Why UChicago UTEP?
UChicago UTEP features a unique residency model centered around a critical focus on identity in teaching and learning, an integration of clinical experiences and coursework, meaningful relationships with students, and a context-specific approach to teacher education:
A Critical Focus on Identity in Teaching and Learning
We prepare our teacher candidates for high-needs urban school districts. The program explicitly focuses on issues of identity including race, class, language, gender, sexuality, and culture that aspiring teachers will encounter in their work. UChicago UTEP training enables graduates to apply a nuanced understanding of these complexities to strengthen classroom instruction, work toward educational equity, and build relationships with students, parents, and colleagues.
Designed and Taught by Staff with Experience Teaching in Urban Schools
Our instructors are former urban classroom teachers who understand the setting in which our teacher candidates will work. They lead interactive, inquiry-driven learning that is also a model for effective classroom instruction—one that invests students in learning, pushes them to excel, and taps into their prior experience and knowledge.
An Integration of Clinical Experiences and Coursework
Coursework and clinical experiences are tightly linked in our program. Residents engage in a cycle of learning in which they study subject matter and pedagogy. During this cycle, residents try out instruction, reflect on their practice individually as well as with instructors and peers, revise and refine their instructional strategies, and try again. Each step of this cycle is supported with observations and feedback from experienced clinical instructors.
Small, Personalized, and Centered on Relationships with Students
We deliberately recruit small cohorts of students so that all teacher candidates receive personalized guidance from faculty and staff. The cohort structure we use enables candidates to complete coursework and fieldwork together, share experiences from their work, and support each other's continued learning after graduation. Throughout their time in the program, candidates see how reflection and making practice public are hallmarks of individual and collegial growth.
Close Ties to Chicago Public Schools
UChicago UTEP has developed a context-specific approach to teacher education. This means that we teach within communities, not just classrooms, and give teacher candidates opportunities to learn inside community-based organizations to develop an understanding of the challenges many students face outside of the classroom, as well as how to recognize and respond to them. It also means we foster an understanding of the specific education, housing, and economic policies that have impacted the urban communities in which our candidates will teach.
A World-Renowned University in a World-Class City
The University of Chicago is a vibrant intellectual community situated on a campus located just 15 minutes from the city of Chicago's center. Chicago is among the nation's most livable big cities, with extraordinary cultural attractions, a beautiful lakefront, and diverse ethnic neighborhoods.
