M.Ed. in Middle School (5-8) and High School (8-12) Education

This course provides an overview of the challenges that students with moderate disabilities encounter in their lives. The class will explore how disabilities are identified, what necessary steps are taken to refer students for evaluations in the Special Education process, characteristics of students with disabilities, general issues of evaluation approaches, and research-based accommodations and interventions including the use of assistive technology devices and behavioral interventions. State and federal laws as well as an overview of local and national support agencies are also reviewed.

The purpose of this course is to prepare teachers with the knowledge and skills to effectively design content instruction in order to support English Language Learners (ELLs) in accessing curriculum and achieving academic success as they prepare for their futures in the 21st-century global economy. Throughout the course, effective research-based strategies will be modeled. Teachers will have opportunities to practice strategies, to analyze their practice, to provide and receive feedback, and to reflect on their own experiences. The course addresses three over-arching goals for teaching ELLs:

• To help teachers effectively carry out their responsibility for the teaching and learning of ELLs, as well as to understand the social and cultural issues that contribute to and impact schooling for ELLs.
• To expand teachers’ knowledge of how language functions within academic content teaching and learning, and how children and adolescents acquire a second language.
• Provide teachers practical research-based protocols, methods, and strategies to integrate subject area content, language, and literacy development using the Massachusetts English Language Development (ELD) standards and the World Class Instructional Design and Assessment (WIDA) standards to support ELL students’ success in meeting standards of the 2011 Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks as well as the Common Core content standards.
  This course is delivered in a hybrid model with on-ground elements delivered in person over a series of weekends. Alternate models for the completion of your SEI endorsement are available. Please contact the Program Director for more information.

Co-requisite (0 credits): ED 6507G – Pre-Practicum Field-Based Experience III

Students will undertake the gradual assumption of full teaching responsibilities in a middle- or secondary-level classroom under the guidance of a Supervising Practitioner and a Program Supervisor. Students must complete at least 200 hours of full teaching responsibility and another 100 hours observing and/or assessing. Students must have a passing score on all required Massachusetts Tests for Educator Licensure (MTEL) exams, completed all graduate education coursework, and a minimum 3.0 overall GPA before starting the practicum.

Co-requisite (0 credits): ED 6510G – Practicum Seminar

This course introduces students to research and best practices applying reading, writing, speaking and listening strategies to enhance discipline-based learning outcomes, grades 6-12. Concepts related to College and Career Readiness and the Common Core Literacy Standards for grades 6-12 content areas provide the foundation for the knowledge, skills, and understanding in the course. General and discipline-speci fic elements of literacy, including vocabulary acquisition, speaking and listening in collaborative group and public presentation settings, reading and comprehending complex texts and multiple texts, genres, and formats, writing to learn and writing for audiences, comprise key areas of study. Students engage with scholarly and practice-oriented readings, web-based materials, case studies, model lessons, units, and programs. Finally, students demonstrate the application of contemporary literacy standards and practices in the content areas through class exercises, assignments, and projects and in lessons and units of study intended for use in middle and high school classrooms.

Co-requisite (0 credits): ED 6505G – Pre-Practicum Field-Based Experience II

This course will integrate the theory and practice of curriculum theory, design, and implementation. The course will be aligned with the appropriate Professional Standards for Teachers (PST) and Subject Matter Knowledge (SMK). The course will provide an overview of the history of curriculum in the United States with a focus on the current standards movement, an introduction to select international curriculum, and an in-depth exploration of various curriculum designs and practices such as Understanding by Design (UBD), interdisciplinary curriculum, Social-Emotional Curriculum, Sheltered English Immersion, Differentiated Instruction, Universal Design, Response to Intervention, Blended Learning and Expeditionary Learning and Curriculum Mapping. Students will have the opportunity to develop a definition of curriculum and comprehend the factors that drive curriculum change, to compare and contrast various curriculum designs, and develop curriculum units following the tenets of UBD and Rigorous Curriculum Design. Students will also become familiar with the process of selecting curriculum.

In the next few years, it will be essential that our students can effectively and efficiently ask questions, access, evaluate and curate information, create content, collaborate with peers, communicate with a wider audience. This course will introduce and provide introductory training on some of the basic technology that is available to support these educational goals. Students will develop a process for evaluating the appropriateness and effectiveness of educational technology and develop a lesson utilizing the technology of their choosing. Finally, each student will create a convincing case for adding new educational technology in his or her classroom.

This course will focus on the physical, cognitive, social and emotional aspects of adolescent development from an applied perspective. Specifically, issues related to teaching adolescents in middle schools and high schools, grade 5-12, will be considered. Students will engage in a service learning project to gain an understanding of children in this age range [undergraduate requirement]. Fulfills X in LS Core for undergraduate students. This course will be required for graduate students enrolled in the Middle or Secondary Teacher Education licensure programs who have not received credit for it and as an undergraduate student.

This course offers an analysis of methods most effective in the middle and secondary classroom. Micro-teaching experiences within the students discipline area will focus on specific components of lesson planning and lesson presentation in keeping with the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks. The preparation of a subject-area unit will involve the development of activities and strategies in such areas as integration across the curriculum, critical thinking, cooperative learning, and the incorporation of community resources. Particular attention is paid to learning plans that respond to diversity, learning needs, and learning styles of all students, including unit and lesson construction, varied learning strategies, material construction, audio-visual, technology, and classroom evaluation. A 25-hour field-based experience is required.