Curriculum
Connect learning theory with expert guidance in classroom practice
Each curriculum module connects learning theory with practice and builds on what you’re doing in the classroom. Upon completion, you’ll earn your master of arts in teaching and achieve your recommendation for initial certification in New York State* in a secondary teaching content area in English, mathematics, science, or social studies for Grades 7-12, or in special education – students with disabilities 7-12 generalist.
Classes meet online
Immersed in a classroom with your teacher mentor, you meet with NYU Steinhardt faculty and fellow teacher residents on a schedule designed to help you progress into an effective educator. You take synchronous module classes as well as content-specific classes during a set time each week in the evening, leaving the time when you’re not in the classroom to study on your own schedule. You learn face-to-face using video technology and form a collaborative community with your cohort. Online learning in the Teacher Residency maximizes interpersonal relationships and relevant instruction.
Preparation/Foundation
Your course work will help you learn about your students, their families, and their community. In the classroom, you'll apply this knowledge as your mentor teacher starts the school year and come to understand the importance of establishing certain routines and procedures to build a culture of rapport and achievement in your classroom.
Knowing the individuals in our classrooms, their families, and communities is an essential starting point of teaching. Building relationships with learners, learning from them and their experiences, and empowering them in the classroom to establish mutual respect and social contingencies where all class members contribute to social, emotional, and intellectual growth. Topics include learner identities, unpacking teacher privilege, intersections of diversity, building on family/community resources, and responding to diversity through individualization.
Where we teach and learn influences how we function and who we engage in the process. This course focuses on various contexts of learning and schooling in a range of environments, including classrooms (general, inclusive, and separate); historical contexts; and federal, state, and local policies that shape learning contexts, learning, and learners. Residents will be able to identify models of positive classroom environments, support high expectations for all students, collaborate with families and other professionals, and create caring classrooms for diverse learners.
This module builds on previous units’ focus on knowing learners and the contexts where they learn to develop students’ understanding of their obligations to their diverse learners, and of their teaching environments. Residents will be encouraged to explore more complex understandings of teaching and learning than those they may have acquired in their own schooling. They will learn classroom management and self-assessment skills and identify the teaching assets they bring to classroom environments, including their content knowledge and previous leadership experiences.
This module covers disability conceptualizations and controversies through an examination of historical and current federal US education policy and law. Residents will learn about individualized educational programming, their legal responsibilities as teachers, and techniques for maximizing students’ self-determination and family involvement.
Active practice
Your course work will focus on your content area and how you teach that subject to diverse learners, including bilingual speakers, students with special needs, English language learners, and students with varying literacy abilities. In the classroom, you'll apply this knowledge to your students' community.
This module introduces fundamentals of curriculum planning and development. Focus is on creating content-rich curricula that provide culturally relevant learning experiences for students and enable them to connect meaningfully to other content areas and experiences outside the classroom. Residents gain valuable skills in developing curricula that meet content area standards while addressing students' varied learning needs; providing individualized instruction (including use of IEPs in the classroom); and strategies for authentic assessment.
This module covers the characteristics and services for students with high-incidence disabilities impacting learning, attention, and behavior in secondary settings. Our focus is on curriculum and instructional methods for increasing student efficacy across general and special education inclusive settings.
This module focuses on key pedagogical methods for teaching secondary subject areas (English, math, science, and social studies). Residents learn to design and deliver lesson plans that are content-rich, culturally relevant, and inquiry-based. Topics include methods for differentiating instruction for all learners, especially students with disabilities and emergent bilinguals.
This module covers models and strategies for instructional planning, delivery, and assessment when working with students with disabilities and other professionals across inclusive learning environments. Understanding how to individualize and differentiate instruction in accordance with individualized education programs, as well as input from students, their families, and their teachers is a central focus of this module.
This module focuses on assessment. Topics include formal classroom assessment (for example, tests, writing assignments, and projects); informal classroom assessment (as carried out in classroom discussions, monitoring of small groups, one-on-one observations and discussions, and students’ self-assessment and peer assessment); grading; and external standardized assessment. The module also includes preparation for the MAT program summative assessment.
Peak teaching
You'll learn about your responsibilities as a teacher and how those duties affect your relationship with your students. As the lead teacher in the classroom, you'll apply all your course work to ensure your teaching meets the needs of your school and each student's academic achievement goals.
At the end of the school year, you'll finish your research project. At that point, you'll have completed the requirements for your Teacher Residency and demonstrated the skills of a highly effective teacher.
This course introduces residents to the legal requirements and educational rights of students with disabilities and strategies for working with students with special needs, including the use of IEPs (individualized education plans), and collaborating with colleagues to meet the needs of students with disabilities. We also explore issues and trends in special education.
This course introduces residents to the legal requirements and educational rights of students with disabilities and strategies for working with students with disabilities, including the use of IEPs (individualized education plans), and collaborating with colleagues to meet the needs of students with disabilities. We also explore issues and trends in special education.
This module covers the characteristics and services for students with low-incidence disabilities, including significant intellectual disabilities, multiple disabilities, autism, and sensory disabilities. Our focus is on curriculum and instruction that balances 1) access to grade-level content and inclusion with peers with 2) individualized content that supports functional skills. Instructional methods in varied learning environments including home, school, and community-based settings, related services, and assistive technology are central to course content.
This module explores the professional responsibilities of teaching in connection with students, colleagues, families, and the school community. Topics include the social responsibilities of teachers, such as anti-bullying education, substance abuse prevention; HIV/AIDS education; child abuse recognition and reporting; and school violence prevention. Students gain skills in activating protective resources, advocating for diverse students and their families, working with colleagues and community partners, and supporting empowerment and resilience in the classroom.
This culminating module focuses on participatory action research (PAR), which is one of the programmatic themes. PAR is characterized by a collaborative process of inquiry and action for change in response to organizational or community problems. Residents learn how to design, create, implement, participate in, and present a PAR project that focuses on a content-area problem, as well as learn how to keep the everyday world less problematic, how to practice radical listening, and how to be a mindful learner.
*Note: The course work and fieldwork lead to eligibility for initial teaching certification in New York State. Please visit our Professional Licensure page for more information.