Program Requirements and Curriculum

The Mid-Atlantic Christian University Elementary Education major recommends licensure to the state of North Carolina for any candidate who successfully completes the following MACU requirements:

Academic Requirements:

Any course listed above in which a final grade is less than a 2.0 must be repeated.
Teacher Candidates must have completed all coursework with an overall  2.5 GPA or better, and received a passing Praxis II score in order to submit the licensure application to the State Board of Education for approval.

Background Check
All teacher candidates must submit a background check before being able to do any field experiences.

Field Experiences

Practicum I will be observational in nature.  Students are required to complete several assignments.  Thirty (30) total hours with 15 hours in ED 222 and 15 hours in ED 244

Practicum II will include three weeks of intense work in a public school classroom with an observation-of-teaching component evaluated by the mentor teacher and the university supervisor.   Approximately 90 hours are to be completed during the intercession.  Several writing assignments will be completed during these three weeks to ensure the experience is meaningful.  An evaluation will be submitted to the electronic portfolio by both the mentor teacher and the university supervisor. 

Partnership is the third field experience with approximately 300 hours working in a public school classroom. Concurrently, the following courses will be taken:  ED 433 Special Needs Students, ED 434 Curriculum in the Elementary School, ED 431 Classroom Management, ED 432 Differentiating Instruction, ED 435 Elementary School Literacy.  Partnership is unique in its design and extent of experiences and is therefore an intensive, rigorous semester.  It is called Partnership because of the agreements the university has with the school districts to ensure cooperation in giving multiple exemplary experiences for the teacher candidates.  Partnership is usually taken the first semester of the senior year.  

Student Teaching is one-semester long.  A one-credit seminar is required before starting student teaching.  All coursework must be completed before the student-teaching semester. Again a 2.5 GPA is required.

Electronic Portfolio

Mid-Atlantic Christian University teacher candidates are required to open a program-approved electronic portfolio (In this case TaskStream). The electronic portfolio includes a collection of evidences/artifacts and reflections documenting the candidate’s develop over time.