ALTHOUGH JMU HAS GROWN FROM A TEACHERS COLLEGE INTO A COMPREHENSIVE UNIVERSITY, preparing top-notch teachers is still a campuswide commitment. Today, it's a necessity.

"We are now in an age of accountability," says College of Education professor Jane Smith. "Almost every state has standards-based testing in public schools. With that in mind, it is important to train teachers to [master] what they are teaching. … It's just as important to teach the most effective ways to engage kids to learn it."

Teacher candidates master their content areas by majoring in the subjects they plan to teach, areas like math, history or art, for instance. (Essentially, they minor in education to learn the pedagogy and methodology.)

So when the College of Education received a $55,000 Standards-based Teacher Education Project grant to enhance teacher preparation at JMU, it immediately reached across disciplines to involve faculty members who are teaching the content majors.

"We are looking at how we prepare teacher candidates in the area of content," Smith says. "That's a joint effort on the part of all the colleges [at JMU]. That's why we wrote our grant the way we did."

Bob Kolvoord, a professor in the College of Integrated Science and Technology and the creator of many CD-ROM curriculum materials for K-12, was a natural choice to lead one of the efforts: to design and implement a content teaching academy to which professors across campus can contribute and enrich.

Cindy Klevickis, another CISAT professor, is coordinating the assessment of the special education program, content major programs, and the Interdisciplinary Liberal Studies program, in which students studying early childhood and middle grades education major.

College of Arts and Letters professor Bill Wightman leads yet another effort, this one to revise JMU's admission, retention and exit requirements for teacher candidates, particularly in the area of content knowledge and content pedagogy.

In the College of Education, Martha Ross is heading up efforts to refine the alignment of academic majors with several national and state teaching standards and professional qualifications; and Smith is revising the JMU curriculum and candidate assessments. "A lot of voices are contributing," Smith says. In addition to JMU professors who are involved, community college representatives and public schoolteachers and principals are also participating in JMU's efforts to ensure that JMU graduates know their subject matter, employ effective instructional strategies and can monitor and assess P-12 student learning.

JMU's grant is one of six in Virginia funded by the federal No Child Left Behind Act. Sharon Lovell, former interim dean of the College of Education, and Linda Bradley, retired director of the Education Support Center, obtained the grant for JMU.

---  Pam Brock