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Master of Education in Special Education- SEDB
Program Coordinator: Shridevi Rao, raos@tcnj.edu
Forcina Hall 308, 609/771-2308
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Prospective Students
Description and Prerequisites
Current Students
Internships
Applying for Student Teaching
Graduating from the MEd Program
DESCRIPTION AND PREREQUISITES
This M.Ed program (SEDB) is tailored for individuals who hold teacher certification in areas other than Special Education and who desire certification as Teacher of Students with Disabilities. While providing students with an in-depth exposure to a variety of research supported strategies designed to support students with disabilities, this program also enables experienced teachers to choose an elective to explore a particular area of interest such as augmentative communication or positive behavior supports. This program is a 33-credit program that culminates in a Master’s degree along with certification in Special Education. For students who are currently employed in a school, this program provides an opportunity to work and complete the degree at the same time through an alternate route track.
Prerequisites for this program include a Bachelor’s degree from an accredited or approved institution, a CEAS or standard certificate in elementary education, secondary education or content area certification. Students applying to this program are required to have a prior course in Child Psychology and Reading. Students are also required to submit GRE scores. For students who are currently employed in a school, this program provides you with an opportunity to work and complete your graduate degree at the same time through an alternate route track.
INTERNSHIPS
1. Internship II requirements for the M.Ed program
All students enrolled in the M.Ed program have to complete Internship II-Student teaching experience. Students cannot be exempted from Internship II. Internship II for this program is mandated by the guidelines of our accreditation agency. Students are required to have completed all other coursework before enrolling in Internship II. In some cases, students might be allowed to take one additional course along with student teaching.
If you are planning to do student teaching “on the job”, you need to first discuss your plans to do so with the administration of the school district. Student teaching is an experience that involves designing and executing lessons for a variety of subject areas. It also requires that you eventually take over the instruction and planning for the class. If you are currently working as a ‘teaching assistant’, this may conflict with the responsibilities of student teaching. You need to discuss your situation with the district to make sure they will support you with this experience. Some students have resolved this by taking a leave of absence.
Student teaching can be completed “on the job” as long as you have at least 4 students with disabilities in your classroom. Additionally, your district should be willing to provide a cooperating teacher to conduct observations of your teaching and provide input to the college supervisor.
In addition to the above requirement, please refer to the STEP Guidelines and Policies for Student Teaching for additional details.
Student teaching is comprised of several key assignments. Apart from lesson planning and lesson execution, candidates are required to design and implement a Teacher Work Sample project. This is an intense project that includes the design and implementation of a unit.
Evaluation of student performance in the internship experiences is based on the required assignments as well as the performance in the field based components of the experience. Student performance in the field will be evaluated through the use of the teaching performance assessment checklist, the teaching dispositions checklist, lesson observation rubric and the departmental checklist.
APPLYING FOR STUDENT TEACHING
In order to apply for student teaching, students are required to fill out the STEP application and provide other supporting documents. Please refer to the STEP application process for details.
GRADUATING FROM THE M.ED PROGRAM
Completing all the requirements of the program
You need to check with your advisor that you have completed all the requirements for your program. You are not ready to graduate if you have even one course or even a one credit independent study left to complete.
Applying for graduation
You must apply for graduation using TESS and submit the Conferment of Degree form. There are three graduation times each school year: May, August and December. May applications are due in January, August applications are due in February and December applications are due in September. The graduation application fee is $75.00. Students who apply after the application deadline will be charged a $35.00 late fee.
Prerequisites
If you had prerequisite courses that you were asked to complete as a part of this program, submit the transcripts related to those courses to Shri Rao at the beginning of the semester when you are graduating.
Comprehensive exams
All master’s candidates are required to register for comprehensive exams.
Certification
Additional information on certification can be found in the TCNJ School of Education Certification website.
