Departmental Requirements
Students in the major must complete a total of 1311 credit hours of University courses. This includes a minimum of 42 semester hours of General Education Requirements, 21 semester hours of Departmental core courses, 10 semester hours of program electives, 42 semester hours of Professional Education courses, and 16 semester hours of Supportive courses.
Students who meet University of Maryland Eastern Shore’s admission requirements can enroll in Biology Education. Prospective Biology Teacher Education candidates are not formally admitted to the Professional Education Unit until they have completed an Application to Teacher Education and have been accepted.
Teacher candidates who wish to major in Biology Education must have an overall and major content grade point average of 3.0 for admission into and retention in the program. For admission, an overall GPA of 3.0 or higher in a minimum of 45 approved semester hours is required.
Applications must be completed for admission to the Biology Education teacher program within the scheduled deadline. The teacher education application lists specific course requirements and requires two essays which address the potential candidate’s disposition toward teaching, as well as providing writing samples, and field experience recommendation. Four letters of recommendation from faculty (one had to be from the advisor) are also required.
Grades of “C” or above must be attained in each required course of the Biology Education major, the specialized content area combined with the professional educational courses. A candidate’s progress is monitored each semester by the academic advisor to ensure that the candidate continues to meet the minimum GPA of 3.0 in both the major and overall course work.
In order to be eligible for internship, Biology Education candidates are required to submit the following indicators: application for internship, field experience, and pre-internship recommendations, methods instructor recommendations, formal academic measures including a 3.0 or higher overall grade point average, a 3.0 grade point average in the major, with no grades lower than C in all courses, and working portfolio review.
All Biology Education candidates must satisfactorily complete the independent research project and manuscript prior to graduation. The candidates must satisfactorily complete the professional portfolio, which is started early in the program and revised and completed during the internship experience and is tied to the INTASC Principles, Unit’s Conceptual Framework, and NSTA standards, prior to graduation. They must also complete an Exit Survey.
Objectives
The objectives of the Biology Education Program are as to:
- Expose teacher candidates in Biology from diverse cultural backgrounds to the breadth and depth of content knowledge in biology and related sciences necessary for fulfilling requirements of teaching careers in diverse cultural settings.
- Train future teachers in Biology who will be competent in the application of modern technological advances in innovative ways of thinking and approaching critical issues related to both science and education.
- Provide future teachers the opportunity to acquire mastery of skills through constant reflection of their teaching and techniques that are used to obtain, analyze, and interpret scientific information.
Career Opportunities
Apart from the employment opportunities outlined in the Biology program, the students receiving the teaching degree with licensure can choose to enter a teaching career in secondary education.
1The higher than 120 cr. hr. requirement is to meet the standards of NCATE (National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education) and NSTA (National Science Teachers Association).
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