Curriculum and Instruction
Office: 1380 Lawrence Street Center, 701
Telephone: 303-315-5001
E-mail: ASPIRE@ucdenver.edu
Overview
The schools in your community need your skills and experience to increase the number of effective teachers in your area. We prepare our candidates to collaborate effectively at all levels - with other teachers and learning specialists, parents, students, administrators, counselors, and community members - in order to facilitate the success of all students.
Aspire to Teach® preparation also includes application of content knowledge, theory, curriculum, assessment, and research as they flexibly and reflectively make decisions that support the success of diverse learners.
Ultimately, our goal is that all candidates—whether elementary teachers, secondary teachers or special educators—will be able to have a significant positive impact in diverse educational school settings and, as teacher leaders, will act with a sense of urgency to support equity in education for all children.
Faculty
The faculty of the Curriculum & Instruction MA works with educators to adopt a pedagogy that is holistic, experiential, relational and liberatory. Students examine the political nature of schooling and the systemic inequities (social, economic, gender, ethnocultural background, racial geography, etc.) that help create unequal education opportunities for a variety of learners. The program aims to introduce participants to an approach to teaching and learning that moves beyond transmission and mastery of content towards teaching/learning that promotes the practice of freedom, liberation, justice and community.
C&I faculty also emphasize the importance of teachers as scholars and reflective practitioners. To help you transition to this graduate student role, the program requires students to leverage the text, They Say / I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing, 3rd edition (authors: Graff and Birkenstein) prior to your first course in the program. The book prepares students for the program’s academic writing expectations. Graff and Birkenstein use a metaphor of academic writing as a conversation. Each chapter describes relevant argumentative moves, examples, and templates to assist you in integrating the language, ideas, and arguments of others into your writing. Students will find the text to be a quick read and an invaluable resource throughout the program.
Faculty Director:
Julia Kantor, PhD, University of Colorado Boulder | Clinical Assistant Professor
Assistant Clinical Professors:
Suzanne Arnold PhD, University of Colorado Boulder | Executive Director of ASPIRE to Teach Alternative Teacher Licensure
Jennifer Fox, EdD, University of Colorado Denver | Director of ASPIRE to Teach
Joshua Martin, MS, Western Governors University
Dane Stickney, MA, University of Colorado Denver
Senior Instructors:
Erin Bache, MA, University of Colorado
Evan McClintock, PhD, New York University
Sam McNitt, MA, University of Colorado Denver
Leslie Prock, MA, University of California Los Angeles
Instructors:
Christopher Garcia, MA, University of Colorado Denver
Alternative Licensure Instructor:
Kathryn Schamu, MA, Framingham State University