Overview
The Education Department offers the following graduate programs at The College of Idaho:
- The Fifth-Year Internship Teacher Certification program
- With the option to add the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) degree
- Bilingual/ENL endorsement programs
- With the option to add the Master of Education: Curriculum & Instruction (MEd) degree
Fifth-Year Internship Teacher Certification Program
The College of Idaho post-baccalaureate certification program requires that candidates have completed a bachelor’s degree with either the Education minor or the Interdisciplinary Studies for Elementary Precertification major. Candidates planning to teach at the secondary level must have a major that meets the requirements of one of the institution’s state-approved first teaching field programs and, in most cases, the requirements for an additional endorsement area as a second teaching field. Candidates must apply for admission to the internship year and meet requirements in areas such as cumulative GPA, dispositions, and the Praxis exam. Please see the Education Department Handbook for more information.
- Precertification Fast Track Program
The Education Department offers a “fast track” program for candidates coming to The College of Idaho campus for teacher certification. Students holding a degree from an accredited college, with a major/minor that meets most of the content requirements for teaching, may apply for this program. After acceptance into the College, candidates enter a two-year, compressed program leading to certification. In the first year, students take the coursework for the Education minor and any additional content area courses needed for approved endorsement areas. In the second year, students complete the requirements of the internship year. Fast track students may apply for the MAT program. All fast track students need to work closely with an advisor in the Education Department.
Master of Arts in Teaching
The Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) program is offered as an extension of the internship year and consists of 35-36 credits. Enrollment in the program is limited to 15 students. Preference will be given to students who have been enrolled in The College of Idaho undergraduate education program. Applications will be accepted for review from:
- College of Idaho graduates who have completed the Interdisciplinary Studies for Elementary Precertification major or the Education minor.
- Candidates who have a bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution in elementary education or with appropriate coursework in two areas of endorsement, and the Education minor.
Note: Candidates for secondary certification must complete coursework in two teaching fields to be eligible for state certification.
Bilingual/ENL Endorsement Programs
The Bilingual and English as a New Language endorsement-only programs are intended for those certified teachers who wish to complete additional endorsements in Bilingual Education or English as a New Language (ENL), but who do not wish to complete the MEd degree. The English as a New Language endorsement consists of 20 credits and the Bilingual Education endorsement consists of 20-26 credits.
Master of Education: Curriculum and Instruction
The Master of Education (MEd) program in Curriculum and Instruction is housed within The College of Idaho’s Education Department. The MEd program provides candidates the option of earning endorsements in Bilingual Education or English as a New Language (ENL), and consists of 36 graduate-level credits, with concentrations in Bilingual Education and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. The program prepares already-certified teachers to effectively educate culturally and linguistically diverse students in a variety of classroom contexts. Successful completion of the program fulfills the Idaho State Department of Education requirements for a K-12 endorsement in English as a New Language (ENL). An additional six upper-division credits in Spanish and at least one credit of practicum in a K-12 bilingual setting will meet the requirements for an endorsement in Bilingual Education.
Full-Time Enrollment
Full-time enrollment for this program is 9 credits.
Department Mission and Vision
The Education Department at The College of Idaho is committed to improving student learning in K-12 classrooms by preparing teachers who have a thorough knowledge of content, educational theory, and best practices. The department works collaboratively with K-12 practitioners, professional organizations, and policy makers to improve the preparation of new teachers, as well as to support the development of practicing educators. The Education Department will extend and enhance The College of Idaho’s reputation and impact on the community, and within the education profession, by working with policy makers, practitioners, and professional organizations to improve the learning of K-12 students. Where possible, the department will act within the dynamic education environment to change policy that supports improved practice and to prepare new teachers with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that will empower them to operate within existing policies and institutions, while providing leadership that will influence the profession and practice in positive ways.
Department Core Values
- All individuals are inherently valuable and should be treated with respect.
- All individuals can learn.
- Learning is enhanced when informed by a combination of research and best practice.
- Educators should be people of integrity.
- Regarding teaching and learning, the whole is bigger than the sum of the parts.
An Educative Learning Community
The Education Department at The College of Idaho strives to be an educative learning community. The conceptual framework of our programs is one based on John Dewey’s understanding of educative experiences that encourage personal and community growth (Dewey & Archambault, 1964). It is a community where students are provided with a reflective, caring environment so that the process of becoming a teacher can be explored. It is a community where students are offered a vision of schooling that promotes and helps create a more just and democratic society.
“The difference between mere circumstance and lived experiences is our capacity to bestow experience with meaning, be reflective, and take action.”
