Inspire young students
The Master of Education in Middle School Education program at Worcester State University helps you refine your teaching skills and broaden your content area knowledge so that you can excel as an educator in grades 5-8. Designed for teachers with an initial license in middle school education, our Education Department’s well-established program offers an advanced degree in education with a concentration in one of the following subject areas: biology, English, history, humanities, math, or Spanish.
You’ll be able to advance your career at your own pace: You can complete the program either full- or part-time, and courses are offered in the fall, spring, and summer terms in a range of formats, including in person, online, and hybrid (a mixture of both). What’s more, our highly respected program also is an exceptional value. In fact, students who earn their initial license through Worcester State’s Post-Baccalaureate Certificate for Initial Teacher Licensure in Middle or Secondary School Education program can use 4 of those courses toward their M.Ed.
By taking courses in your subject area as well as in education, you’ll gain a blend of content area expertise and middle school pedagogy that will strengthen your knowledge of adolescents’ developmental needs, abilities, and interests. You’ll also conduct research on an issue relevant to your classroom teaching, creating the proposal yourself and carrying out the project under the guidance of a faculty member.
Graduates of our program go on to rewarding careers as teachers in middle schools across the state. You may use the master’s degree in Middle School Education to further your career advancement—and as a possible pathway to professional educator licensure through the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
Admissions requirements
Applicants for this program must provide the following:
- Proof of a bachelor’s degree with a minimum 2.75 GPA from a regionally accredited institution or from a recognized foreign institution of higher education
- Completed graduate application, including fee and essay
- Official transcripts (Official Course-by-Course transcript evaluation required for all college level courses taken outside of the United States.)
- Two current letters of recommendation (Less than 6 months old)
- Results of an English proficiency assessment, if applicable
- Possession of an Initial license that includes middle school grades (1-6, 5-8 or 5-12) from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the relevant field of licensure.
Program of study
This program consists of thirteen (13) courses for a total of thirty-seven (37) credits. Four of the courses (12 credits) are in core education requirements, while six (18 credits) support the content field of licensure. All students take ES 950 Disciplinary, Multimodal and Critical Literacies Across the Curriculum as well as five (5) classes in their field of licensure (Humanities, Math, General Science, World Language/Spanish, English, History, or Mathematics/Science) to meet the content area requirements. The final three classes in the program are the advanced education courses of Research, Thesis Seminar and a one credit program portfolio encompassing both content and pedagogy.