Program Description
The Master in Teaching (MIT) program at Washington State University Vancouver is an intensive, integrated fifteen- month course of study (54 semester credits) including field experiences that meet the requirements for the State of Washington Residency Teacher Certificate (with K-8 elementary endorsement).
The MIT program was designed for students who hold baccalaureate degrees in fields other than education. A maximum of fifty (50) students are admitted each year. Through a careful screening process, we offer admission to applicants who are not only academically capable but are also especially devoted to the education of children.
It is the desire of Washington State University and the State of Washington to prepare the best possible teachers. We reserve the right to seek the most highly qualified individuals for admission to the MIT program. Consequently, simply meeting the admission requirements does not guarantee admission to the program.
- Program Goals
- Admission Requirements
- Application Procedures
- Program Coursework
- Part-Time Students
- Student Handbook
- Performance-based Pedagogy Assessment (PPA)
- Program Philosophy:
- Contact information
Program Goals:
- Develop knowledge about learners and effective practice
- Develop dispositions toward professionalism, collaboration, and lifelong learning
- Make explicit the concept that all students can learn
- Empower teachers to become decision-makers who are responsive to the strengths and needs of students through data-based, reflective inquiry
- Develop awareness of the symbiotic relationship between teachers, schools, and multiple social structures
Students begin their coursework in May, continue classes and add pre-internship experiences at school sites during the fall semester and the first half of spring semester, do their full-time student teaching (ten-week internship) the second half of spring semester, and complete their coursework the following summer. Students also are involved in programmatic assignments including a diversity field experience, individualized research processes, and a professional portfolio.
Pre-internship (fall semester and the first half of spring semester) and internship (full-time student teaching) school sites are carefully selected to provide students with diverse grade levels and learner populations. Course activity, assignments and field experiences are highly collaborative processes among WSU Vancouver faculty, intern supervisors, mentor teachers, and site personnel with the goal of educating highly capable and caring future elementary and middle school teachers. A great portion of course assignments, for example, are directly related to practice in the public school classroom. University supervisors also visit and observe students at their field sites and confer with the mentor teachers on a regular basis. Site administrators are also often asked to make a teaching observation and write an evaluation of the student intern.
WSU Vancouver faculty believe that students' professional activities must include contact with the realities of today's K-8 classrooms. It must also include communication with colleagues whose daily work is concerned with the students who populate those classrooms. Based on this principle, WSU Vancouver programs emphasize the following:
- The importance of establishing connections between our students' teaching experiences and the clinical/practical realities they encounter in K-8 classrooms.
- The necessity and power of collegiality as WSU Vancouver teacher-educators work with public school colleagues and our students to develop strategies for addressing important questions and issues.
- The value of collaborating with K-8 professionals in building a professional community in our local area.
Admission Requirements
A bachelor's degree from an accredited institution is required with a minimum 3.0 cumulative Grade Point Average (GPA) in the most recent sixty (60) semester credit hours or ninety (90) quarter credit hours of course work.
Pre-Admission Tests
THE WEST-B:
THE WEST-E Praxis II:
Contact Julie Miller at 360-546-9673 or millerj@vancouver.wsu.edu for more information about these test requirements.
Click here to download informational flyer about the Praxis II and WEST B in MS Word format.
Program Prerequisites
The following prerequisites are required by the State of Washington for elementary certification. The Education Department requires completion of these prerequisites for admission.
Prerequisite courses are often found as lower-division courses that students would have taken in their freshman or sophomore years in college.
Courses completed as Advanced Placement in high school may count towards prerequisites if students have received college credit noted on their college transcript.
The following table offers suggestions on where students might fulfill these prerequisites in the local area. Please note that documentation must be provided to the Education Department at WSU Vancouver before MIT classes begin.
(Click here to download a copy of this table in MS Word format.)
