Special Education, MEd

The Master of Education in Special Education (Track I) is a standards-based professional degree that is strongly oriented towards preparing individuals to serve students, enrolled in elementary and/or middle grades (1-8) who have been diagnosed with mild to moderate exceptionalities, and their families through understanding direct experiences in schools with diverse population. Prior to being accepted in the program, all applicants must have 12 credit hours of undergraduate math (MATH 103, MATH 125, MATH 104, MATH 207) and 12 credit hours of undergraduate science (BIOL 101 and PHSC 101, PHSC 102). Course work is designed to emphasize critical thinking, breadth, and depth of theoretical methods of inquiry in education and ample academic opportunities that lead to scholarly production. The curriculum meets the standards for special education dictated by the Council for Exceptional Children and Maryland State Department of Education for certification. All graduate special education courses are offered in the evening.

Track I applies to persons holding a baccalaureate degree in any discipline who wish to obtain initial certification in special education while earning a Master of Education Degree in Special Education. This academic program is designed to provide classroom teachers with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary to work effectively with learners with special learning needs in all classrooms while enriching their overall instructional, management, and diagnostic competencies. Moreover, this program is generic and prepares teachers to work with learners who are learning disabled, emotionally disturbed, intellectually limited, or physically challenged.

At least 12 graduate credits must be completed prior to Admission to Teacher Education, which is required for all degrees leading to initial certification. The candidate must complete 100 days of experience in the field over two consecutive semesters - 20 during the methods course and 80 during the internship.

Field Experiences and Directed Student Teaching

It is expected that teacher education pre-candidates and candidates work with university faculty in university classrooms to garner in-depth knowledge on theories and processes that are reflected in a P-12 classroom. While this experience is valuable, the experiential learning that the pre-candidates and candidates experience from being in a P-12 classroom is most invaluable to the teacher preparation process. Through the field experiences processes, the teacher education programs at Coppin State University provide meaningful and experiential learning for all prospective teachers. “The one indispensable part of any teacher preparation program is field experience” (Posner, 2005, p. 3). Requiring multiple field experiences across programs is also designed to meet accreditation expectations, which posits that the institution must “ensure that effective partnerships and high‐quality clinical practice are central to preparation so that candidates develop the knowledge, skills, and professional dispositions necessary to demonstrate positive impact on all P‐12 students’ learning and development” (CAEP Standard 2).

It is expected that all initial teacher preparation programs provide field experiences. The initial certification teacher preparation programs at Coppin State University provide a sequence of field-based experiences designed to provide candidates or pre-candidates with diverse learning experience. The variation in field placements will allow pre-candidates and candidates to experience diversity in interaction with different P-12 teachers. Being placed in different grade-spans and classrooms allows the pre-candidate and candidate to experience diversity in interaction with different learners. Becoming involved in the delivery of varying content is also of vital importance to the teacher preparation process. Placement across different content areas will provide the pre-candidate and candidate with the opportunity to become involved in the variety of delivery strategies of different content. Monitoring the placement of pre-candidates and candidates across teachers, learners (grades), and content are as important as monitoring the placement across context/schools. Pre-candidates and candidates will be placed at various school sites to provide for another level of diversity in the field-experiences placement process.

Pre-candidates and candidates are required to become involved in the learning environment and to provide academic guidance to P-12 students as requested by the P-12 teacher. Although there are two (2) courses in the initial preparation program that are designated “observation-only courses,” all enrollees are expected to provide support to learners if requested by the teacher.

It should be noted that graduate programs do require field experiences prior to the methods and internship courses.

It should be further noted that all initial teacher preparation programs require 100 days of student teaching divided between the methods courses (20 days) which is part one of the extensive internship and directed student teaching (80 days). Prior to enrolling in the method course/s, each candidate must be admitted to Teacher Education program. At the graduate level, the candidate must also be advanced to degree candidacy after the admissions process.

The field experiences processes, directed student teaching processes, admission to teacher education and all documents can be found at the Student Resources link: http://www.coppin.edu/schoolofeducation/resources.

All education programs and processes are subject to change based upon changes in Maryland certification law which can be found in the Annotated Code of Maryland (aka COMAR).

Requirements for Admission to the Department of Teaching and Learning

• Students apply to the Coppin State University School of Graduate Studies through the Office of Graduate Admissions. Admission decisions are made by the Dean of the Graduate Division in cooperation with chairpersons of the academic departments. These persons constitute the Graduate Admission Committee.
• In addition to the official transcripts and three (3) letters of recommendation, the Department of Teaching and Learning requires that all applicants selecting admission 1 must have passed the PRAXIS Core (Academic Skills Assessments) with the following MSDE cut-off scores: Reading 156, Writing 162, and Mathematics 150.
• Applicants who have been admitted to the School of Graduate Studies and have not passed the PRAXIS Core (a Department of Teaching and Learning admission requirement) must complete nine (9) graduate credit hours with a minimum cGPA of 3.0 and have passed PRAXIS Core before admission to the Department of Teaching and Learning is granted.
• Applicants with a cGPA below 2.5 will not be admitted. Applicants with a cGPA below 3.0 (2.5 - 2.99) will be denied admission initially. However, these applicants may reapply after the completion of nine (9) graduate credit hours with a minimum cGPA of 3.0. Applicants must have passed PRAXIS Core before admission to the Department of Teaching and Learning.

Criteria for Admission to Teacher Education

The candidate must:

• must hold a bachelor’s degree;
• maintain a 3.0 cumulative grade point average;
• earn a grade of “B” or higher in all courses;
• pass a physical examination and submit the form to Office of Field Services;
• pass the internship interview and writing sample;
• submit a criminal background check from school system (which the candidate may already have as a result of working in a Local School System);
• obtain the qualifying composite score established by the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) on the Praxis I/Praxis Core examination; however, Praxis II must be passed in order to satisfy requirements for graduation;
• been advanced to degree candidacy AFTER admission to teacher education, and
• receive approval for beginning internship from the Teacher Education Council.

Exit Portfolio

Portfolio assessment is a form of evaluation of student outcomes. The exit professional portfolio should include, but is not limited to, examples of beliefs, instructional planning, teaching competencies and other evidence which demonstrate competencies in all six areas of the program model. The portfolio helps the teacher candidate to:

1. Integrate knowledge skills and attitudes acquired from a variety of practical and theoretical aspects of teacher preparation;
2. Develop and refine reflective observation skills;
3. Apply reflective skills to the analysis of teaching and learning;
4. Foster professional orientation for problem solving, decision making, and leadership.