NMU revises elementary education endorsements

What's happening: Northern Michigan University has announced that its elementary education program will receive an overhaul, giving a more specialized approach to creating a new generation of elementary school teachers. Instead of a generic kindergarten through eighth grade endorsement, NMU will break it into two groupings of preschool to third grade and third through sixth. While seemingly a small change, the new designations provide more specialization desired by school districts during the ongoing teacher shortage across the Midwest.

What is a teaching endorsement: Teaching endorsements — or sometimes called education endorsements, depending on state definitions — better defines what kind of classes a teacher is prepared to teach. As more state departments of education focus on elementary education guidelines beyond basic test scores, promoting different learning styles for younger students is a major industry trend. To better adapt to these employer needs, NMU provides more specification in its program, which should help with some of the negative factors impacting the teaching profession. 

What they're saying: “The schools that employ our graduates said it was critical that NMU offers both PK-3 and 3-6 together,” Joe Lubig, associate dean of Teacher Education, told the NMU Board of Trustees before securing approval. “These are technically two separate licensure areas and will remain that way, but at NMU, students will be able to complete both through a 120-credit curriculum and 600 or more hours of onsite training.

"We also designed the program to serve as a true 2+2 program with community and tribal colleges, so credit hours transfer to Northern so as not to extend the time to degree. And we also have a statewide articulation agreement that allows any high school students completing a career tech ed program to transfer coursework right to us.”

What's next: The “middle school” grades of sixth, seventh and eighth will now have more emphasis of secondary education, which allows the teachers to specialize more in one specific topic like social studies, language or mathematics. Those updates are expected to take place later this summer, according to the university.