The MSU College of Education added to its historically great reputation recently, as three of its graduate programs were ranked No.1 in the nation, three more in the top five, and several others following closely after, as reported by U.S. News & World Report.
Three graduate programs in MSU's College of Education ranked No. 1 in the nation, according to U.S. News and World Report
This marks the 21st consecutive year that MSU elementary and secondary education have both been ranked first in the nation for graduate programs.
The additional highly-ranked programs ranked by the report include the following: Rehabilitation Counseling (1), Curriculum and instruction (3), Higher education administration (4), Educational psychology (4), Administration/supervision (8), Educational policy (11), Special education (12).
The college overall was ranked 13th in “America’s Best Graduate Schools,” and sixth among public universities.
Teacher Education Chairperson Margaret Crocco said one of the reasons for the college’s continued success can be credited to the strong fifth year internship program that students complete after their bachelor’s degree in order to get their teacher certification.
“Our teacher candidates spend one whole year after their baccalaureate degree in the schools working closely with a mentor teacher, so an experienced teacher in the schools, as well as with a field instructor, who is an experienced individual hired by the department to carefully guide and support and evaluate the work that the teacher intern is doing in the schools,” Crocco said. “So that is really really rich practical experience in teaching before the certification before someone goes off to look for the job.”
Crocco added that students in the college get great content knowledge from the courses they take with different departments across campus.
In addition to success in the rankings, one of the college’s professors, Charles Anderson, will lead a program funded by a $7 million dollar grant from the National Science Foundation, aimed at creating a new way to instruct middle and high-school students about carbon cycling, according to MSU Today.
"We're really excited about it, we think that it's really important content for students to understand because carbon cycling is all tied up with global climate change and lots of other issues that kids need to know about as we prepare kids for life in the world that's coming," Anderson said.
Anderson added that he and his team are in the midst of making final revisions to carbon time units and making plans for professional development activities that will take place in the summer. He said the new curriculum will start being taught next fall.
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