The Minnesota Association of Colleges for Teacher Education is working to increase the accessibility of teaching licenses, especially in high need areas.  Here are three examples of programs that have been designed to meet the need in critical shortage areas.  

Augsburg College offers licensure in two areas of special education – EBD and LD. Both programs are available at the undergraduate and graduate levels in the weekend college format. They are designed on an internship model where the final year is spent in a special education setting – ideally in a paid position as a paraprofessional or a teacher on variance – while also taking courses and completing student teaching.  

Minnesota State University Moorhead offered four science courses for K-12 teachers during 2003-2004: Physics, Chemistry, and two Biology courses. These four-credit, graduate level courses were funded through Minnesota's Improving Teacher Quality Grant Program. They were offered as hybrid delivery courses consisting of several face-to face meetings for lab activities, and online assignments and discussions between meetings.  October 15, 2004- Increasing Accessibility of Teaching Licensure in High Need Licensure Areas | MACTE

The University of Minnesota- Twin Cities’ Learning Disabilities Education program has full-time and part-time cohorts.  Part-time cohort participants take coursework late afternoon and evenings and are eligible to do student teaching in a specially selected summer school intensive program.  The part-time cohort is primarily for people doing some work in schools already.

In addition to these three examples, there are tens of programs across that state with varying formats, some new and some well-established, that are available to meet the demand for “highly qualified” teachers for Minnesota schools.

MACTE invites all the members of the Minnesota Board of Teaching to attend our fall Congress, which will focus on The Heart of the Teacher:  What Our Kids Really Need.  The Congress will meet on Tuesday, October 26 and Wednesday, October 27 at the Minneapolis Hilton North.  You can contact Laura Von Holtum (lauravh@somtel.net) to register.  Please plan to join us.  

Vicki Olson                           
Augsburg College