Teachers in Demand: How PC's School of Continuing Education is Preparing Effective Educators
Teachers in Demand: How PC's School of Continuing Education is Preparing Effective Educators
“I think the program at PC really gives beginning teachers the entry-level skill set that they need to be successful,” Flynn Tabloff told GoLocal News Editor Kate Nagle.
“We’re entering a time where all educators and everyone throughout the country need to think about what’s working and what’s not working in public education, and COVID forced us into that place where we need to really take stock about what we should keep the same in terms of how we did business before COVID, and then also what might we keep — what innovative practices or changes to how we educate children should we keep as a result of COVID,” he added.
“I think that PC’s program is prepared to engage students in those conversations, and to build whatever skill sets come out of the news way of educating children post-COVID.
Flynn Tabloff, who teaches a course on Educational Measurement at PC, is also Chief of the Program Administration and Accountability Branch (PAAB) in the Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education at the US Department of Education. In that role, Flynn-Tabloff oversees administration of state formula and discretionary grant programs under the Carl D. Perkins Career & Technical Education Act, stewarding $1.2 billion dollars in federal funds aimed at developing and supporting career and technical education programs throughout the US.
Prior to that he served as Director of the William M. Davies, Jr. Career & Technical High School in Lincoln, RI and served as a member of the Rhode Island Department of Education’s Ambassador Design Team, tasked with writing the strategic plan for elementary and secondary education in Rhode Island from 2015 to 2020.
Specific Skills
“There are definitely specific areas of knowledge and skill that are in great demand in America’s and Rhode Island’s schools right now. Building those skills in our teachers, and those who are coming into the field, is essential for making all of those improvement plans actually work,” said Flynn Tabloff, who explained how PC addresses mindset, classroom management, data-informed teaching practice – and data-informed evaluation.
“The course I teach at SCE is Educational Measurement. In that course, we start with focusing on how to create a well-aligned instructional core – ensuring a strong connection between the curriculum, the instruction and the assessment that will come afterward. Very often that alignment is missing and then assessment feels like an offshoot and not something authentic to what’s happening in the class. So we talk about how to do that, and align with the standards,” he said. “Then we go into ensuring that teachers are able to construct high quality, teacher-made assessments and to assess the quality of pre-made assessments. They need to be able to determine if the assessment tool they’re given is going to yield high-value results.”
Providence College School of Continuing Education offers a variety of Teacher Certification Programs for those who want to become secondary-school teachers, in grades 7 through 12. In addition to the Teacher Certification, SCE also offers a combined Teacher Certification and Master’s of Education in either Urban Teaching or Mathematics, for those who already hold a bachelor’s degree.
SCE also offers among the most affordable tuition rates in the region for continuing education degree and certificate completion.
To learn more about the Teacher Certification Program at Providence College School of Continuing Education and how to get started, visit providence.edu/tcp.
This segment is part of a sponsored content series between GoLocalProv and the Providence College School of Continuing Education.