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University of Wyoming

Colleges collaborate for concurrent secondary education degrees

   Ongoing efforts to address school districts’ needs to hire highly qualified teachers, and enhance graduates’ employability, have prompted the University of Wyoming College of Education to collaborate with peers across campus to establish concurrent majors in secondary education.

   The college launched four concurrent majors – in English, biological sciences, art and mathematics education – in the fall 2005 semester. Faculty and administrators in Colleges of Education, Agriculture, and Arts and Sciences continue to work on toward establishing similar programs in each of the secondary education specialty content areas.

   Graduates from concurrent major programs will receive one degree with major designations from in two colleges when they leave: one in secondary education and one in their content area.

   “The issue for our graduates is really one of their ability, short term and long term, to be able to certify or license inside and outside the state of Wyoming,” Kay Persichiette, director of teacher education, says.

   Early student feedback regarding the change has been positive, according to Lydia Dambekalns, interim Secondary Education Department chairperson. Students acknowledge the advantages of the dual concurrent major and the content focus that leads to “highly qualified” designation under federal guidelines.

   Campus conversations and federal regulations intersected, increasing the timeliness of possible concurrent majors for teacher education students.

    “The discussion had been occurring in the college at the same time that the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation was being adopted,” Persichitte says. “As it turns out, the definition and interpretation of the ‘highly qualified’ sections of the NCLB are directly related to this action item [collaborative development of concurrent majors] for the respective colleges.”

   Valuing subject matter expertise has been a longtime priority in the Wyoming Teacher Education Program.

   “We have a deeply held belief that our students must have strong preparation in at least one content area,” Persichitte says. “We do also believe that they need strong preparation in instructional strategies and in differentiated instruction; and we believe that early and periodic field experiences prior to their residency is are also important.”

   Defining academic programs that meet requirements for both content and education majors, within university regulations policy regarding total credit hours in undergraduate degree programs, has required close collaboration and cooperation across colleges.

   “In order to combine all of those things within 128 credit hours requires us to work collaboratively with both the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Agriculture to identify these concurrent majors,” Persichitte says.

    “It’s amazing to me that we can do this and not increase the hours required for graduation,” Dambekalns adds.

   Some programs, such as art education, require only minor adjustments to meet degree requirements in both majors. Others, particularly the sciences, where programs must move from a generalist content base to focus on one discipline, pose greater challenges. While future science education majors will meet NCLB requirements and may be more marketable as content area specialists,. Their school district employers may face adjustments to staffing to cover needed classes comply with federal and state criteria for highly qualified faculty.

   Cross-college teams continue to work on developing concurrent majors in at least one each of the remaining secondary areas – modern languages education, agriculture education, mathematics education, social studies education and technical education.

   In many cases, multiple options will be available. For example, concurrent majors will be offered in all three modern language areas (Spanish, German and French). Persichitte anticipates that as many as 20 concurrent majors will exist within secondary education. The college also plans to consider a parallel option in elementary education.

   “By next year, I expect that we will probably be moving forward with some kind of A&S-Education collaboration to see if we can identify one or more concurrent options for elementary ed,” Persichitte says. “Given the nature of the ‘highly qualified’ requirement, it would behoove us to take that direction for the sake of our graduates.”