Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT)

Transforming Professionals into Responsive Teachers

In support of the Price School of Education Mission, the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) Program in Early Childhood Education at Reinhardt University prepares adult learners for persistent and personalized teacher growth throughout their careers. In a quest for transformative changes in adult professionals as they develop and refine responsive teaching practices, the MAT program is:

Collaborative and Supportive

Adult professionals who enter the MAT program will bring with them very diverse backgrounds and experiences. Throughout the MAT preparation program, the adult learners will be continually transforming as professionals and will need consistent encouragement to continue to evolve. The MAT program will provide a community of learning, caring, and inquiry where adult learners can develop collaborative partnerships and receive informed leadership and consistent faculty support as they investigate current, professional "best practices" that define effective teaching and learning for today's diverse students.

Responsive

Responsive teaching is using the cultural knowledge, prior experiences, and preferred learning styles of diverse students to make learning more appropriate and effective for them; it teaches to and through the strengths of these students. The MAT program will model the beliefs, attitudes, and practices of responsive teaching and provide powerful images of what the practice looks like and how it positively impacts the learning of individual learners.

Problem-Focused

The MAT program is based on the assumption that not all students are alike, and that teaching is strengthened when adult professionals explore the merits of a range of approaches to meet the learning needs of students. The MAT program will assist the adult learners in developing a reflective, problem-solving orientation to teaching by engaging them in class- and school-based inquiry experiences. To assist adult professionals in developing the practice of reflecting on their students as individual students, the MAT program will ensure that adult professionals develop the skill and will to study, chart, and respond to students' learning needs.

Application-Oriented

The MAT program will ensure that adult professionals have numerous focused and well-structured field experience opportunities to examine quality curriculum, flexible approaches to instruction, diagnostic assessment procedures, and effective classroom management routines for future classroom practice.

(PSOE) Mission Statement

The mission of all teacher preparation programs at Reinhardt University is to produce reflective, problem-solving teachers who respond to the diversity of student needs through differentiated instruction driven by ongoing assessment and adjustments within a nurturing environment.