Childhood Special Education – MSEd, EdM
Prepare yourself to be a model teacher in specialized settings.
This program is for teachers and prospective teachers like yourself, wishing to work with children with variations in grades 1 through 6. As a student in your program you have the opportunity to work in a range of special education settings. This includes children from diverse racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and linguistic backgrounds. You will think specifically about designing accessible curricula and differentiated experiences for children with a variety of social, emotional, behavioral, physical, and cognitive variations.
You Will:
- Construct developmentally responsive learning experiences that encourage all learners to follow their curiosities.
- Create accessible curricula so all learners can explore literacy, literature, mathematics, science, arts, and social studies content.
- Develop a strong social justice focus in order to advocate for and with children and families.
- Plan for dynamic and collaborative partnerships with families and school professionals.
- Engage in critical explorations of yourself, others, and the wider world.
This program culminates in a Master of Science in Education or a Master of Education (for those students with a prior master’s degree in education), and requires 36 credits.
Become A
Bank Street Teacher
Childhood Special Education – M.S.Ed, Ed.M
Prepare yourself to be a model teacher in specialized settings
This program is for teachers and prospective teachers like yourself, wishing to work with children with variations in grades 1 through 6. As a student in your program you have the opportunity to work in a range of special education settings. This includes children from diverse racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and linguistic backgrounds. You will think specifically about designing accessible curricula and differentiated experiences for children with a variety of social, emotional, behavioral, physical, and cognitive variations.
You Will:
- Construct developmentally responsive learning experiences that encourage all learners to follow their curiosities.
- Create accessible curricula so all learners can explore literacy, literature, mathematics, science, arts, and social studies content.
- Develop a strong social justice focus in order to advocate for and with children and families.
- Plan for dynamic and collaborative partnerships with families and school professionals.
- Engage in critical explorations of yourself, others, and the wider world.
This program culminates in a Master of Science in Education or a Master of Education (for those students with a prior master’s degree in education), and requires 36 credits.
Become A
Bank Street Teacher
Career Opportunities for Master’s Degree in Childhood Special Education
Teach in special education or inclusion classrooms in public, charter or independent schools.
Tutor or work as a learning specialist in schools or in private practice.
Work in special education teacher support services (SETSS) roles.
Lead a public or independent early childhood center as a director or assistant director with recognized credentials in fiscal and program management.
Stand out as a candidate for principal or department chair in elementary schools or pre-K centers.
Manage and support teachers and administrators as a staff developer with specialized knowledge of both change management for adults and child development from birth through grade 2.
Required Courses for Childhood Special Education
Supervised Fieldwork/Advisement
Supervised fieldwork/advisement lies at the heart of a Bank Street education. Through sustained experiences in the field, supervision from core faculty, and close collaboration with peers, our graduate students develop the ability to connect theory to practice and to reflect deeply on their own growth as educators. In this program, you will:
- Be supervised by your advisor, a core graduate faculty mentor, and experienced teacher.
- Participate in a weekly conference group of 5 to 7 students and your advisor.
- Reflect on a lesson with your advisor once each month.
- Meet individually with your advisor twice each month.
- Complete projects to help you take a deeper look at the setting and students you work with.
During your fieldwork experience, you will work in a classroom setting as a full-time head teacher or assistant, or as a student-teacher (3 days each week):
- As a student, you will be placed in one special education setting within grades 1-6.
- As a working head or assistant teacher in an approved setting, you will use your own classroom as your fieldwork.
Based on the belief that language is an essential foundation for the learning that takes place in formal and informal education, this course will look at the typical stages of language acquisition in monolingual and multilingual children. Participants will examine the various theories about language acquisition and diversity, and about the role that caregivers and teachers play in the child’s development of language. In addition, they will analyze the political, educational, social, and emotional aspects that determine the stratification of languages and dialects. A significant part of the course will deal with the ways in which students learn English as a second language and the strategies that teachers can use to help them learn the language and to fully integrate English language learners into general and special education classrooms.
This course provides the opportunity for participants to analyze and develop integrated curricula in social studies using a sociopolitical lens. Participants integrate knowledge from the six disciplines of social studies: history, anthropology, sociology, political science, geography and economics into the design of a constructivist, inquiry-based social studies curriculum. The course explores ways children come to learn and care about themselves and others through the social studies. There is an emphasis on differentiating curriculum, including attention to diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds, and variations in development.
This course examines the impact of technology on teaching and learning. Participants will explore how new technologies can be integrated with curriculum to create access to learning for a range of learners, including students with disabilities. Through readings, class discussion, and hands-on,project-based learning experiences, students will be introduced to various technological tools. Emphasis will be placed on encouraging students to reflect on their experiences in the course, both as a learner and as a teacher, in order to understand the role of new technologies in education.
In this course, participants will explore learning mathematics as a developmental process. Central emphasis will be placed on constructing an understanding of equitable mathematics education focusing on access for all learners. Through focus on an individual child, students will learn to analyze children’s strengths and examine the challenges that differences such as language ability, working memory, executive function and processing can pose to students as they work to gain conceptual understanding, factual knowledge and procedural fluency. Participants will select and develop mathematical tasks for a variety of students and will be expected to analyze students strengths and potential barriers to access, shaping mathematical learning experiences to meet their needs.
