According to the 2020 Teacher Shortage Report for Missouri, 3,558 (5%) of the 71,142 total FTEs for the state were either unfilled or filled by unqualified individuals. Of those, almost 1.46% were in Special Education positions (0.95% Mild/Moderate Cross Categorical K-12 and 0.51% Early Childhood Special Education B-3) and another 1.12% were in Elementary or Early Childhood Education positions (0.67% Elementary Education 1-2 and 0.45% Early Childhood Education B-3). Based on similar data from previous years’ reports, as well as many years of discussion about the high acceptance rate to the MAE program of applicants to these programs, the Special Education and Elementary Education MAE programs instituted a direct admission policy to the MAE.
A further 1.08% of the 5% of unfilled or unqualified FTEs were in math and science areas (0.35% Physics 9-12, 0.25% Biology 9-12, 0.24% Mathematics 5-9, and 0.23% General Science). The Truman NOYCE Scholars Program, which is scheduled to end August 2022, has been one way in which the university has assisted in addressing the need for teachers in STEM areas. Truman’s Noyce Scholars Program for Secondary Mathematics and Physics Teaching accepted students interested in becoming a STEM teacher and students were provided with general financial support in the form of generous scholarships (up to $20,000/year).
Another way the Department is addressing this need is through the regular placement of year-long teachers of record internships for students in the sciences.
After researching remote internships and how those might look for MAE interns, the faculty agreed in 2020 to approve a remote internship policy for students who were interested in working for districts that might be out of our typical supervision range of approximately 300 miles, which includes Kansas City to Jefferson City to St. Louis to Northeast Missouri. This policy change helps to diversify participation in the educator workforce by supporting our candidates through facilitating experience in districts we had not historically placed students. In some cases this addresses a significant challenge that some students experience related to housing during their unpaid internship experience because it allows students to live and intern in locations where housing is more readily available to them.
Candidate Support
All programs offer early advising consistently to undergraduate students who are interested in education, first meeting with the Center for Academic Excellence advisors to file a degree plan and then working with an undergraduate advisor for their major and then a graduate advisor in their MAE program. This support is crucial to the success of the students in the MAE. Further, the Department Chair works closely with faculty to ensure that students are meeting the expectations of the MAE (e.g., GPA, dispositions) and follows up with individual students who may need additional encouragement and support.
Students who are not meeting expectations during their field experiences meet with the content area faculty member(s)and mentor to create professional improvement plans that outline specific areas for growth and clear consequences for not meeting those, along with action plans for how to achieve growth in the targeted area(s). Occasionally students will have to repeat a field experience or have been placed in additional field experiences as needed to increase their competence.
Diversification of the Workforce
The majority of our MAE students are White and female; so we examined how many male MAE students and faculty we had compared to our general population at Truman finding our program to be slightly higher than the norm. The MAE has profiled alumni of color in our Film Series for example, inviting back a founder of Joe’s Place to lead discussion after the presented film. Faculty searches include postings to department chairs at doctoral institutions recognized to enroll students of color such as University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Students in the English MAE also work to meet local educator workforce needs during their ENG 608G field experience. English MAE students in ENG 608G (pre-pandemic) completed 25 hours in a clinical setting as a practical in the course. Because of limited settings in the area and to provide ENG 608G students a more diverse population of adolescents to work with, this clinical occurred in the education program at a local, residential drug treatment facility for juveniles (referred to here as PFHC). Clients at PFHC can be self- or family-admitted or can be court mandated to the facility and as juveniles are required to complete a portion of each day in educational endeavors, preferably working in credit recovery. Because this setting is so unusual for clinicals, Dr. Rebecca Dierking, the professor teaching ENG 608G, began a study of how this setting influenced candidates’ transition from pre-service teacher to student teaching intern to classroom teacher. The study, begun in fall 2019, was placed on hiatus in March 2020 due to the pandemic but restarted in September 2021. It includes a short qualitative online questionnaire reflecting on their experiences, materials gathered during their ENG 608G semester, and a hour-long interview one-to-one with Dr. Dierking. Initial impressions from the data collected indicate a greater empathy in English candidates with students unlike themselves, an increased sense of confidence in approaching struggling students or students who have experienced trauma, and a deeper toolkit of strategies to handle disruptive behavior or attitudes.