Bard, A Place to Think - Master of Arts in Teaching

Overview

The newly established Delano, California campus will register its first cohort of graduate students in June 2010. With the goal of educating regional teacher leaders, the Bard MAT graduate program will be integrated into the daily life of a public school, Paramount Bard Academy. 

The core curriculum of Bard's MAT Program remains the same but is restructured to accommodate the opportunities for increasing connections between graduate courses and the practical experiences of working in classrooms.

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In a yearlong engagement with teachers and public school students, MAT faculty and graduate students are able to integrate advanced studies in education and core academic disciplines with the questions that emerge from the daily work of teaching. The questions that practicing teachers ask provide a critical framework for the texts and ideas that form the basis of graduate courses.

The Future of Teacher Education
A new chapter is being written in the history of teacher education. Beginning in June 2010 in Delano, California, the unique structures that define the Bard College Master of Arts in Teaching Program will be integrated into the daily life of an ambitious public school serving a representative population of students from the region. This public charter school, the Paramount Bard Academy, opened its doors to 180 sixth and ninth graders on August 3, 2009 and will continue to grow, enrolling 700 students in grades six through twelve by 2012.
In this partnership, graduate faculty and students will work side by side with public school teachers and students to teach, to learn, and to learn how to teach well. Creating a common campus at the Paramount Bard Academy for graduate teacher education and public school creates a model of teacher preparation that parallels the high quality education we commonly associate with the preparation of doctors in teaching hospitals.
Research has demonstrated that quality of teaching is the single most significant factor in determining student achievement. An excellent teacher can help students elide the usual predictors of school success. However, more than a century of experiments in teacher education have failed to prepare the kinds of teachers our children deserve and the quality of education our nation requires.
It seems obvious. Practice creates practice and guided practice, with the best models close at hand, creates the best practices. The critical years in a doctor’s education are made up of daily rounds of practice in a teaching hospital. Interns are apprenticed to resident physicians, engaging in daily practice guided by master practitioners. And interns only assume more independent responsibility for patient care after they have demonstrated that they have acquired an adequate measure of the expert’s skills and perspectives.
The qualities of an expert teacher are not as clearly defined as the qualities that describe the highly competent physician. Yet this model of apprenticeship needs to be the central feature of teacher education. Prepared by studies that ensure a deep understanding in an academic field and complementary educational courses that provide a critical framework for analysis and reflection, future teachers need to apply what they have learned to the complex challenges of teaching and learning. On a common campus, graduate and public school faculty will work as daily partners, preparing a new generation of teachers while advancing instructional practices and curriculum design as a center for research and development.
The MAT Program in Delano, California will welcome its inaugural class on June 10, 2010, building on six years of innovation in New York City and the Hudson Valley. Applications are being accepted now. Admissions begin March 8.