Technical Standards for Admission, Promotion and Graduation for the Education Department
Technical Standards are non-academic criteria used in the admission, promotion and graduation of students. Technical Standards are published, discipline-specific essentials critical for the safe and reasonable practice of teaching. Technical Standards are a concrete statement of the minimum physical, sensory/motor, communication, behavioral/social, mental/emotional and environmental requirements for normal and safe professional performance within a given area. They are intended to inform the prospective student/professional of the attributes, characteristics and abilities essential to the teaching profession. Professional competency is the summation of many cognitive, affective and psychomotor skills. The college has a moral and ethical responsibility to select, educate and certify competent and safe students and practitioners. Children’s health and safety is the sole benchmark against which the college measures all performance requirements, including the Technical Standards addressed in this document.
Students enrolled in a program within the Education Department must demonstrate numerous competencies representing all three learning domains: cognitive, psychomotor and affective. Students learn, practice and verify these competencies in a number of settings, including within the college classroom, and the field-based early childhood and primary classroom settings.
To achieve the required competencies in the program, students must perceive, assimilate and integrate information from a variety of sources. These sources include oral instruction, printed material, visual media and live demonstrations. Students must participate in classroom discussions, give oral reports and pass written computer-based examinations of various formats. The completion of these tasks requires cognitive skills, such as reading, writing and problem-solving. To be physically capable of the classroom work, students must be able to see, hear and speak well enough to understand information and to be understood by others with reasonable accommodations. Classrooms and field-based settings provide students with the opportunity to systematically observe and record children’s growth and development, observe teaching in action, participate in the daily routines in the classrooms and implement lesson plans as indicated. In addition to the cognitive skills required in the classroom, students must demonstrate psychomotor skills in interaction with children, as well as general professional behaviors such as team-building and interpersonal communication. To satisfy course requirements, students must perform all activities in a professional manner. This requires high levels of cognitive, perceptual and psychomotor functions. A candidate for the programs within the Education Department must have abilities, attributes and skills in five major areas: 1) observation 2) communication 3) motor skills 4) intellectual, including conceptual, integrative and quantitative abilities, and 5) behavioral and social skills. Technological compensation and reasonable accommodations can be made for some disabilities in some of these areas However, a student must be able to perform in a reasonably independent manner with or without accommodations.
Observation:
Candidates and students must have sufficient vision to be able to observe demonstrations, experiments and laboratory exercises in the college classroom and field based classroom. They must be able to observe a child (children) accurately at close range and at a distance.
Communication:
Candidates and students should be able to speak, hear, and observe children in order to elicit information, describe developmental stages and perceive nonverbal communications. They must be able to communicate effectively and sensitively with children. Communication includes not only speech but also reading and writing in English. They must be able to communicate effectively and efficiently in oral and written formats.
Motor:
Candidates and students should have sufficient motor function to execute movements reasonably required to perform teaching activities and lessons with children. In addition to physical capabilities for classroom work, the field experience requires students to perform fine and gross motor skills. Examples include but are not limited to, lifting children, playing with children, changing diapers and moving briskly between children and instructional areas.
Intellectual, Conceptual, Integrative and Quantitative Abilities:
These abilities include measurement, calculation, reasoning, analysis and synthesis. Problem-solving, the critical skill demanded of teachers, request all of these intellectual abilities.
Behavioral and Social Attributes:
Candidates and students must possess the emotional health required for full utilization of their intellectual abilities, the exercise of good judgment, the prompt completion of all responsibilities attendant to the care of children and the development of mature, sensitive and effective relationships with children and adults. Candidates and students must be able to tolerate physically taxing workloads, adapt to changing environments, display flexibility, and learn to function in the face of uncertainties inherent in the field and clinical setting. Children’s classrooms involve application of skills acquired in the classroom setting to actual children in the clinical setting. In addition to the cognitive skills required in those settings, students must demonstrate skills in assessment, reasoning, problem-solving, synthesizing and troubleshooting.
Failure to meet these standards may result in dismissal from the program. Candidates are urged to ask questions about the program’s technical standards for clarification and to determine whether they can meet the requirements with or without reasonable accommodation. Questions may be directed to the director of the Center for Access and Assistive Technology at Hudson Valley Community College. Revealing a disability is voluntary; however, such disclosure is necessary for any accommodations to be made in the learning environment or the program’s procedures. Information about disabilities is handled in a confidential manner. If you have a documented disability and require reasonable accommodations to meet the technical standards, please contact the Center for Access and Assistive Technology at (518) 629-7154 or TDD 629-7596.
Please note all information regarding your disability is mailed directly to the Center for Access and Assistive Technology and kept confidential.
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