PREREQUISITE Washington
State University Clark
College Lower Columbia
College Mt. Hood
Community College Portland
Community College Public
Speaking COMST 102 or 302 COMST 101 SPCH 110 SP 111 SP 111 Math Any 100+ Math, T&L 425,
PSY 311, or GRE score 500 Any 100+ Math Any 100+ Math Any 100+ Math Any 100+ Math Science See Below See Below See Below See Below See Below US History (any time
period) HIST 110, 111, 150, 314,
349, 415, 418, or 419 HIST 131, 132, or
133 HIST 156 or 157 HIST 201, 202, or
203 HIST 202, 203, or
210 American
Government POLS 101, 300 or HD
410 POSC 111 or 117 POLS 106 PS 201 PS 201 or 202 Geography (world or
physical) HIST 495, T&L 487, or
ANTH 309 GEOG 101, **107, **220,
**221, **222, or **223 GEOG 105 GEOG 105, 106, 107, or
214 GEO 105, 106, 107, 202, 208,
210, 214, or 250 Economics (macro,
micro, or principles) ECON 101, 102, or
196 ECON 101, 201, or
202 ECON 205 or 206 EC 201, 202, or
203 EC 115, 200, or
202
- Students must earn a "C" (2.0) or better in all prerequisite courses.
- Prerequisite classes cannot be taken as Pass/Fail.
- Applicants must have both a physical science and a biological science as well as one lab in their prior college course work.
- Courses and combinations of courses that
meet multiple prerequisites:
- Washington State University EN ED 110 and 111, when taken with a US History course will count for American Government, Geography, and Economics.
- Clark College GEOG 107, 220, 221, 222, or 223 will fulfill both Economics and Geography requirements.
- Students interested in correspondence courses to fulfill prerequisites may use the NUDC (National Universities Degree Consortium) website at http://www.nudc.org/cgi-gin/dropdownSearch.cgi. (Type in the name of the course and it will provide you with a list of accredited universities that offer the course via distance learning.)
Admission to the Master in Teaching program is contingent upon successful completion of all prerequisites. WSU will withdraw its offer of admission to students who are unable to complete prerequisites before classes begin (in early May)).
Contact Julie Miller at 360/546-9673 or millerj@vancouver.wsu.edu to confirm that classes meet requirements.
Application
Procedures
Step 1: GRADUATE SCHOOL APPLICATION
Request a Graduate School application from the Admissions office at 360/546-9779 or admissions@vancouver.wsu.edu.Apply for Admission to the Graduate School. Submit application and $50.00 fee to:
ATTENTION: Office of Admissions WSU Vancouver 14204 NE Salmon Creek Avenue Vancouver WA 98686
Click Program Application link to download or contact Julie Miller at 360/546-9673 or millerj@vancouver.wsu.edu to request an application portfolio.Submit your completed Master in Teaching Application Portfolio in duplicate to:
ATTENTION: Julie Miller WSU Vancouver Master in Teaching ELementary Program 14204 NE Salmon Creek Avenue Vancouver WA 98686Detailed instructions are provided in the application materials. For information about application materials, contact Julie Miller at 360/546-9673 or millerj@vancouver.wsu.edu.
Step 3: OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPTS
Request that your official transcripts be submitted to:ATTENTION: Graduate School Washington State University Pullman WA 99164-1030"Official" transcripts must be sent directly from the college or university you attended to the Graduate School in Pullman.
Washington State University students do not need to submit transcripts to the Graduate School.
Students are usually notified of admission acceptance in early March.
