Elementary
Key Elements to the Program
- Undergraduate field experiences that build connections between the theoretical principles of the craft of teaching and the practical situations that teachers face.
- Full-year internship with continued instruction and mentoring from MSU faculty.
- Instruction from nationally renowned faculty and classroom experiences with outstanding K-8 teachers.
- Combination of a baccalaureate degree, strong teaching major and/or minor concentrations and teaching certification courses followed by a full-year teaching internship in a public school.
- Dual concerns for diversity and equity interwoven throughout the required teacher education courses.
- Support for learning to use technology in teaching.
- Time spent working with special needs students in regular classrooms.
- Opportunity to intern in throughout Michigan including areas like Lansing, Grand Rapids, Detroit. Internship opportunities also include international locations.
- Graduate-level professional study during the internship with credits of which may be applied to a master’s degree program.
- Preparation to fulfill the standards and related proficiencies for entry-level Michigan teachers as established by the Michigan Department of Education.
- See Title II Institutional Report
Commitment to Excellence
We believe in excellence. We believe that strong teaching habits require practice, time and coaching. Thus, the elementary Teacher Preparation Program is a planned program. The program includes being formally admitted to the College of Education in your TE 301 Pre-Internship year. It also includes the successful completion of at least 20 credits within the Elementary Education Program. The classes which you take as part of the program include practical “field experiences,” which allows you to use what you learn in the college classroom and apply it in a school setting—sometimes even the very next day! Finally, the program includes graduate-level coursework during your internship year to help you further connect theory with actual teaching practice.
First Class Internships
The internship phase of MSU’s Elementary Teacher Preparation Program is universally recognized as unparalleled and first-class. We have placed interns in school districts all over the Lansing, Detroit Metropolitan and Grand Rapids areas. Furthermore, MSU has developed strong relationships with schools in international locations like Dubai and South Africa. With so many internship placements and possibilities, we strive to place our interns in schools and locations that are tailored to their strengths and desire to grow into their teaching profession. For more information about internships and locations, please visit our internship areas page.
Goals Born from Inspiration
Chances are that if you are considering a career in teaching then someone, whether that was a family member, a coach or a teacher, inspired you to teach. At MSU, we assist you in developing this initial inspiration into a professional teaching practice. We aim to support and guide teacher candidates in working toward several key goals:
- The achievement of a deep understanding of subject matters and of methods for “teaching for understanding.”
- A democratic commitment to the education of all children and to classrooms and schools that embrace diversity.
- The ability to establish learning communities in classrooms and schools.
- Learn how to participate in the improvement of teaching, of schools and of the teaching profession, and in those ways help to make a better world.
- Be able to integrate theory with practice and teaching experience with reflection on that experience.
Secondary
Key Elements to the Program
- Undergraduate field experiences that build connections between the theoretical principles of the craft of teaching and the practical situations that teachers face.
- Preparation for certification to teach in your majors and minors.
- Full-year internship with continued instruction and mentoring from MSU faculty.
- Instruction from nationally renowned faculty and classroom experiences with outstanding high school teachers.
- Concerns for diversity and equity woven throughout the required teacher education courses.
- Support for learning to use technology in teaching.
- Time spent working with special needs students in regular classrooms.
- Opportunity to intern throughout Michigan in the Lansing, Grand Rapids and Detroit metropolitan areas.
- Graduate-level professional study during the internship with credits which may be applied to a master degree program.
- Preparation to fulfill the standards and related proficiencies for entry-level Michigan teachers as established by the Michigan Department of Education.
- See Title II Institutional Report
Commitment to Quality Teaching: Content Preparation
In the secondary team, we are guided by research about the critical role of expert subject matter knowledge in quality teaching. The research suggests that possessing general pedagogical skills is not enough. Teachers who know the content well have students who learn more. The knowledge such teachers possess, however, is not simply knowledge of the content. It is knowledge of how learners learn the content – what they struggle with, what they are likely to misunderstand, what questions they are likely to have – and knowledge and skills for designing instruction to capitalize on the way learners learn particular content.
Learning By Doing: Field Placements
We are guided by constructivist approaches to learning, both in the strategies we help teacher candidates learn to use when they teach their own students and in the way we have constructed the program. Learning does not automatically occur when students are told, or even shown, what to do or what to know. Students “construct” their own knowledge, based on their own experiences and the way those interact with the content to be learned.
As a result, fieldwork plays a central role in our program. The role of a teacher educator is not to tell students things about teaching, and (separately and independently) require experiences in schools; the role of a teacher educator, and educators in general, is to monitor and moderate the process by which students make sense of their experiences, including how they connect these experiences with their growing understanding of content and pedagogy.
The internship phase of MSU’s Secondary Teacher Preparation Program is universally recognized as unparalleled and first-class. We place interns in our partner school districts in the Lansing, Detroit Metropolitan, and Grand Rapids areas. For more information about internships and locations, please visit our internship areas page.
Goals Born from Inspiration
Teachers in classrooms, while often alone, do not work in isolation. Teachers are members of a profession and part of a system of education. They must be able to work independently and collaboratively with one another, to carry out two agendas: meeting society’s expectations of the profession and the system; and being agents of change in them. Teachers are the front line of society’s march toward greater equity and social justice, in their schools, the community, and the world.
Chances are that if you are considering a career in teaching then someone, whether that was a family member, a coach, or a teacher, inspired you to teach. At MSU, we assist you in developing this initial inspiration into a professional teaching practice. We support and guide teacher candidates in working toward these goals:
- The achievement of a deep understanding of subject matters and of methods for “teaching for understanding.”
- A democratic commitment to the education of all learners and to classrooms and schools that embrace diversity.
- The acquisition of skills and knowledge needed to establish learning communities in classrooms and schools.
- A mission to participate in the improvement of teaching, of schools, and of the teaching profession, and in those ways help to make a better world.
- The ability to integrate theory with practice and teaching experience with reflection on that experience.
Special Education
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