This course explores varied approaches to teaching decoding and word study to children who have learning variations with reading and spelling. Participants examine the theory and research that inform our current understandings of the reading process and explore how these understandings have changed over time. Participants study language processes and apply this linguistic knowledge when assessing childrens reading strengths and challenges. The course examines how the use of language systems varies for readers across different languages to better understand how language-based disabilities differ from the developmental patterns of learning a new language. Participants learn about varied assessment tools, methods, and intervention programs used in supporting children’s decoding. They apply this learning as they develop differentiated decoding instruction for a diverse population of learners, including those who are learning English and those who have developmental variations. Prerequisite: EDUC 860
EDUC 605 - Designing and Managing Classroom Environments in Inclusive and Special Education Settings
This course is designed to help participants create classroom environments that will meet the needs of all children, including those with developmental variations. Addressing the concerns of both general and special education teachers, it incorporates presentations, role-playing, discussions, analyses of multimedia content, and informal diagnostic procedures. Participants examine the complexities of teachers’ day-to-day responsibilities and concerns, including classroom design, varied approaches to behavioral intervention, and the interplay among curricula, rules, expectations, routines, procedures, and children’s behavior.
This course is designed to increase participants’ awareness and understanding of the educational, social, cultural, linguistic and developmental implications of disability from historical, legal, and socio-political perspectives. The course will critically examine state and federal special education and disability laws and regulations and their implementation across a range of settings including their intersection with issues of race, class, language, and gender. There is an emphasis on understanding how disability is socially constructed at the levels of family, community, school, and the larger society. Participants apply an understanding of developmental variations to analyze and create accessible learning experiences for children. Prerequisite: EDUC 500 or 501 or 800; or permission of instructor.
This course focuses on understanding, teaching, and meeting the needs of children with variations in emotional, social and behavioral development. Participants will critically examine the construct of children’s emotional and behavioral disorders and approaches to intervention from historical, socio-political, mental health, and legal perspectives. There is an emphasis on understanding the intersection of these issues with the race, class, language, and gender of teachers and children. Participants will develop an in-depth case study of a child applying an inquiry orientation to the Functional Behavior Assessment-Behavior Intervention Plan. Participants will collect and analyze data from observations, interviews and other sources, and make recommendations to support ongoing social and behavioral development. Prerequisites: EDUC 500 or EDUC 501 or EDUC 800; and EDUC 803.
Building on theories of language development and learning, this course is designed to deepen graduate students’ understanding of language and communication disorders in monolingual and bilingual children. There is an exploration of the reciprocal relationship between children’s diverse communication abilities and styles and academic, social and emotional development. The importance of teacher collaboration with other service providers is highlighted. Graduate students will reflect on their own communication styles as a means of more effectively meeting the communication needs of their students. The concept of social construction of disability will help to frame issues of equity that can guide teachers in their roles as advocates for all children. Prerequisites: EDUC 505; or EDUC 561 and EDUC 870
This course integrates research, theory, and practice as participants learn about supporting literacy development for children with reading, writing, and language variations. Participants learn about the reading and writing processes within a developmental framework. The course explores the iterative relationship between assessment and intervention, and critically examines a range of methods and materials in use in the field. Participants apply their learning as they work over multiple sessions with a child. Prerequisites: EDUC 505; EDUC 563 or 568.
This course is designed to explore a variety of approaches used for the diagnosis, planning, and evaluation of students with disabilities. Participants will develop a critical understanding of the historical, legal and ethical considerations, appropriate use, mis-use, value, and limitations of standardized assessments including their intersection with issues of race, class, language and gender. Participants will administer and interpret various psycho-educational tests and develop instructional plans to meet the unique needs of children with oral language, reading, writing, and math challenges. Participants will broaden their abilities to incorporate information from diagnostic reports into their teaching.
EDUC 863 - Collaboration and Differentiation in the Instruction of Children with Learning Variations
This course combines theory and practice through work with children from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds who have learning variations. Using assessment data gathered through formal and informal measures, students will devise educational plans for children. Participants will be exposed to a repertoire of evidence-based practices and instructional strategies in oral language, reading, written language, and math in order to promote positive learning outcomes. The course will also provide opportunities to develop and apply strategies for working with families and collaborating with other educators. Utilizing their knowledge of individual learning differences, participants will become skilled at differentiating instruction for a class of students with diverse learning needs. Prerequisites: EDUC 803; EDUC 563 or EDUC 568 or EDUC 540 or EDUC 542.
Fieldwork in appropriate settings with supervision and advisement. Candidates in advisement participate in weekly small-group conferences with their advisor. These seminars include the exchange and analysis of ongoing professional experiences and provide a forum for integrating theory with practice. Attention is given to instructional strategies for addressing the individual academic and behavioral strengths and needs of typically and atypically developing children within classroom settings. Opportunities to collaborate and co-teach with cooperating teachers and other school personnel are an integral part of the course.
This one-credit course provides working teachers, interns, and assistant teachers the opportunity to meet the mandated New York State regulations for certification. The State regulations require teacher candidates to work in a second-grade band level in a high needs public school setting, according to the age band of their certification. In addition, there may be an expectation of direct work with English language learners (ELLs) and/or students with developmental variations. Graduate students will be placed, for the Summer II session, in appropriate educational programs for at least 100 hours. In addition, graduate students will participate in a series of six seminars focused on these classroom experiences.
New York State requires all graduate students in this program to have a supervised fieldwork experience in a special education or inclusion setting. Student-teachers fulfill this experience through their placement in the fall or spring. Working teachers and assistants may need to enroll in an additional fieldwork placement, where they will be placed by Bank Street in the appropriate setting to fulfill their degree requirements
Additional Application Requirements
In addition to the main admissions criteria, there are additional requirements needed to apply for this program:
- Applicants must already hold a valid New York State certification in General Education at the Early Childhood or Childhood level.
- You will need to submit scores from the GRE (institution code 2035) or MAT (institution code 3197) before new student registration.
Certifications
When you complete this program, you will be eligible for your:
- New York State initial certification Teaching Students with Disabilities, grades 1-6: for those who meet experience requirements and pass state assessments.
After teaching for three years and provided that you meet experience requirements, you will be eligible for New York State professional certification.