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Hello, and welcome to this presentation of the orientation for applicants to the secondary education teaching credential program.
My name is Anna Thaler Petersen, and I’m the fieldwork coordinator for the program. I’ll be giving you some general information about our
program, and walking you through the basics of our application process. If you have questions, my contact information can be found at the end
of this presentation—I’ll be glad to answer any questions you have. We’re very excited about the recent
transformation of our program into a distance- accessible online hybrid format. What this means is that you can enroll in classes,
complete fieldwork requirements, and interact with professors and university supervisors from anywhere in California—as long as you have
easy access to reliable and high-speed internet. (We will still have a small number of in-person meetings—including a beginning-of-the-program
intensive where students will get training in the technology tools we will be using, and complete our capstone class, “Multicultural Issues in
Education”, which is taught in an intensive week- long, all-day format prior to the start of the school year. We will likely also have a few in-
person community meetings throughout the year.) If you’re interested in applying and living locally
in Humboldt County, you can expect to be placed in local schools. You will have three possible class meeting formats throughout the
semester, either face-to-face (with accommodations for distance-learners), online in real-time, (where you’ll be watching
presentations from your instructor, raising your hand to interact with them virtually, and engaging in discussions with your classmates in virtual
break-out rooms), and asynchronously online, when your instructor will post an assignment and you’ll post or turn in a response.
Whether you are a local or distance-learning student, our program is heavily reliant on technology so it is important to your success
that you be comfortable with computers. Here is an outline of the program’s coursework and fieldwork structure. It’s a year-long program, with
the fall semester focused mostly on coursework. That’s when you’ll be working to build a theoretical foundation to understand the history
and background of the field you’re entering. You’ll also be spending 12 hours a week in a classroom with a mentor teacher: observing and
helping out. In the spring you have just a couple of classes, and your fieldwork increases—you will actually take over two classes from your
mentor teacher, and that’s when you learn to teach—by teaching! So now you’ve gotten a quick overview of our
program, I’ll walk you through the process of applying. The first thing to know is that you’ll actually submit two different applications—one
to the University via an online site called CSU Mentor, and one to our office. They’re different applications, and the one for the university is
online (there’s a link in the our application, which is a PDF file on our website.) As our program is a post-baccalaureate
credential program, you will need to have completed your Bachelor’s Degree by the time the program begins. This means that you can
apply the February before you graduate. For details on that, contact me and I’ll let you know what to do to make sure you’re ready to sign up
for classes in the fall. You need to have maintained a GPA of 2.67 or above for your last 60 units of coursework. There
is an appeals process available for anyone with a GPA of below 2.67—contact me to find out more.
Prior to entering the program you will have to complete 45 hours of early fieldwork in a secondary classroom—that’s a junior high or
high school classroom with a credentialed teacher. There are a couple of ways you can do that. Some undergraduate majors with teaching
pathways have courses, as do we –SED 210/410 (two numbers, one class)—that help set you up with a local teacher. You’ll then visit their
classroom to observe and lend a hand, and check in with an instructor at HSU once a week or so. The other option for completing this
prerequisite requirement is to get approval ahead of time from us to connect with a credentialed teacher independently, and do your 45 hours of
early field experience with them. Either way, there’s a form for you to fill out in the application. You will need to be CPR certified for the duration
of the credential program. The class you take to get certified should cover adult, infant, and child CPR, and online courses aren’t allowed. It’s
worthwhile to find a course that gets you certified for 2 or 3 years. If you can only find a 1- year long certification class, make sure to take
the class during the summer before the program starts so that you’re certified all year long. With all of these components, we prefer them to
be complete when you turn in your application on February 1st. If that’s not possible, we’ll need to see evidence that you’re in the process of
completing them—enrolled in a fieldwork class or signed up for CPR. The same goes for the next few components of our application:
An especially important prerequisite for our program now that we’re distance-accessible is demonstrating computer competency. There are
two course options for doing that: EDUC 285 here at HSU, or EDUC 120 through the College of the Sequoias. Both are generally offered every
semester, and both are online. You can also have completed a CIS Minor, or you can take and pass an exam called the CSET in
Preliminary Educational Technology. You will need to have completed a course in the US Constitution. If you did all of your undergrad
at HSU or at another CSU, you’ve probably completed that. If not, do check with our office. If you’re not sure, we will need to see a
description of the course you took, as well as a copy of your transcript. You need to obtain a certificate of clearance
from the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (the CCTC) prior to your acceptance into the program. The steps for this
process are outlined clearly in our application. Basically, you will download a LiveScan form and go to get fingerprinted at a police
department (yes, probably even if you already have been fingerprinted for something else). Then you’ll submit the results of that online to
the CCTC. This is something you’ll want to get started on ASAP, as it can take weeks. If you have a prior arrest record, there may be some
extra paperwork for you to complete. Contact me for more information. The CBEST is a general knowledge exam. It’s
offered about every two months in area testing centers, including on HSU’s campus. If you don’t have time to take it before February 1st,
we’ll need to see evidence that you’re registered to take it soon after. The last component of your application is
evidence of your knowledge of your subject matter. There are two different ways you can demonstrate subject matter competency. One is
through the completion of a designated education major, like English education. The other is through completing the CSET subject
matter tests. There are usually 3 subtests in each subject, and you’ll need to take and pass them prior to starting the program. Either way
you demonstrate your competency on our application, you will then proceed to a subject- matter departmental review. There are different
requirements for each review—for English there’s writing samples to submit, for art there’s a portfolio, etc., but they all include an interview
component where you stand in front of a panel of faculty from that department and they assess your knowledge verbally. They then pass on a
recommendation to us about your subject matter knowledge. Once you pass the interview with them, you would then move on to an interview
with the secondary education program itself. Generally, once you submit your application on or before February 1st, the subject matter
departmental review process will take place mid- Feb to mid-March. If they pass you on to us, you’d interview with secondary ed. in late March.
