Mar 28, 2024  
ACE Catalog - Volume 36 
    
ACE Catalog - Volume 36 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

Integrated Curriculum, M.Ed.


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Program Description

This program is intended to develop curriculum and instruction leaders by preparing them to effectively support diverse learners in a variety of K-12 and other educational and organizational settings. As accountability standards rise, schools and organizations are challenged with improving performance, closing achievement gaps, and preventing dropouts while also increasing graduation and post-secondary college/career readiness rates. The integration of curriculum presents ideas and concepts in a meaningful manner to add depth and dimension, emphasizing interactive strategies augmented by technology to establish real world applications. Within collaborative environments, resources are maximized to foster higher levels of achievement and performance within schools and organizations.

Program Outcomes

  1. Promote the design, development, and implementation of differentiated instructional strategies, resources, and relevant professional development to accelerate progress, performance, and achievement while enhancing postsecondary college and career readiness. 
  2. Employ research-based strategies and resources to target specific learning objectives, educational and organizational goals. 
  3. Demonstrate knowledge of theories, academic standards, frameworks, ethics, and collaborative strategies for improving the development of curriculum, assessment, and delivery of instruction based on data and needs of the learner, organization, or community. 
  4. Promote the utilization of technology-based learning applications and resources throughout the school, organization, or community to enhance learning and foster higher levels of achievement. 
  5. Establish and maintain a climate of mutual respect, trust, collaboration, collegiality, and support to enhance stakeholder involvement throughout culturally diverse schools, organizations, and communities. 
  6. Construct a framework and create networking opportunities for stakeholders including business and industry leaders to develop and promote a common vision for meeting needs as they apply to post-secondary college and career readiness. 
  7. Build leadership capacity throughout organizations by conducting research and utilizing a collaborative, data-driven decision-making process to shape curriculum and instruction in a manner reflective of educational and organizational needs and goals. 
  8. Support ongoing progress monitoring of achievement by providing relevant, research-based professional development and implementation opportunities reflective of educational and organizational needs and goals within a changing society. 

Mission Statement

The mission of the Master of Education in Integrated Curriculum is to provide students with the skills to effectively support diverse learners in a variety of K-12 and other educational and organizational settings through the design of meaningful integrated curriculum.

Focus of Study Options


Early Childhood Special Education

Young learners with special needs require knowledgeable guidance to acquire critical foundational skills necessary for future learning. This coursework helps to establish understanding of assessment and intervention practices while building skills in research. By engaging families and communities, young learners are exposed to language as an essential skill for reading. 

Integrated Curriculum  

The ability to build relationships and establish connections across ideas is a function of integration. This focus of study provides a foundational understanding of how to think about integration and guides in the development of skills necessary to create critical connections. By establishing principles and demonstrating how to implement them, a framework is created which can be utilized in a variety of circumstances.  

Instructional Leadership 

The Instructional Leadership focus of study prepares students to assist their schools, organizations, and communities in moving away from less effective traditional views of teaching and learning by embracing a more proactive approach of using formative assessment data to build curriculum, design instructional delivery, and teach with the future in mind instead of solely relying on summative evaluations measuring only what has already been taught in the past. Educational and organizational leaders can then make informed decisions and learner-centered adjustments much earlier in the process, maximize all available resources, and ultimately, foster higher levels of achievement and performance within their schools or organizations.  

Learning Behavior Specialist I  

The Learning Behavior Specialist coursework provides a survey of issues related to working with exceptional children, including characteristics, expected behaviors, and potential methods and materials appropriate for student needs. Through application of assessment protocols, students consider appropriate intervention responses to the diagnosis.

Mathematics and Sciences  

The Mathematics and Sciences focus of study prepares K-16 teachers in pedagogy, andragogy, multiple intelligence theory, social learning theory, exchange theory, and the utilization of digital resources to foster the innovative engagement of diverse learners associated with integrated science programs such as STEM. The courses offer a holistic overview of historical and current issues and trends impacting integrated science education while cultivating research-based strategies to improve student learning. The courses are sequenced to provide the educator of an integrated curriculum with the technological and didactic skill sets required for empowering 21st century learning in a global, digital society. 

Special Education

The Special Education focus of study prepares participants to enhance their knowledge and skills to work collaboratively with diverse and struggling learners. This coursework focuses on legal and ethical laws, policies, issues, and strategies to assist students’ access to the general curriculum. It also emphasizes accommodations and modification to meet the diverse needs of students with exceptionalities, gathering and analyzing ongoing data on which educational and instructional decisions are based, and developing collaborative environments designed to positively impact outcomes for students with exceptionalities.  The courses are sequenced to provide foundational knowledge and skills, which will allow individuals to compete in the ever-changing and growing global, digital society. 

Course List (31 Total Semester Credits)


Research Courses (3 Semester Credits)


Literacy Courses (3 Semester Credits)


Curriculum and Instruction Courses (4 Semester Credits)


Choose a Four-Course Focus of Study (12 Semester Credits)


Illinois Endorsement

Courses in this sequence are recognized by the Illinois State Board of Education as meeting some of the coursework requirements for an endorsement in Early Childhood Special Education.

  • Courses recognized by the Illinois State Board of Education as meeting the coursework requirements for an endorsement in an Early Childhood Special Education can be found in Early Childhood Special Education Endorsement .
Illinois Endorsement

Courses in the Learning Behavior Specialist I (LBSI) focus of study sequence are recognized by the Illinois State Board of Education as meeting the coursework requirements for an endorsement in Learning Behavior Specialist I (LBSI).

General Track


Any four courses selected from above.

Note


  • This program is neither designed nor approved (as of the publication date of this Catalog) to prepare students for licensure, certification, or endorsement in any state.
  • Check availability in your state on the Programs by State section of the ACE website.

 

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