Master of Education - Curriculum and Instruction Webinar

There we are.

Debbie, how are you doing today?

I'm doing well, thank you. How about you, Kyle?

I'm doing very well, thank you.

2.

Well, we'll get started here and I just want to say thank you for everyone that's that's tuning in for this. So myself, my name is Kyle McClain. I'm the assistant director for admission here at Mount Marty. And with us as well, we have Doctor Debbie McEwen, who is the director of graduate teacher education. And so she's today she's going to go through a little bit of our Master of Education, the curriculum and instruction program. And so I will let you take it away, Debbie and.

Can kind of go through the program and and then just let me know when you'd like to move on to the next slide and and we'll keep going from there and make it as smooth as possible.

All right, sounds good. So let's move to our next slide. Let me talk to you about our Master of Education and Curriculum and instruction. This program, we're excited to announce that we're going to recruit our first cohort in the Sioux Falls area. We have a location on 41st St. that we'd like to use because we are a hybrid program. We we believe that.

Teachers like to sit together in a room and discuss things. They like to reflect together and collaborate.

And that's what we provide the opportunity for. So our mission in this program is to to help guide and provide opportunity for teachers to professionally develop themselves, especially within an action research framework that allows them to see what is being proven to be working in the field and seeing how that could be applied to their own.

Classrooms where they're practicing this provides an opportunity to.

Advance your personal practice both in teaching and instruction that you use and in the student performance outcomes that you see.

We have a history of using this program in this format of more than 10 years. We've done this since 2013. We've had eight cohorts that have completed and over 120 students. So one of the things that we find in our in our external reviews when we gather up after four or five years of of work is our graduates say that.

That this changed the way they taught.

It was transformative in their career that they've gained great confidence in professional.

Their own professional knowledge and their willingness to speak about it in groups. And we've heard from their administrative supervisors that they see this advanced practice, this experienced teaching, and this confidence that shows up as they're reflecting.

High high amount of.

Just the use of the term reflection that they see that difference in their teachers and and in the advanced practices that they're using.

For the future, we're hoping to continue to produce a cohort every year using the Sioux Falls site as a location at times and and that we want to continue to allow teachers to have that opportunity to continue to meet together as we do this advanced teaching work.

Next slide. Thank you. So this allows us to talk about the some of the differences in the type of courses that we've put together. Our program was designed with the National Board of Teaching Standards that professional teacher standards, the in task standards and Danielson's framework for evaluation in mind. And so we've developed each core course around.

A piece of those domains that are spoken of in those different bodies.

In education, so the first course you see on this slide.

A schedule that shows that in the first summer of June, starting in June of 2026, you would start with an action research course and it would be a three-week course. We meet one day a week in the location in Sioux Falls on 41st St. in structure and the full cohort together and we talk about the content of that course and then we send you on your way for a week with some assignments and some things to.

Think about some ways that you could gather information for how action research could be impactful in your own teaching practice. We can. We can work with individuals who are teaching children as young as preschool to to individuals who are teaching in Lake Area Tech. I've had students from there. So each course then is 3 weeks long.

Where we meet three times and and then go.

Go back home to incorporate the content that you've talked about into some projects that would work in your own practice during the school year.

We do that three different courses, so nine weeks of meeting, one day a week, and by the end of July you would be ready to take a few weeks off before you get back in your own classroom. And then in the fall and the spring, you only take one online class each semester. So the way that works is you're going to take your projects that you've created in the summer.

An action research study that you would like to implement to either further.

Your teaching knowledge or to address somethings that that you would like to see improved in your in your own classroom. And you'll implement your project, you'll collect the data on it and then you'll be guided through the the online course to to create the remainder of the action research study. The next year we do the same thing again. So we start in the summer. We have three different content areas.

Based on different domains and, uh, create additional, umm, coursework that's practical to to you. It's something that you would use in your classroom.

Let's look at the next slide, Kyle there. When we get to the final fall and spring, we have a little bit of a divergent depending on which track you're going to take. You could take the traditional portfolio or master's thesis track. And if that's what you choose, then you'll do one more action research study in the fall. And then in the spring, you'll either work on a reflective portfolio of what you've learned. This is where we see this.

Amazing transformative process really puts in in in your the forefront of your mind and and this is something that we share with supervisors and colleagues and with our own cohort as well.

So far, I've never had anyone choose to do the master's thesis, but if you chose to do it, you would do it during this semester and you would be completed in May. The other option that we have that's that's been super popular lately is what we call the coursework only track. And we have developed a series of graduate elective courses in topic areas that are that are real hot topics now, trauma informed teaching practice as well as social.

