Professional Licensure: Special Education

Educators pursuing professional licensure as a Teacher of Students with Moderate Disabilities (PreK-8 or 5–12) have the opportunity to advance their content knowledge and career by applying to the Professional Licensure Program in Moderate Disabilities.

Candidates who successfully complete four of the courses approved by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and all other state requirements will be eligible for endorsement at the professional level by Northeastern University.

Program Objectives

• Review the biological, neuropsychological, psychosocial, cognitive, behavioral, and ecological theories of development

• Examine teaching rooted in clearly defined expectations and logical consequences, teaching that helps foster communal responsibility, self-discipline, and self-determination for students with disabilities and their “typical” peers

• Investigate questions in ways designed to ensure that educators are better able to help all students access the curriculum consonant with state and local frameworks and the students’ specific learning and developmental needs

• Focus on the complex challenges faced by children and youth who struggle (or fail) to achieve measurable success in reading and writing

• Learn how to describe and analyze the difficulties encountered by struggling readers and writers, and identify and evaluate a range of appropriate strategies to address those difficulties