After two years of development Goshen has the final approval for its new Master of Arts in Teaching program. Although the program doesn’t officially start until the fall of 2025 the first cohort is already in swing.
Suzanne Ehst, professor of education and director of the M.A. in teaching, said that they have “21 new students in the new version [of the program]. The classes they are taking this year are not yet master’s level, but they will be able to finish the full program with a master’s degree as long as half of their coursework is master’s level.”Despite the slight delay in accreditation students will still be able to use these classes towards their master’s or license. It’s important to note that this master’s degree is not intended for people who already have a bachelors in education.
Maynard Miller, adult and graduate admissions counselor, said, “Students who graduate from here with an education degree, they would typically get a master’s degree that would offer them some sort of different specialization. So it’s primarily a master’s program designed for people who haven’t graduated with an educational degree.”
Ehst also added, “we had made some adjustments to one of our postgraduate programs already to move it online, still at the bachelor’s level, but that was the first step in taking what we were doing and making it more possible to a broader audience. And then last year, we really did a lot of the work to look at what it would take to elevate those courses that were taught at the bachelor’s level to a master’s level.”
There are many layers of approval that need to happen both within the college and beyond for a degree to become fully accredited. This process begins with developing curriculum and adding staff. “At this point we’re working primarily with more adjunct faculty,” said Ehst. “So we have a lot of teachers in the area who are recently retired themselves but don’t want to fully get out of the education world and they are excited to be able to supervise some of our new student teachers or teach an online class.”
The program being fully online caters to the intended audience for this new program. With a national teacher shortage, states have started issuing emergency teaching licenses; some of the students in the program already have their own classrooms.
For example, Kaitlyn Alioto, a Goshen College alumni who is now returning for her master’s, explained, “I have my substitute teaching license and am currently teaching ASL at a local high school in my hometown.”
The program was designed with this in mind, “The classes are primarily synchronous,” Miller said. “Meeting like one time, one night a week online. Then summer classes they’ve tried to structure it so that summer classes are primarily asynchronous so that you know, people are traveling if they’re on vacation, they’re still able to fit the class in but don’t have to be on Zoom at a specific time of the week. So summer is primarily asynchronous.”
Alioto shared her excitement for the program, “I chose Goshen’s master’s program because as an alumni, I knew that I loved the smaller class sizes, and the chance to have a really well grounded connection with my professors and classmates. The program is going really well so far!”
