Equity and Subject Expertise: The UOTeach philosophy for teacher education is that every child deserves an excellent teacher; excellent teachers need extensive subject area preparation, extensive socio-cultural knowledge, and an equity framework for curriculum and instruction. Teachers must be prepared for their role in creating welcoming, inclusive, and safe schools and communities in order to develop the critical thinking skills of children.
Core Initiatives:
Equity Framework for Anti-Oppressive and Culturally Sustaining Education
We believe that each teacher plays a pivotal role in the lives of children and the success of learning communities to help students make connections between the sociocultural context of their lives and the thinkers, learners, and doers they can become.
WE ENVISION schools
- where no student lives on the margins.
- where teachers, administrators, and staff members thoughtfully and consistently work towards social justice, knowing that such work is never easy, never uncomplicated, and never finished.
- oriented toward the public good rather than corporate models of efficiency.
- that are transcultural rather than assimilationist.
- where students and educators collaborate to challenge the brutalizing impacts of homophobia, sexism, racism, nationalism, classism, ableism, and ecological exploitation.
- that foster hope.
We are holding ourselves as collectively accountable for the Education Debt
WE ASPIRE to create a community and culture of critical compliance, which we understand to require simultaneously examining carefully the mandates that govern educational spaces—standards, curricula, assessments, accountability measures—and supporting students in the successful completion of those mandates.
We are making a commitment to improve the educational experiences of diverse Oregonians
WE SEEK opportunities for thoughtful resistance, openings for forwarding alternative visions of teaching and teaching practices, of assessment and accountability, and of schools and schooling.
Subject Area Expertise
UOTeach provides candidates with advanced training in core subject area curriculum and methods. During your time in UOTeach you will take courses from both research and practitioner faculty. Our research faculty within each subject area are nationally engaged scholars on curriculum and instruction. Our practitioner faculty are school district curriculum leaders and state experts within the different subject areas for UOTeach. The program is designed for you to have the best of both worlds.
UOTeach partners with the Sapsik’ʷałá program to help prepare students with the 
knowledge and teaching skills to serve American Indians and Alaskan Natives (AI/AN) in ways that promote Indigenous self-determination through education. The Sapsik’ʷałá Program is guided by a Tribal Advisory Council with representatives from the nine federally recognized sovereign Indian nations in the State of Oregon.
As a partner to Sapsik’ʷałá, UOTeach is committed to expanding the knowledge, skills, and cultural sensitivity of all UOTeach Oregon teacher candidates.
Nationally one of every ten students, an estimated 4.8 million, speak a home language other than English. In Oregon, districts report between 5 to 38 percent of students are emerging bilingual English language Learners.
UOTeach has embedded an English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) endorsement program for all teacher candidates. The ESOL program is core to the UOTeach mission, providing teacher candidates the ability to design effective instruction that supports English language acquisition and academic achievement in an inclusive and culturally sustainable environment.