Elementary Teacher Education - YNTEP

Elementary Teacher Education - YNTEP

Since its inception in 1989, the Yukon Native Teacher Education Program (YNTEP) has supported a vision for change in Yukon schools collectively voiced by First Nation Chiefs and Elders, community members, educators, and politicians across the Yukon. YNTEP is committed to nurturing educational practices that support reconciliation and decolonization.

YNTEP expects its graduates to lead for change, providing a curriculum of consequence as a foundation for a brighter future for all Yukon communities. They have experience enacting innovative and responsive pedagogies, including equitable assessment and evaluation; teaching in cross-cultural settings, with an emphasis on Yukon First Nation history and culture; teaching for multiple literacies; and responding with multiple levels of intervention to learning, behavioural, and health challenges in schools.

Values

YNTEP takes up critical, culturally responsive and anti-oppressive teaching practices; development of culturally appropriate curricula; and building capacity for intercultural understanding, empathy, and mutual respect. The program endeavours to attract teacher candidates from diverse backgrounds and representative of Yukon's demographics.

In-School Experience

Our program offers extensive field experience in a school setting. The practicum experience begins in the first year with an introduction to schools, an exploration of the various roles in education. More extensive development occurs in the pre-internship year (year 3). It is at this level that students experience the link between theory and practice since education courses over two semesters are coordinated with the practicum. An intensive 16-week internship, under the daily supervision of a cooperating teacher, has over the years become the 'flagship' of the Faculty of Education.

Sample Courses

• Cross-Cultural Teaching Strategies
• Education for Justice: Knowledge, Schooling and Society
• Curriculum and Pedagogy
• Indigenous Land-Based Pedagogies

Faculty of Education is rooted in anti-racist and social justice orientations to teaching and learning. Becoming a student here will require you to stretch your thinking, to examine your own positionality, and to develop a critical consciousness around the lives of those marginalized by various forms of systemic inequities.

A graduating average of at least 70 per cent from a four-year baccalaureate degree (or equivalent) is required for admission to all programs except for English, History, Mathematics and Statistics and the Master of Public Administration where the required average is 75 per cent.

Applicants with a marginally lower four-year average may be accepted if their performance in the last two complete years is significantly higher (75 per cent or more).

Applicants must have the academic background required to undertake graduate studies in their chosen field. Applicants who fail to meet this requirement but who otherwise meet the criteria may be admitted; however, background deficiencies must be addressed by taking appropriate courses either prior to or in parallel with graduate work.