About TALC
The Teacher Academy Learning Community or TALC is the student component of the Academy for Teacher Excellence office.
TALC provides students with an opportunity to work with other students that have similar academic interests and have made a decision to tackle any barriers that may discourage them from completing a college education. Together, both the staff and student members of TALC make the commitment to always be there to support each other as they tackle the academic, emotional, and psychosocial challenges that a college education presents.
TALC is a model for increasing the number of Latino and other ethnic diverse students pursuing teacher certification and for preparing all teachers to work with linguistically and culturally diverse populations.
TALC has been established to provide minority, especially Hispanic/Latino, and low-income diverse student populations with an opportunity to work with other students who have similar backgrounds, academic interests and who have made the commitment to work together and support each other to overcome obstacles that have traditionally discouraged this population from completing a university education. The programs established and implemented through TALC assist students to complete their teaching certification and degree programs by addressing the academic, emotional and psychosocial challenges that a university experience may bring.
Primarily aimed at students’ academic attainment,
TALC has as its objectives to:
1) Recruit and identify teacher candidates during their freshman year.
2) Support teacher candidates who reach the university academically unprepared.
3) Prepare teacher candidates with leadership and advocacy skills.
4) Create support among teacher candidates to successfully overcome institutional barriers.
5) Prepare teacher candidates to become culturally efficacious teachers. (Flores, Clark, Claeys, and Villarreal, 2007)
TALC will accomplish its objectives through recruitment, retention, and transition strategies:
Recruiting
- Recruit undergraduate students who seek certification, particularly in the teaching shortage areas: bilingual education, mathematics, science and special education.
Retaining
- Retain undergraduate teacher candidates to successful degree and certification completion.
- Retain first year teachers.
Transition
- Provide a smooth transition for undergraduate teacher candidates from the community college to full integration at UTSA.
- Provide first year teachers a smooth transition from pre-service to their first professional in-service teaching career.
As of Fall 2008, over 600 undergraduate teacher candidates and first year teachers have benefited from TALC support services; 83% of participants are Hispanic/Latino.
The Academy for Teacher Excellence Peer Mentor Program
The University of Texas in collaboration with San Antonio and San Antonio College work together to increase the success rates of students majoring Interdisciplinary Studies (IDS) specifically Hispanic and minority students. One effort to ensure the goals of this grant is the establishment of a Peer Mentoring Program.
Mentoring consists of focused and selected activities that seek to enhance and enrich students’ opportunities to succeed at their educational endeavors.
