Spring semester will mark the onset of the revamping of Eastern’s teacher education requirements and structure, affecting nearly 2,700 students at the university that produces the second largest amount of teachers in Illinois.

The state-mandated changes, spread from this semester to 2005, will involve testing requirements and curriculum organization, Doug Bower, associate dean of the College of Education and Professional Studies, said.

The teacher education program’s admission process will begin this semester, a transitionary period.

The modifications will substitute the Basic Skills Test, which was previously a prerequisite for student teaching, for the Tests of Achievement and Proficiency (TAP) Tests for admittance to the teacher education program, Bower said.

This new procedure is described by Bower as “more streamlined.”

“It takes away a test,” he said, referring to the TAP test.

Also in regards to the program’s requirements, the mandated grade point average for admittance and continuance in the teacher education program has been bumped up from a 2.5 to a 2.65 GPA, Bower said.

In addition, under the old system a weighted point scale consisting of a student’s TAP score and their GPA was used to determine selection, Bower said. However, the new system will not be weighted.

During a transitionary period in the spring and summer 2002 terms, the old system will be in place, but students can petition to use the new system, Bower said.

Furthermore, he said that when the new system takes effect in fall 2002 and spring 2003, students can still petition to use the old one.

“We’re trying to do what’s best for the student,” Bower said.

During this time, Bower recommends that students do whatever will get them admitted to the program as soon as possible.

The changes involving the Basic Skills Test were recommended by the state, so students would take the test sooner, Bower said.

In addition to selection modifications, Illinois has mandated a standards-based teacher certification system, which has been in place at Eastern, but it will require changes to be made regarding the disciplines students are in for teacher certification.

Past systems only required a certain number of credit hours in an academic area for an individual to be recommended for a teaching certificate, Bower said. However, now the state has put specifications on these requirements.

The changes also involve a revised content area test and a new core professional standards test, Bower said.

Curriculum changes will take place in 2002 and 2003, with the new tests being administered for the first time in 2004 or 2005, Bower said. Most students currently in the education program will not be affected by those changes; however, if a student experiences an unusual delay in completing their degree, they may be forced to change catalogs and thus be affected by the new requirements.

Teacher education students will no longer be able to major in certain specific disciplines, due to modifications of the standards-based system, Bower said.

Under the new standards, students can major in the categories of social sciences, language arts and sciences, and they would then have concentrations in specific disciplines through those categories.

The new social sciences program will encompass all social sciences, which are history, sociology/anthropology, political science, economics, psychology and geography.

The social sciences revisions were presented to the Council on Teacher Education at the last meeting before semester break and approved, so those changes will be effective in the fall 2002 catalog, Bower said.

The same procedure will take place for the sciences category, which will combine chemistry, physics, biological sciences and earth sciences.

In the same fashion, English will be combined with speech communication to become the English language arts category.

A benefit the regrouping is to allow the future teachers to be able to instruct in the disciplines that comprise the categories, Bower said.

Accompanying these program changes are revised content area tests, which are the tests taken by education majors for their endorsements of specific disciplines, Bower said. There will be revised tests for all certification areas.

The state has also created a new test, which all teaching students will take, called the Core Language Arts Test, for the areas of special education, technology and language arts, Bower said. The test is scheduled to take effect in 2004 or 2005 as well.

“We don’t know anything about that test yet, we just know it’s coming,” he said.

Starting in the fall of 2002, the eight to 10 semester hours of extra teacher general education classes will no longer be required, Bower said, because the state relaxed those standards.

Teacher education students will only have to complete the university general education requirements, except for elementary education and special education students, who may have specific courses for their programs, Bower said.

The changes to teacher education have even spread to students that are teacher certification minors.

Previously students with teacher certification in a major discipline and a minor discipline were only required to take the content area test for the major discipline, Bower said. They would receive endorsement for the minor by simply completing the required classes.

However, starting in 2004 students will be required to take a content area test in all disciplines for their endorsements of both minors and majors.