Lipscomb offers three new degrees in Master's Education Program
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Lipscomb University is offering three new degrees in its Master's in Education program. The degrees are Master of Arts in Learning and Teaching (MALT), Master of Arts in Special Education (MASE) and Master of Arts in Administrative Stewardship (MAAS), Provost Craig Bledsoe has announced.
The MALT and MASE degrees will provide participants with the opportunity to earn certification and endorsement for education and special education. The MAAS degree will provide endorsement as a beginning administrator.
"Our primary purpose in adding these degrees is to help alleviate the huge need for licensed teachers, especially in areas of specialty such as math, science, foreign language and special education," said Mike Hammond, director of teacher education and dean of the College of Education and Professional Studies.
"We wanted to offer alternative paths for people desiring to teach to become licensed," he said. "The MALT and the MASE degrees are geared toward people who have an alternative license or people who have no license, but want to work full-time while working on licensure."
All three of the new degree programs will include traditional coursework, field experiences, subsidized and unsubsidized internships, project-based learning activities, case studies, on-site school consultations, cohort learning experiences, and job placement activities after graduation.
The Master of Arts in Learning and Teaching (MALT) degree program is designed to transform teacher preparation from a teaching-centered paradigm to a learning-centered paradigm. The coursework, curriculum, and instructional delivery system will present teaching and learning structures that create learner-centered environments, espouse a constructivist approach to learning theory that shapes knowledge as an individually mediated experience, and teaches how to learn as much as it teaches how to teach. The MALT program mission incorporates the standards articulated in the NCATE, INTASC, NBPTS and Tennessee state initiatives.
The Master of Arts in Special Education (MASE) degree program views teaching as complex, contingent, reciprocal, and continually shaped and re-shaped by students' responses to their learning experiences. It focuses on the need to understand and organize content and knowledge, and assist in creating cognitive maps for learners. Instruction in modes of cognition, motivation and learning theory, educative feedback, and diagnostic instrument application, scoring, and reporting, provide the contextual grounding for program participants.
The Master of Arts in Administrative Stewardship (MAAS) Degree program's curriculum addresses the professional goals of those candidates who seek to lead school improvement efforts from positions within the classroom (i.e., lead teacher), for those who seek administrative endorsement (BAL), and for those who seek to restructure schools from non-traditional positions and vantage points, including charter and magnet schools, community-based agencies, and private school practitioners.
Lipscomb's Graduate Education Program is fully accredited by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education and is approved by the Tennessee State Board of Education. The new degree offerings have been given conditional approval from the State Department of Education. Conditional approval is a necessary step in the accreditation process pending a future site visit.
Lipscomb also offers a Master of Education (M. Ed.) degree with emphasis in School Administration and Supervision or Instructional Leadership.
For more information about Lipscomb's Graduate Education program, contact Hammond at 615.279.6072 or email nancy.mcdaniel [at] lipscomb.edu.