Mission Statement

The School of Education’s theme, teacher as “Informed Decision Maker” Impacting Tomorrow Through Education, recognizes that a well-prepared teacher must be able to make informed, critical, and thoughtful decisions concerning the interactions among student, context, curriculum, and teacher preparation.  The mission of Fairmont State’s undergraduate teacher preparation program is to prepare teachers to make instructional decisions based upon a strong foundation of knowledge, skills, and dispositions. As teachers grapple with minute-to-minute and day-to-day decisions in our “information age,” they must be prepared to make informed choices from a range of options, knowing that their decisions will impact tomorrow through the education they provide.

The education of teachers at Fairmont State is designed to utilize the cooperative functions of the academic disciplines and the School of Education to prepare teachers to meet this challenge. Fairmont State believes that adequate preparation for teaching requires a rich and comprehensive experience in general education, a concentration in at least one academic specialization and certain dispositions, knowledge, skills and performances that characterize effective teaching.