Learning and so you could choose from those courses. You would be choosing 3 courses to complete your graduate study by the by May of the next year.

Kyle, could you show us the next slide? Yeah, here's here's what those graduate certificates look like. Each of these bulleted points under trauma informed teaching. Those each represent a course that you could take if you took in fact all four of them, you're only required to take 9 credits in order to get the the teach the Master of Education. But if you took a third one or or the 4th.

Umm 3 credit class. You would actually graduate with a certificate as well and that could be done during the time.

You're in the, the graduate program or you could just come back and finish that one online afterwards and, and it would apply towards your RE licensure. Social emotional learning, it's the same thing. We have 4 courses that are UMM specifically aligned to come together to give you a very broad UMM and deep understanding of UMM, the concepts of social emotional learning and how that's applicable in your classroom.

Let's look at our next slide.

Yeah. And so I will take this slide from you Debbie. And so being in the admission department talking about application requirements, So the first one that we get asked a lot and it's always the big one is our application is free to apply. And so taking into that, we do require official transcripts from every institution where you attempted college credit. And so if that's a junior college, a four year or another master's program, we we do require that. And then we also do require.

Professional statement of purpose. And so that is uploaded and submitted right in the application. It's very seamless. And then we do also require through your effluent 3 reference letters. And so the ones that we would like those to be from are listed out there and kind of read through those. And if you ever do run into a problem where you may need a reference letter from someone else, just feel free to reach out to to myself or Doctor McEwan. Our emails are on the front page and we'll be able to let you know if.

Good.

That would be acceptable from that selected individual. And so we are pretty leaning on that. We just do require that that you do have 3. And so I'll go to the next slide, Debbie and let you kind of talk about the costs per credit and kind of how that lays out as well.

Sounds good. Yeah. So the big question is always how much does it cost?

We basically it comes down to you're taking 30 credits and each credit costs $425.00. So part of that's tuition, part of that pays for for the things that they keep an institution running.

And you will be taking 15 credits per year to graduate in a two year sequence.

So the first year it would come out to about $6400 or if you were in the coursework only.

Well, it would still come out to six 6400 and the coursework only probably, but but you're going to take an additional class in the second year.

A total of under 13,000 for the master's degree, or just just that 14,000 if you're doing coursework only.

Again, if you were to do coursework only, you would be taking three of four of the classes in the graduate certificate, and so for one more course you would also get a graduate certificate in one area of content expertise.

Another question that we get a lot is how does that schedule actually work in the summer? And so here you would see how for this summer, these are the actual dates, June 1st, the course opens to you on the second.

Right now we're scheduled for Tuesdays.

So on the second you would show up at the Sioux Falls location, we would talk through all of the initial things in that content area for educational research and then.

We would spend 3 weeks working on that content.

Then the next class begins right away on the next Monday, and it's the same thing. The course would open, you'd have just a little preliminary stuff so that we have something to talk about on Tuesday, and then your instructor would be with you for three weeks in learning theory, and then the final class rolls out the same way we would be done by the 31st. That gives you just a bit of time before you end up in your own classrooms. And so for 2 summers, it's tight. It's a tight.

We recognize that, but the IT, it's offset by in the fall and the spring, you never have to come to campus and you only have one course that you're working on and it's really with the project that you've designed and you're implementing it and then gathering the research and learning from, from the work that you put together. So we would love to see you We have.

We have an upcoming open house in Sioux Falls at the Sioux Falls site at 5000 141st St.

It's going to be on February 19th at 4:00. So if you can scooch out of your classroom and get there for 4:00 to 4:15 or so, we're going to have just a light reception of refreshments and then you can tour that facility and we'll show you the classroom. We'll run through this and have another question and answer time at that time, so.

Do you have anything else you think we need to say, Kyle?

Nope. And just to, to piggyback on the open house, that's, that's also another great opportunity to, to meet myself and doctor McEwan, just to, to kind of get another inside scoop on what the program looks like. And so we know it can be daunting to, to take on a task, especially if you're a teacher currently, but just know this, this is built for the, the working teacher and that's another opportunity to, to learn further.

About this program as well.

Yes, it.

Yup.

And so, Yep. So that's all I have. Debbie, thank you for, for stopping in and, and talking a little bit about the program. And we hope to see all of you at this, this open house in February. And if not, we do plan to have possibly some other events to, to get out there as well. And we'll keep you guys in loop. So just want to say thank you all.

Alright, thank you, Kyle.

Yep, thank you.