2024-2025 Catalog 
    
    Nov 21, 2024  
2024-2025 Catalog

Special Education, Mild/Moderate Education Specialist Credential, MA


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The Department of Learning and Instruction  offers exciting and unique programs at the master’s/credential and doctoral levels.

The Master’s Degree in Special Education with a Mild/Moderate Education Specialist Credential program is designed to prepare interns for special education careers in diverse, urban schools. In this two-year cohort program, candidates can earn Preliminary Teaching Credentials and Master’s Degrees while working as paid intern teachers in Bay area schools.

The Mild/Moderate Education Specialist Credential authorizes graduates to work in a wide variety of positions. They can be employed in public and private K-12 schools as special day class teachers or as resource and inclusion specialists. With the credential and master’s degree, graduates can be employed at California community colleges as Special Education Learning Specialists.

Program Learning Outcomes:


Student will be able to design and deliver structured asset-based lessons using the core components of Explicit Instruction (Introduction, Modeling, Guided Practice, Independent Practice and Closure) and utilize Universal Design for Learning in order to engage all students, represent content in accessible forms, and allow students to express mastery in individual ways.

Student will be able to  utilize instructional practices emphasizing culturally responsive teaching methods in order to provide meaningful access to curriculum for learners from diverse backgrounds, valuing prior knowledge, building academic language, developing higher order thinking skills and addressing the achievement gap of diverse and marginalized learners.

Student will be able to understand the purpose, need, and procedures for formal standardized assessments, informal diagnostic measures, formative assessment and ongoing progress monitoring in reading, writing, math and behavior.

Student will be able to advance their skills by intentionally selecting, designing, administering, and interpreting informal and formal assessments in order to make data-based decisions for instructional planning, including disseminating key components of instructional planning to the IEP team members.

Student will be able to evaluate the physical, social and instructional setting in order to establish and effectively maintain positive asset-based learning environments that are respectful, fair, and promote the individual needs and student cultures represented in the classroom and beyond.

Student will be able to collect, use, and input student performance data from various sources to make appropriate modifications in a broad spectrum of learning environments to align with the social emotional learning needs of each individual student.

Student will be able to establish culturally respectful and responsive methods of communication and collaboration with students’ families, teachers, and the school community to ensure student progress and success.

Student will be able to apply the principles of Special Education law to design students’ Individual Education Plans, that are based on the student’s current status on the standards and their functional performance, in collaboration with IEP team members in order to develop targeted goals and individualized services.

Major Requirements (42 units)


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