Program Coursework
Total Semester Credit Hours: 54
Summer #1: 9 Credits
Course
Number Course
Title Credits EdAd 506 Social Context of
Education 2 EdPsy 503 Advanced Educational
Psychology 2 SpEd 520 Teaching in Inclusive
Classrooms 2 T&L 521 Topics in Education:
Educational Technology 1 T&L 522 Topics in Education:
Bilingual/ESL Methods 2
Fall: 18 Credits
Course
Number Course
Title Credits EdPsy 504 Classroom-Focused Research
Methods 2 T&L 521 Topics in Education:
Educational Technology 1 T&L 525 Classroom
Management 3 T&L 552 Literacy Development
I 3 T&L 564 Elementary School
Mathematics Methods 3 T&L 572 Elementary School Science
Methods 3 T&L 593 Pre-Internship &
Seminar 2 T&L 600 Special Projects: Math
Practicum 1
Spring: 18 Credits
Course
Number Course
Title Credits T&L 540 Elementary School Social
Studies 3 T&L 556 Literacy Development
II 3 T&L 594 Elementary School Methods of
Art & Music 2 T&L 595 Internship &
Seminar 10
Summer #2: 9 Credits
Course
Number Course
Title Credits KIN 586 Elementary School Methods of
Health & Physical Education 2 T&L 522 Topics in Education:
Classroom Assessment 1 T&L 583 Problem Solving in
Elementary & Middle Level Education 3 T&L 702 Master's Research
Project/Presentation 3
2007 Master in Teaching Student Handbook
2006 Master in Teaching Student Handbook
(Click the above link to download Adobe Acrobat file.)
Performance-Based Pedagogy Assessment
of Teacher Candidates(Click above link to download 59-page MS Word document.)
Part-Time Students
A limited number of part-time students will be admitted to the MIT program. Part-time students must design their academic programs in coordination with the MIT Program Chair and the Academic Coordinator. Part-time students spend the equivalent of one full day in their field placement during the Pre-Internship the first year. To complete the program, they must fulfill their full-time student teaching internship.
Program Philosophy
A teacher's understanding of children's understanding is central to learning to teach in a culturally and linguistically diverse society. (Cochran-Smith, 1995). Through inquiry, teachers draw on their own knowledge of how children develop understanding, begin to view children as "at promise" (Mulhern, 1995), and draw upon the strengths of all students when constructing educational activities, based on what students know and have experienced. Teachers must understand students' backgrounds, behaviors, and interactions with others, and engage in what Duckworth (1987) calls "giving reason" to the ways students construct meanings and interpretations.
This perspective on learners focuses on what students have rather than on what they lack (Ernst, 1993). Teaching and learning are enhanced when the students' and teacher's own experiences (vis-a-vis their language and culture) are blended with the conceptualizations offered by schooling. Acknowledgment of students' cultural and intellectual contribution to the classroom stimulates learning and helps students construct meanings by making connections between what they already know and what schooling offers them (Ernst, Castle, & Frostad, 1992).
What happens in the classroom is more than what is planned by the teacher, suggested by the materials, or outlined in curriculum guide. Rather, classroom events are constructed by the joint contributions of teacher and students. As Freire (1970) suggested, this idea implies moving from a banking mode of teaching to a problem-posing mode, drawing on experiences and knowledge developed both in and out of schools. This can only occur, however, when both teachers and students engage in dialogue that enhances understanding and breaks down walls that might separate them. Such a dialogue emancipates both teacher and learner to experience higher levels of learning and consciousness.
The implications of these ideas for teacher preparation are that pre-service teachers need to become proficient at inquiry related to understanding students and ways to encourage dialogue between themselves and students. Because inquiry generally includes observations and conjectures about situations (followed by evaluation of those conjectures), the teacher preparation program should include opportunities for pre-service teachers (in consultation with school teachers and college instructors, to engage in inquiry about students in actual school situations. In addition, pre-service teachers need to identify and use multiple sources of information to learn, understand, and describe children from various perspectives.
Understanding the learner supports teacher's efforts at promoting learning. Although learners must ultimately construct their own meaning and understanding, they do not do so in a vacuum. The teacher, as well as other students, plays an active role. The student's interactions with the teacher and other students influence her/his engagement (or failure to engage) in the cognitive processes necessary for learning to occur (Anderson, 1989).