-John Dewey
- Community of Learners: An educative learning community counters the image of the teacher as a “technician” with one of the teacher as an active participant in issues that affect the larger educational community (Apple & Beane, 2007). Rather than avoid a discussion of values, this perspective advocates the necessity of such discussions, because teaching is, at its core, a value-laden enterprise (Goodland, Soder, & Sirotnik, 1990). The program, based upon students who learn and grow together, encourages ongoing conversations about meaningful issues central to a liberal arts education.
- Critical and Caring Pedagogy: An educative learning community takes the position that a hopeful, democratic future depends upon educators committed to emancipatory education (Giroux, 1997). It reflects Landon Beyers’ description of an emancipatory curriculum in teacher education as one that is designed to emphasize the following: equal access to knowledge, images of human equality, development of a “critical consciousness,” self-reflectivity, creativity, cultural acceptance, moral responsibility, democratic empowerment, and a pedagogy of caring (Beyer & Apple, 1998). It affirms Nel Noddings’ belief that for schools to be true centers of learning, they must embrace caring in all its forms—care for self, for intimate others, for associates and acquaintances, for distant others, for nonhuman animals, for plants and the physical environment, for the human-made world of objects and instruments, and for ideas (Noddings, 2005).
- Constructivist Learning: An educative learning community takes a constructivist perspective toward classroom practice in which learning is seen as active, purposeful, and generated from within. This perspective, rooted in Piagetian principles of development and drawing on Vygotsky (Tryphon & Voneche, 1996), extends the notion of the construction of knowledge from one that is primarily an individualized and internal process to one that more comprehensively encompasses social foundations of thinking (Bruner, 1986). In this view, knowledge is not only embedded in socio-historical and socio-cultural elements, but is actually generated through shared interactions and individual internalization (Wertsch, 1991).
Admission Criteria
Advising
Certification
The advising process in the teacher education program begins at the undergraduate level. Each candidate in the elementary education program is assigned an advisor from the Education Department. Candidates preparing to be secondary teachers have an advisor from the area of their major and, upon acceptance into the program, a co-advisor from the Education Department. Though primary responsibility for advising rests with the candidate, the education advisor works with the candidate in conjunction with his or her major advisor in planning the sequence of courses that leads to graduation and that meet State Department of Education requirements for certification with endorsements in a first and second teaching field. The advisor monitors the candidate’s progress through the portfolio process, state testing requirements, and the coursework for the minor. During the internship year, the Education Department faculty guides interns through the digital portfolio process and assists candidates in completing a placement file and preparing the paperwork for state licensure.
To assure that candidates are progressing successfully through the teacher education program, the department has established five checkpoints (beginning in the undergraduate portion of the program) at which progress is reviewed. For information on the specific timing and requirements of each checkpoint, please consult the Education Department Handbook. Fast track students will work according to an individualized certification plan, developed under the direction of the education advisor, to meet checkpoint requirements.
Appeal Procedure
Any candidate who has been denied admission to the teacher education program, recommendation for admission to the MAT program, admission to internship, recommendation for admission to the MEd program, or recommendation for certification, and who believes that this action was not justified, may appeal the decision through the procedure outlined below. Students wishing to initiate such action must do so in writing within three weeks of being notified of the decision they wish to appeal.
The appeal procedure is as follows:
- A written statement requesting reconsideration of action shall be presented to the chair of the Education Department. The statement must include reasons for the request. The student shall meet with the chair of the Education Department to determine if a satisfactory agreement can be achieved at that level. The chair shall respond to the student, in writing, concerning the outcome of that meeting within five working days of the meeting.
- If the situation is not resolved to the satisfaction of the student in step one, the student shall be entitled to appear, in person, before a hearing committee composed of the full-time College of Idaho faculty members teaching in the Education Department, without the department chair present. The student must notify the department of his/her desire to move the appeal process to level two within one week of receiving notification of the decision at level one. A written document, including the nature of the request, the student’s description of the situation in question and his or her rationale for the request, shall be submitted to each department faculty member at least two days prior to the meeting. An Education Department faculty member shall provide the student with written notification of the faculty’s response to the student’s request within five working days of the meeting.
- If the situation is not resolved to the satisfaction of the student, he/she may take the request to a hearing committee composed of the vice president of academic affairs, the Education Department chair, and a K-12 school administrator who currently serves on the Teacher Education Advisory Committee. The student must notify the department of his/her desire to move the appeal process to level three within one week of receiving notification of the decision at level two. The student shall provide each member of the committee with a written description of the issue in question and the rationale for his/her request at least two days prior to the meeting. The student shall receive written notification of the results of the hearing within five working days of the meeting.
The decision of the level three hearing committee shall be considered final.