Policies

Attendance & Participation

Weekly class activities are both active and collaborative. Real-time feedback from me and your peers is essential to your learning and makes it impossible for you to have the same learning experience if you are not present in class. Therefore, it is critical that you attend each class meeting and stay for its entirety. Further, because our class meets only 5 times, missing one class session is missing 20% of the mini-course. If you must miss class for illness or another serious reason, you are responsible for finding a way to demonstrate that you have actively engaged with the ideas discussed during the class you missed. Any absence may negatively impact your overall course evaluation, particularly in cases when an absence was avoidable or when you made no effort to engage with ideas discussed during the missed class session.

During class sessions, you are expected to participate in active, reflective engagement. Failure to meet expectations for class participation will negatively impact your overall course evaluation. For more about what is involved in engaged, reflective participation visit Weekly Engagement.

Assignments

Policies regarding due dates, submitting and formatting assignments, and revisions are found on the Assignments page. Late assignments and failure to make revisions when they are required will negatively impact your overall course evaluation.

Programmatic Standards

This course aligns with standards for preparing elementary teachers and teachers of mathematics as outlined by:

• UTK ProCADs: In the UTK teacher preparation program, teacher candidates must demonstrate acceptable Professional Competencies, Attitudes, and Dispositions (ProCADs) throughout their program. We expect that teacher candidates maintain performance above unsatisfactory on all indicators throughout the program, as assessed by faculty, instructors/supervisors, and/or mentor teachers. Any rating of unsatisfactory requires a deficiency report and implementation of a support plan. I encourage you to read more about ProCADS here. (NOTE: You will need to log-in to your UTK email to access the site).
• AMTE Standards for Preparing Teachers of Mathematics: The Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators developed a comprehensive, aspirational set of standards, which describe a national vision for the initial preparation of all teachers PreK-12 who teach mathematics. The standards include specific details for early childhood mathematics and upper elementary mathematics. You can read more about the AMTE standards here.
• NCTM & CAEP Standards: The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics manages mathematics content specific standards for the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP); however, the standards for PK-5 are designed for advanced preparation programs, in which candidates are seeking to become elementary mathematics specialists. When appropriate, these standards are used to guid this course. You can read more about them here. You can also find more information about general K-6 CAEP standards here.
• ACEI & NAEYC Standards: This course meets mathematics specific standards as outlined by the Association for Childhood Education International (ACEI): "Standard 2.3 - Candidates know, understand, and use the major concepts and procedures that define number and operations, algebra, geometry, measurement, and data analysis and probability. In doing so they consistently engage problem solving, reasoning and proof, communication, connections, and representation" and aligns with the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) Standards for Early Childhood Professional Preparation's recommendations for mathematics.