The University of Maine at Farmington will offer a Master of Science in Special Education starting spring 2020. This program offers pathways for college students, graduate students and grown-ups working in the field to become affirmed specialized curriculum educators and help reduce the workforce need in schools all through the state.
“Farmington has long been a leader in preparing well-qualified teachers for the classroom,” UMF president Edward Serna said. “Deep-rooted in that leadership is UMF’s ongoing pursuit of how to best serve our students, local schools and the State of Maine, now and in the future. This new special education master’s program is a valuable next step in being responsive to the higher education needs of Maine citizens while helping meet the state’s significant workforce needs.”
The UMF program offers college understudies a quickened 4+1 program, where they can get a single guy’s and graduate degree in a specialized curriculum in five years rather than six. The program is available to college understudies taken a crack at UMF’s lone wolves in a custom curriculum program or seeking after a 20-credit minor in a custom curriculum at UMF. This gives understudies with a wide exhibit of majors a pathway to accreditation as a special education teachers.
For graduate students, huge numbers of whom are in the workforce as of now, the new UMF graduate degree program includes a mixed conveyance model, offering course work that is 70 percent on the web and 30 percent up close and personal with in-the-study hall take a shot at the UMF grounds three Saturdays for each semester. Interesting in Maine, this adaptable model furnishes working grown-ups with the advantages of both on the web and in-study hall learning.
“While students acquire knowledge and skills through online learning, it is still important for them to have the interpersonal learning experience that a classroom offers in order to discuss, evaluate and synthesize what they’ve learned,” UMF assistant professor of a specialized education Brian Cavanaugh said. “This widely accepted best-practice model has students in the program interacting with faculty and course participants to personalize and enrich their learning.”
For grown-up students who have just earned a four year certification, are working in schools, and are looking for Special Education 282 Certification in Maine, UMF offers access to the new M.S.Ed. in Special Education through its longstanding Special Education Alternate Route to Certification program.
Particularly mainstream among individuals who hold a four year college education and are working in a specialized education settings as Educational Technicians, SPARC offers a lot of online courses instructed by experienced Special Education workforce and experts that prompts state certification.
UMF’s SPARC program incorporates 13 online graduate courses offered on a pivoting plan. Members in SPARC must approach understudies with inabilities so as to finish online course assignments and can choose to take just the quantity of courses they have to meet the 24-credit necessity for Special Education 282 Certification in Maine. Understudies who have effectively finished nine credits through UMF’s SPARC program are qualified for admission to the M.S.Ed. in Special Education program.
“Students in the SPARC courses have asked persistently for a master’s degree in special education,” partner senior member for Graduate and Continuing Education at UMF Erin Connor said. “When your students push you to develop their next educational experience, you know you are on the right track. SPARC has taught us about the strong need for continuing education at Farmington. I hope the community will continue to inform our thinking about what programming we can offer that will help them achieve their professional goals.”
The new Master of Science in Special Education program is likewise designed to give students the chance to represent considerable authority in regions of need inside a custom education, for example, assistive innovation, comprehensive instruction and initiative, low occurrence incapacities or specialized education organization. This extra course work will be accessible through UMF or through synergistic choices at other UMaine System campuses.
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