The teacher decides how to enhance engagement in those cognitive processes. To facilitate and support the development of academic success, strong academic self-concept, and intrinsic motivation to learn, the teacher builds classroom goal structures and social arrangements that maximize students' attributions of success to strategy use, rather than to ability, or to effort alone (Borkowski, Weyhing, & Turner, 1986; Johnson & Johnson, 1994; Nicholls, 1983; Nicholls & Thorkildsen, 1995). The teacher uses a vast array of techniques and strategies, including technology, to meet the individual needs of learners and allow them greater facility in constructing meaning.
The teacher also must decide whether or not children are engaging in the cognitive processes necessary for learning. Because learning is viewed as a collective, social enterprise (where learning occurs not only by hearing others' ideas, but also from trying to explain things to others), the teacher will encourage dialogue and interpretive discussion, rather than just presenting information (Pressley & McCormick, 1995). During these interactions, the teacher is actively inquiring into and engaging student's prior knowledge and understandings, and mediating ways to make instruction more meaningful. The teacher, for example, will identify and utilize problems and questions emerging from students.
The teacher deliberately helps students move toward self-regulated learning by
- scaffolding,
- modeling strategic thinking and metacognitive strategies,
- and modeling or identifying alternative solutions or viewpoints.
(S)he probes students' understanding and encourages conceptual growth and change by presenting experiences or information inconsistent with students' implicit beliefs (Roth, Anderson & Smith, 1987). (S)he grounds learning in concrete experiences and supports students' construction of abstract concepts with models when direct experience is not possible.
Educators who adhere to this philosophy of teaching believe that thought and experience are inseparable from the context in which they occur. From this perspective, educators
- guide student discovery,
- facilitate students to learn by doing,
- and utilize a student's past experiences in social interactions.
All these help students negotiate connections between new knowledge and prior knowledge, to construct new meanings, knowledge, and understanding.
Prospective teachers need opportunities to reflect on their prior knowledge, and personal theories about learning, and the teacher's role in that process. They need opportunities to examine the implications and consequences of teaching practice that flow from their own (and alternative) conceptions of the learning process, as well as the effectiveness and equity of those alternative beliefs and practices (Scardamelia & Bereiter, 1989; Zeichner, 1983).
Implicit in an ongoing inquiry approach is the image of the teacher as a person who builds and evaluates knowledge and theory in order "to interpret, understand, and eventually transform the social life of schools" (Erickson, 1981). The teacher thinks critically about beliefs and practices, seeking alternatives that are more effective and equitable. The teacher does not simply apply other people's principles or accept the knowledge of outside experts or colleagues about the appropriate placements, groupings, labels, expectations, and limits for a particular child. At the same time, the child is not regarded as a passive agent or receiver of others' actions, but as an active agent -- always learning, always involved in the business of making sense of what is going on around her/him (Cochran-Smith, 1995).
This perspective of contextual reflective teaching requires educators to appreciate the extent to which learner interests and modes of learning are different at different times. Contextual reflective teachers strive to find the educational experiences that allow all children to learn. They use the students' responses to those experiences to inform the decisions that they make. This practice requires that we prepare teachers to be flexible and sensitive, to be willing to closely observe a child's actions, to reflect on the child's actions, to learn from the child, and to be guided by the child's interests and experiences. It also requires that we prepare teachers to recognize and utilize students' unique social, cultural, linguistic, and academic strengths in the classroom to facilitate learning for both students and teacher.
Contextual reflective educators also reflect on the needs of the communities from which students come. They recognize the need for collaborative efforts with agencies and groups to form educational partnerships to meet the needs of students. Collaborative partners working together can achieve many goals that would be difficult if not impossible to accomplish as a single entity. For example, collaborative efforts can facilitate such efforts as school-community cooperation, partnerships with parents, student incentives, curriculum enhancement, staff development, student responsibility and leadership, and meaningful research activities.
The teacher preparation program cannot prepare teacher candidates for all eventualities they will encounter, given the complexity of educational settings, the relationship of teaching to larger social issues and values, and the connections between teaching and one's personal experiences and philosophies. The goal of preparing them to engage in contextual reflective practices, however, will promote lifelong learning aimed at recognizing needs of students and schools and encourage efforts toward solutions to educational problems.
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