PreK-8 Special Education Certification

The Special Education Certificate provides teacher education candidates with the opportunity to seek dual certification in Special Education. Special Education Certification is embedded in the PreK-4 program at LaRoche, and is an add-on option for the Middle Level and English Education programs at LaRoche. For state certification, students must meet all the competency standards set by the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

To successfully complete the Special Education Certificate, 29 credits of coursework are required.

Summary of Requirements

Required Courses:

• EDSP2015

  INTRO TO HIGH INCIDENCE DISABILITIES

  EDSP2015
  INTRO TO HIGH INCIDENCE DISABILITIES

  Credits (Min/Max): 3/3

  This course provides students an opportunity to explore foundations of special education in the United States including: characteristics of each disability category, legislation, over-representation of diverse students, academic and functional needs of students with disabilities, individual learning differences, least restrictive environment, implications for a Standards Aligned System, collaboration and transition. Students will develop an understanding of Accommodations and Adaptations for inclusive environments.

  PREREQUISITES:

• EDSP2025

  LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS AND BEHAVIOR MANAGEMENT

  EDSP2025
  LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS AND BEHAVIOR MANAGEMENT

  Credits (Min/Max): 3/3

  This course will introduce students to behavior and misbehaviors of students in the school setting, types of misbehavior roles, establish a classroom management plan that will reflect their consideration of students with disabilities, problem solving, conflict resolution, assessing appropriate and problematic behaviors while establishing opportunities for students with diverse backgrounds to interact and share in cooperative learning groups, problem solving to achieve common goals. "Application Models" will be the framework used to demonstrate the approaches used by pioneers as well as 21st century researchers and educators.

  PREREQUISITES:

  EDSP2015

• EDSP3015

  INTRO TO LOW INCIDENCE DISABILITIES

  EDSP3015
  INTRO TO LOW INCIDENCE DISABILITIES

  Credits (Min/Max): 3/3

  This course is designed to prepare students with the skills necessary to effectively teach individuals with severe disabilities, identify the relationships of organizations to school systems, laws and policies that are related to the implementation of specialized health care in the educational setting, and demonstrate the knowledge and understanding of individuals so as to develop effective instructional plans that will contribute to effective programs.

  PREREQUISITES:

• EDSP3025

  EFFECTIVE INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES FOR STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES

  EDSP3025
  EFFECTIVE INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES FOR STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES

  Credits (Min/Max): 3/3

  The Instructional Strategies Course identifies and implements instructional strategies for all individuals with disabilities by evidenced-based methods, specialized resources, multiple instructional approaches, appropriate adaptations and technology, integrating student initiated learning opportunities and experiences into ongoing instruction. Teach learning strategies and modify the pace of instruction within and across curricula, demonstrate efficient differentiated instruction, efficient planning, coordination, and delivery for effective instruction required for inclusive settings.

  PREREQUISITES:

  EDSP2015

• EDSP3035

  SPECIAL EDUCATION PRACTICUM

  EDSP3035
  SPECIAL EDUCATION PRACTICUM

  Credits (Min/Max): 2/2

  This course provides a special education field experience placement and seminar based on the Effective Instructional Strategies course. The student will be assigned a class or a small group of students where he/she will create and implement lessons weekly according to the students’ IEP, learning needs, and PA learning standards. The student will demonstrate and promote effective strategies for teaching children of all ability ranges in his/her lessons plans and teaching. The student will spend one period a week teaching in a classroom. This will be accompanied with a seminar focusing on the plans and teaching that is implemented weekly.

  PREREQUISITES:

  EDSP2015

• EDSP3040

  EVALUATION AND ASSESSMENT

  EDSP3040
  EVALUATION AND ASSESSMENT

  Credits (Min/Max): 3/3

  This required course for all education majors will explore the instructional purposes for a variety of assessment strategies, such as: authentic, screening, diagnostic, formative, benchmark, and summative assessments. Future teachers will learn how to interpret assessment data, such as standardized test scores and norms, and will practice how to communicate assessment results to educational stakeholders, while considering legal and ethical issues related to assessment data, such as maintaining confidentiality. Future teachers will also create sample assessments that target academic standards and assessment anchors within subject areas, in order to measure mastery of the curriculum in more than one way.

  PREREQUISITES:

  EDUC1010

• EDSP4015

  DEVELOPMENT OF THE IEP AND INCLUSION IN LEAST RESTRICTIVE ENVIRONMENT

  EDSP4015
  DEVELOPMENT OF THE IEP AND INCLUSION IN LEAST RESTRICTIVE ENVIRONMENT

  Credits (Min/Max): 3/3

  The focus of this culminating course is to prepare the student teacher with a realistic overview of teaching special education in Pennsylvania. The student will create an IEP, become familiar with Inclusion and collaboration, write reflections based on current issues/trends in special education, participate in discussions, create useful artifacts, discuss significant court cases, and understand Transition. The student will also comprehend the special education continuum of services available to the identified student.

  PREREQUISITES:

  EDSP2015

• EDSP4065

  SPECIAL ED STUDENT TEACHING AND SEMINAR (PK-6)

  EDSP4065
  SPECIAL ED STUDENT TEACHING AND SEMINAR (PK-6)

  Credits (Min/Max): 6/6

  The Special Education Student Teaching Course is designed to allow teacher candidates an opportunity to apply skills learned in professional practice, human development, learning environments, instructional strategies, instructional planning, diversity, adaptations and accommodations, collaboration, behavior management, and assessment in a PreK-6th grade special education placement. Under the supervision of a school district cooperating teacher(s) and a La Roche University supervisor, the teacher candidate will design, implement and evaluate lessons that appropriately address the IEP goals and meet the PA Academic Standards and Assessment Anchors. Student teachers will demonstrate skills that include, but are not be limited to: differentiated instruction, universal design, collaborative teaching, transition planning and research based data driven instruction to meet the needs of all students.

  PREREQUISITES:

  EDSP4015

• MLED2000

  ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS IN THEMULTICULTURAL CLASSROOM

  MLED2000
  ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS IN THEMULTICULTURAL CLASSROOM

  Credits (Min/Max): 3/3

  This course introduces the most important principles and practices for teachers of children with home languages other than English. Students examine the implications of cultural and linguistic variation for English Language learners. We focus on how educators work in the classroom, the school, and the community to support these learners' language development and academic learning.

  PREREQUISITES: