Press Release

For Immediate Release

TOURO COLLEGE’S GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION TO LAUNCH ONLINE/BLENDED TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAM

Touro One of Few Such Programs to Receive Approval from the New York State Education Department

New York, N.Y., July 9, 2009 - Dr. Bernard Lander, president and founder of Touro College, today announced that Touro’s Graduate School of Education will launch an “online/blended” program this fall. All of the program courses - with the exception of field experience and practicum courses - can be completed online. The School is one of the few graduate schools in New York state to receive New York State Education Department approval to launch such a program.

Touro’s Graduate Program in Education and Special Education, with approximately 3,300 students, is one of the largest such programs in the Northeast. In addition to Graduate Education and Special Education, the Graduate School of Education offers graduate programs in school leadership, teaching literacy, TESOL (teaching English to speakers of other languages), bilingual education, and instructional technology. Courses are offered in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Staten Island, Queens, and Bay Shore, Long Island.

“Touro is pleased to be leading the way in the field of online learning in education,” said Dr. Lander. “The program will provide great opportunities for individuals who live outside the immediate area to further their education. Additionally, the new program will be an enormous boon for people who want to return to school and complete a graduate program, but who must work full-time or fulfill family obligations.”

One of the hallmarks of the rigorous online program is the use of technology. For example, students will film themselves doing lesson presentations and post the footage on a designated channel on “TeacherTube”, an online community for sharing instructional videos. Peers and professors will have the opportunity to view, comment on, and critique the presentations.

“An important feature of our online program is that students will continue to meet each semester with department chairs or directors, so they will have the benefit of live, in person interaction,” said Dr. Ronald Lehrer, associate dean and chair of Graduate Programs in Education and Special Education. “Thus, regardless of whether students are in live classrooms settings or in online courses, they will feel the same sense of community.”

Strongly committed to the goal of high quality universal education, the Graduate School of Education’s mission is to develop and implement educational programs that supply schools and other educational settings with the most professionally competent teachers, administrators, and educational support personnel.

Touro College has experienced phenomenal growth since its founding in 1971, and is currently educating approximately 17,500 students at locations in New York, California, Florida, Nevada, Jerusalem, Moscow, Berlin and Paris. Touro College continues to have a profound impact on the lives of its students and on the Jewish and general communities. For further information on Touro College, please go to: http://www.touro.edu/media/ .

Touro College
27 West 23rd Street
New York, N.Y. 10010
www.touro.edu