, acquisition of knowledge, and motivation.

(b)Curriculum.

1.Reading, writing, and oral language. Candidates demonstrate a high level of competence in the use of English language arts to ensure student learning and achievement using explicit instruction, facilitating active inquiry, providing opportunities for collaboration, and promoting positive interactions. Candidates know, understand, and use theories from reading, language, and child development to teach reading, writing, speaking, viewing, listening, and thinking skills. Candidates help students successfully apply their developing skills to many different situations, materials, and ideas within and across all content areas in order to provide relevant learning experiences for all students. Prior to program completion, candidates demonstrate ability to:

(i) Use a variety of strategies (to include explicit and systematic instruction, guided practice, error correction and corrective feedback, and multisensory language instruction) to teach foundational reading skills based on the science of learning to read, to include oral language development, phonological awareness, phonics instruction, writing, vocabulary, and comprehension, in accordance with the Alabama Course of Study: English Language Arts.

(ii) Incorporate all the interrelated components of English language arts into a cohesive learning experience.

2.Science. Candidates know, understand, and use fundamental concepts of physical, life, and Earth/space sciences, as well as engineering and computer sciences. Candidates can design and implement age-appropriate inquiry science lessons with the goal of achieving scientific literacy for all students. According to the conceptual framework of the 2015 Alabama Course of Study for K-12 Science, "A scientifically literate person is one who has a foundation in science knowledge, a technological understanding of problem solving, and the ability to design scientific solutions." Prior to program completion, candidates demonstrate ability to:

(i) Understand the current Alabama Science Course of Study: Science and interpret three dimensional (Scientific and Engineering Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Disciplinary Core Ideas) expectations outlined by appropriate grade-level standards.

(ii) Create a collaborative, student-centered classroom environment that provides opportunities for scientific investigation, technology, and engineering design that allows students to connect the classroom to the outside world.

(iii) Use diagnostic feedback from appropriate ongoing formative assessment to modify teaching and learning activities and summative assessments to determine student achievement at the end of a unit of study.

(iv) Provide differentiated instruction through intervention and acceleration based on assessment results.

(v) Determine appropriate instructional and learning targets used for the development of lesson plans using a designated instructional model. Instructional models may include, but are not limited to the 5E+IA Instructional Model, as suggested and outlined in Alabama's 2015 College and Career-Ready Science Standards, or the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study 5E Instructional Model. The Five E+1A Instruction Model supports the use of inquiry-based instruction and prepares prospective teachers to:

(I) Engage. Student interest is stimulated, and connections are made to prior knowledge and between past and present experiences. Student thinking is focused on learning outcomes as they become mentally engaged in the practices, crosscutting concepts, and the core ideas of the unit or lesson.

(II) Explore. Students investigate initial ideas and solutions in a context within which they can identify. Using investigation, research, discourse, text, and media, students actively explore situations and build common experiences that serve as a basis for developing an understanding of the concepts within context.

(III) Explain. Students are provided the opportunity to collaborate, communicate, and construct meaning from their experiences based on an analysis of the exploration. This phase emphasizes the importance of students developing evidence-based explanations founded upon their observations and experiences obtained through investigations. Teachers clarify understanding through definitions, labels, and explanations for abilities, concepts, practices, and skills.

(IV) Elaborate. Students reflect upon, expand, and apply conceptual understanding of scientific concepts to new and unfamiliar situations in order to cultivate a broader and deeper understanding of concepts through new experiences within new contexts and situations.

(V) Evaluate. Students are assessed on understanding of scientific concepts. Assessment provides opportunities for teachers to evaluate understanding of concepts and practices identified in the standards. This phase helps teachers know if students are learning in order for appropriate next steps to occur.

(VI) Intervene or Accelerate. When some students do not learn the first time, intervention strategies may be implemented to further explain and elaborate upon concepts to a greater extent in order to clarify understanding. Students who have demonstrated proficiency may be able to enrich or accelerate learning through more challenging, engaging, and exploratory experiences.

