Curriculum Action Notice

From:

Academic Affairs Committee

Date:

Sept 26 , 2008

This is a bulletin from the Academic Affairs Committee concerning proposed curricular actions. Please forward any comments or concerns in the next 10 days to the AAC chair, Jeffrey Bossworth , 206 Pinecrest Manor, ext. 4762.

Curricular Action Notice—Music Education Program Change

1. Program Change: Music Education

Rationale for change:  The revised program in Music Education is being created to meet new mandates from the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE).  The revised program is part of a comprehensive redesign of teacher education certification programs in Pennsylvania.  The new program guidelines and requirements would take effect for students earning PDE certification beginning in January 2013, but will need to be implemented beginning with the incoming student class of Fall 2009.

Old Degree and Program Title (attach an old ER): BM.ME - Music Education

        New Degree and Program Title (attach a new ER): BM.ME - Music Education

        List all changes:

ADD:  14 Credits

o Four Courses needed for Chapter 49 PDE Requirements (12 credits total)

§ SPE 1001 – Foundations of Special Education (3 credits)

§ SPE 3291 – High Incidence Disabilities (3 credits) and MU 3291L High Incidence Disabilities Lab (0 credits)

§ SPE 3352 - Assessment and Evidence Based Behavior Supports for Inclusion (3 credits)

§ SPE 2276 – Instructional Strategies for English Language Learners (3 credits)

• ED  1110 – Foundations of Education - 2 credits
• MU4400L – Senior Lab: Becoming a Professional (0 credits) to be taken concurrently with MU4400 – Student Teaching

DROP:  9 Credits

• SPE 3275 – Inclusion of Diverse Learners – 3 credits

o ED 1102 – Introduction to Education - 3 credits

o Reduce General Education Group 4, Natural Sciences Requirement to 3 credits. 

§ Within Group 4, Natural Sciences, eliminate 3 credits of science (keeping science with a lab requirement)

Please see attached rational for these program changes.

The music education program is currently accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music (NASM), and is bound by requirements from both PASSHE (credit hour limits) PDE (Chapter 354 and Chapter 49).  In order to keep our NASM accreditation and meet the requirements set forth by PDE and PASSHE, we find it necessary to cut three credit hours from our program. 

The NASM accreditation states that a minimum of 50% total credit hours must consist of music or music education courses.  With the addition of the required special education credits, music education will be at 129 credit hours with 51.2% music or music education, which does not allow us to cut these credit hours from required music courses.  As a side note, when the 120 credit hours mandate came from PASSHE several years ago, the music department did remove 4 credit hours from the program.  Considering our current status, this option of eliminating music credits is no longer viable.

The other category that NASM defines is Professional Courses.  These courses would now include the following

§ SPE 1001 – Foundations of Special Education

§ SPE 3291 – High Incidence Disabilities

§ SPE 3352 - Assessment and Evidence Based Behavior Supports for Inclusion

§ SPE 2276 – Instructional Strategies for English Language Learners

• ED  1110 – Foundations of Education - 2 credits
• MU 4400 – Student Teaching

The four SPE courses are now required by PDE.    In addition, NASM defines Student Teaching as a Professional Course.  We do not have the option of including it the Music Courses category or making any reduction here.   ED1110 would the only possible course to eliminate, however it does provide important foundational information and experiences for our students and everything covered in that course would have to be added to the curriculum of an already curricular packed existing course.

We are requesting to decrease the Natural Science requirement from two courses to one.  The modification to the General Education requirements was suggested by the reviewer from the recent PDE Accreditation Review.  The reviewer from our 2006 PDE Accreditation Review suggested the elimination of 3 science credits to compensate for the previous PDE requirement to add 3 credits of Mathematics to all Education programs.