Carole Ames, DEAN
Michigan State University’s College of Education, www.educ.msu.edu, is one of the nation’s top schools for pursuing or advancing a career as a teacher, counselor, coach, athletic trainer, administrator, researcher, professor or policy-maker. From its innovative, five-year teacher preparation program to its renowned faculty to its online masters programs and highly ranked graduate programs, the college serves as a model for other programs of professional education throughout the country and as a leader at the international level. Our research and development projects reach around the world. Some, like our Confucius Institute, which prepares and offers instruction in Chinese language in an online format, and the U.S. China Center on Educational Excellence, which develops and disseminates effective models of education integrating the strengths of Eastern and Western educational practices, bring the world to Michigan State University.
Improving educational opportunities and equity for K-12 children has been a long-standing priority of the college. Committed to a mission of leadership, scholarship and service in education, faculty prepare professionals for leadership roles in education, seek to understand, reform and improve education and examine issues of education across the lifespan. The teacher preparation program, which coordinates undergraduate and post-baccalaureate work, develops both content and pedagogical knowledge for teachers. Field studies and internships integrate work in Michigan and Chicago Public K-12 schools with course work on campus. Students choose from the following areas: elementary education, kinesiology, special education, and secondary education – with many choices for teaching majors and minors. The college also offers two bachelor’s degree programs in kinesiology that prepare professionals for careers in athletic training, coaching, health and wellness promotion, community physical education, fitness leadership and physical therapy. Graduate programs provide opportunities for advanced study and research in education, and foster the insight and skill critical to confronting challenges facing education, including issues of health and wellness. The college offers 10 Doctor of Philosophy degrees, three education specialist programs, and 14 master’s degree programs, including three of which are online master’s programs. The college also offers a Master of Science and a Doctor of Philosophy degree program in Math Education that are offered in collaboration with the College of Natural Science.
The college is widely known for its research on teaching and learning. Michigan State University serves as the lead institution in an international study, known as Teacher Education and Development Study in Mathematics, or TEDS-M. By comparing how elementary and middle school math teachers are prepared in 19 countries, the project is expected to contribute important information about the role of teachers’ preparation. This follows previous international comparisons of students’ achievement in mathematics. Meanwhile, there are more than a dozen centers and institutes within the college conducting research in various areas. They include the Literacy Achievement Research Center, which studies literacy development strategies through more than 30 individual projects; the Institute for the Study of Youth Sports (ISYS), which researches the benefits and detriments of athletic participation; the Center for Physical Activity and Health which studies the effect of physical activity on human health and helps educational organizations develop policies to promote physical activity behavior; and the Education Policy Center, which engages in educational research that helps inform key policy and decision-makers at the state, national, and international levels.


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