3.Mathematics. Based on the State Course of Study: Mathematics, candidates know, understand, and use the major concepts, procedures, and practices that define counting and cardinality, number and operations with base 10 and fractions, algebraic thinking, measurement and data, and geometry. In doing so, they consistently engage in problem solving, reason abstractly and quantitatively, construct viable arguments, model with mathematics, use appropriate tools strategically, attend to precision, make use of structures, and express regularity in repeated reasoning. Prior to program completion candidates demonstrate ability to:

(i) Make sense of problems, justify solutions with supporting evidence, use mathematical tools, make conjectures and connections, and provide student feedback that builds conceptual understanding and procedural fluency.

(ii) Explain students' strategies while connecting and generalizing ideas, anticipating responses and misconceptions, applying reason, and representing and articulating relationships between mathematical concepts.

(iii) Find, adapt, or create rigorous tasks with various entry levels and exit points for engaging all students in real-life problematic situations that orchestrate mathematical discourse and productive struggles for students.

4. Social studies. Candidates are knowledgeable about the Alabama Course of Study: Social Studies, C3 Framework, concepts, facts, tools, disciplinary structures of inquiry, and disciplinary forms of representation in civics, economics, geography, history, and the social/behavioral sciences. Prior to program completion, candidates demonstrate ability to:

(i) Demonstrate an understanding of how the disciplines--civics, economics, geography, and history, and the social/behavioral sciences--create knowledge through disciplinary inquiry to inform action in civic life.

(ii) Plan learning sequences that leverage social studies knowledge and literacies, technology, and theory and research to support the civic competence of learners.

(iii) Understand and be fluent in the methods of those disciplines and the ways conclusions of inquiry are communicated through disciplinary forms of representation.

(iv) Design and implement instruction and a range of authentic assessments, informed by data literacy and learner self-assessment, that measure learners' mastery of disciplinary knowledge, inquiry, and forms of representation for civic competence and demonstrate alignment with state required content standards.

(v) Plan and implement relevant and responsive pedagogy, create collaborative and interdisciplinary learning environments, and prepare learners to be informed advocates for an inclusive and equitable society.

(vi) Use theory and research to continually improve their social studies knowledge, inquiry skills, and civic dispositions, and adapt practice to meet the needs of each learner.

(vii) Explore, interrogate, and reflect upon their own cultural frames to attend to issues of equity, diversity, access, power, human rights, and social justice within their schools and/or communities.

5.The arts. Candidates have a thorough knowledge of the 2017 Alabama Course of Study for K-12 Arts Education, including the four artistic processes - creating, responding, connecting, and either performing (dance, music, theatre) or producing (media arts) or presenting (visual arts) -- and the eleven anchor standards shared across the arts. According to the conceptual framework of the 2017 Alabama Course of Study for K-12 Arts Education, "Arts literacy is the goal of arts education in Alabama. Arts literacy consists of the knowledge, understanding, and skills required to participate authentically in the arts." Prior to program completion, candidates demonstrate ability to:

(i) Use the 2017 Alabama Course of Study: Arts Education to design and implement age-appropriate inquiry arts lessons and projects with the goal of achieving artistic literacy for all students.

(ii) Create an individual and/or collaborative, student-centered classroom environment that provides opportunities for risk-free creative exploration and investigation to conceive and develop artistic ideas and work.

(iii) Demonstrate how the arts may be used to provide authentic alternative assessments (such as portfolios, rubrics, artist statements, etc.) both within the arts and in other subjects.

(iv) Use at least one of the arts disciplines to support learning and assessments in other subjects by providing authentic arts integrated lessons that allow students through imagination, investigation, construction and reflection to connect the classroom to the outside world through creative production.

6.Health education. Based on the State Course of Study: Health Education, candidates know, understand, and use the major concepts in the subject matter of health education to create opportunities for student development and practice of skills that contribute to good health. Prior to program completion, health literate candidates demonstrate ability to:

(i) Assess needs to determine priorities for school health education.

(ii) Plan effective comprehensive school health education curricula and programs.

(iii) Use multiple instructional strategies that reflect effective pedagogy, and health education theories and models that facilitate learning for all students.

(iv) Assess student learning by developing assessment plans and analyze assessment results to guide future instruction.

7.Physical education. Based on the State Course of Study: Physical Education, candidates know, understand, and use human movement and physical activity as central elements to foster active, healthy lifestyles and enhanced quality of life for elementary students. Prior to program completion, candidates demonstrate ability to:

(i) Understand the relationship and contributions of the physical education program within the elementary school curriculum and process.