Provided that went well, we’d start working to place you in a school with a mentor teacher in April. You’d then interview with them and the
school site administrators to ensure a good fit at your placement. If that goes well, you can expect to be admitted into the program in early
May. I talked briefly earlier about the CBEST—here’s the website information for them. If you’re near a
testing center that offers the computer based CBEST, you can take it almost any day—you just have to make an appointment. The HSU
testing center only offers the paper-based tests, however, so you’ll need to register for the testing dates that are available on that. The CSET is
entirely paper-based, with its own testing dates. More information can be found on the CSET website, listed here. I’ll now walk you through
the various components of our application packet. First, there’s an application checklist to help you stay organized through the application
process. You’ll include personal information, and we’ll need photocopies of all of your transcripts. You’ll need to include evidence that you’ve
completed (or are very close to completing) all your prerequisite exams and courses, and tell us how you are demonstrating subject matter
competency. You’ll include documentation of your 45 hours of early field experience, and some health verification information – a record
that you’ve had a TB test within the last two years, and your MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccination record. There will also be
some questions directed at eliciting your experiences and skills, and we ask you to write a professional goal statement. You’ll also need
to show us where you are in the process of obtaining your certificate of clearance—again, start early, as it can take a long time. When you
do submit the application, be sure to hand in two copies—one is for our files, and the other will go to potential school sites. Keep a third copy for
yourself for the sake of record-keeping. We like to see letters of two
main types—from people who have seen you be a good student, and from people who have seen you work well with young people, in schools or
other settings. If you haven’t had a lot of experience working with young people, ask someone who has seen you act professionally:
being punctual, responsible, trustworthy and just generally awesome. Ask your recommenders ASAP—those letters can take a while. There’s a
form for them to fill out in the application, so get that to them, and also note the SED application recommendation letters are confidential, so
they’ll need to send those in sealed envelopes directly to us. Here’s a photo of someone who’s thrilled to turn
in their application, and on time too! Remember, February 1st is the deadline. This happy applicant is handing his application to the
assistant coordinator, Bryn Coriell, who you’ll get to know if you stop by our office in person. Now, regarding fees, there are a few costs
associated with applying to our program. You’ll pay $55 to apply online to the University via the CSU Mentor website, $41 to take the CBEST, (
the general knowledge test), and around $70 for each subtest of the CSET (if you need to take that to demonstrate your subject matter
knowledge). It costs $80 to process your Certificate of Clearance, but fortunately $27.50 of that goes toward your credential fee of $57.
You’ll need to purchase liability insurance for $20, which is charged as a class fee, and pay a $31 commencement fee (which is required so
we can process your credential). Books and materials generally cost around $1,544, and tuition, which has gone up substantially in the
last few years, is currently just under $8,000. There are scholarships available for students in our program: you can find a list of them on our
website, as well as in our application packet, which is in a PDF file on our website. This is an overview of the application timeline.
Again, the applications both to us and to the University via CSU Mentor are due February 1st, and we really prefer for you to have your
certificate of clearance completely done by then. Then, as I described a few slides ago, you’ll undergo the subject matter departmental review
in February and March, then interview with the secondary education program in March/ April. You’ll interview with school site staff in April, and
would learn of your acceptance in early May. May 11th is the date of our first meeting as a community.
Then, before the public school year is over, you’ll need to spend one full day in the classroom with your mentor teacher to get familiar with how they
do things. Then (we’re working on scheduling this exactly) in July or August you’ll be starting the program with the orientation and class
intensive I described earlier. Thanks for watching this presentation! If you have any questions about this information or
anything else, feel free to get in contact with me or with our assistant coordinator, Bryn Coriell. Good luck with the application process! And
take care!