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
 

As you probably know, the Minnesota legislature is being asked to make some critical decisions about who will be allowed to teach Minnesota’s children.  Recognizing that the Board of Teaching is also concerned about this issue, I want to share some important research about the effectiveness of teachers who complete programs such as those that are currently approved by this Board.

•    Students of certified first-year teachers, those who have been through formal teacher education, achieve at higher rates than those of under-prepared teachers, those who are emergency-certified, or Teach for America teachers (Lazko-Kerr & Berliner, 2002).  
•    On PRAXIS II tests of subject matter knowledge, those who completed a teacher education program scored higher than those who were pursuing degrees outside of teacher education.  Candidates eligible to teach (successful in passing the PRAXIS I and being admitted to teacher education) have higher mean SAT scores than other college bound seniors (ETS).
•    There is a positive and significant effect of teachers’ formal preparation for teaching on supervisors’ ratings and student learning (Evertson, Hawley, & Zlotnik, 1985; Denton & Lacina, 1984; Ferguson & Womack, 1993).  

Thank you for maintaining high and consistent standards for all teachers in Minnesota.

Linda Distad
College of St. Catherine
 

The National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future (NCTAF) has held that the high standards for teachers in Minnesota translate into high achievement for the students in Minnesota schools.  In No Dream Denied, NCTAF has outlined six dimensions for preparing high quality teachers.

•    Careful recruitment and selection of teacher candidates.
•    Strong academic preparation for teaching.
•    Strong clinical practice to develop effective teaching skills.
•    Entry-level teaching support in residencies and mentored induction.
•    Modern learning technologies.
•    Assessment of teacher preparation effectiveness.

Data about each of these six dimensions can be found on MACTE’s Measures of Teacher Quality in Minnesota (MTQM) website at http://mtqm.mnteachered.org/ .  For example, in terms of clinical practice, all 29 institutions require students to engage in early field experiences in addition to their formal student teaching experience, and many institutions require applicants to their programs to document experience with P-12 students prior to admission.

This is only one of the many facts about Minnesota teacher preparation programs that can be found on the MTQM website. We invite you to visit the website and see the ways in which we address all six of the dimensions for preparing high quality teachers.

Patricia Avery
University of Minnesota