(ii) Demonstrate academic knowledge and methods to plan and provide integrated and developmentally appropriate learning experiences for elementary students in accordance with local, state and/or national standards for elementary physical education.

(iii) Understand the emotional, social, and health-related needs of elementary students.

(iv) Demonstrate knowledge of the importance of physical activity within the elementary school program as it relates to the impact on classroom and academic performance.

(v) Identify the basic movement patterns (locomotor, manipulative, stability, and perceptual motor) and principles.

(vi) Demonstrate knowledge of current local, state, and national trends, programs and initiatives including but not limited to Comprehensive School Physical Activity Program (CSPAP) as part of the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSWC) model, and the Alabama Champions for Healthy Active Schools.

8.Special education. Prior to program completion, candidates shall demonstrate the ability to use knowledge acquired and abilities demonstrated in the survey of special education course and discipline-specific methods courses to effectively collaborate with special education teachers to adapt curriculum and activities to accommodate the unique needs of special education students, including gifted students, in regular class environments and to help plan support activities to be provided by special education teachers.

(c)Instruction. Candidates demonstrate the ability to teach according to the Alabama College and Career Ready Standards for K-6.

1.Integrating and applying knowledge for instruction. Candidates plan and implement instruction based on knowledge of students, learning theory, connections across the curriculum, curricular goals, and community.

2.Adaptation to students from diverse populations. Candidates understand how elementary students differ in their development and approaches to learning and create instructional opportunities that are adapted to students from diverse populations.

3.Development of critical thinking and problem solving. Candidates understand and use a variety of teaching strategies that encourage elementary students' development of critical thinking and problem solving.

4.Active engagement in learning. Candidates use their knowledge and understanding of individual and group motivation and behavior among students at the K-6 level to foster active engagement in learning, self-motivation, and positive social interaction and to create supportive learning environments.

5.Communication to foster collaboration. Candidates use their knowledge and understanding of effective verbal, nonverbal, and media communication techniques to foster active inquiry, collaboration, and supportive interaction in the elementary classroom.

(d)Assessment for Instruction. Candidates know, understand, and use formal and informal assessment strategies to plan, evaluate, and strengthen instruction that will promote continuous intellectual, social, emotional, and physical development of each elementary student.

(e)Professionalism.

1.Professional growth, reflection, and evaluation. Candidates are aware of and reflect on their practice in light of research on teaching, professional ethics, and resources available for professional learning; they continually evaluate the effects of their professional decisions and actions on students, families, and other professionals in the learning community and actively seek out opportunities to grow professionally.

2.Collaboration with families, colleagues, and community agencies. Candidates know the importance of establishing and maintaining a positive collaborative relationship with families, school colleagues, and agencies in the larger community to promote the intellectual, social, emotional, physical growth, and well-being of children.

(3)Faculty. The faculty must include at least three full-time persons with doctorates and with professional educational work experience in Grades K-6. At least one faculty member shall have a major specialization in elementary education and one in reading.

Ala. Admin. Code r. 290-3-3-.08

New Rule: December 19, 1978. Amended: Filed December 13, 1990; effective February 1, 1991. Repealed and Replaced: Filed January 9, 1997; effective February 13, 1997; operative July 1, 1997. Repealed and New Rule: Filed September 11, 2003; effective October 16, 2003. Repealed and New Rule: Filed July 13, 2004; effective August 17, 2004. Repealed and New Rule: April 14, 2005; effective May 19, 2005. Repealed and New Rule: Filed August 6, 2007; effective September 10, 2007.

Amended by Alabama Administrative Monthly Volume XXXIII, Issue No. 11, August 31, 2015, eff. 9/17/2015.

Amended by Alabama Administrative Monthly Volume XXXVI, Issue No. 12, September 28, 2018, eff. 10/28/2018; operative 6/1/2019.

Amended by Alabama Administrative Monthly Volume XXXVIII, Issue No. 11, August 31, 2020, eff. 10/15/2020.

Amended by Alabama Administrative Monthly Volume XXXIX, Issue No. 11, August 31, 2021, eff. 10/15/2021.

Previous Rule.06 was renumbered.08 per certification published August 31, 2021; effective October 15, 2021.

Author: Dr. Eric G. Mackey

Statutory Authority:Code of Ala. 1975, §§ 16-3-16, 16-23-14.