New Rossier sustainability, community and STEM education minor aims to provide undergraduates with teaching credentials

USC Rossier School of Education announced the sustainability, community and STEM education minor program, allowing undergraduate students to obtain a single-subject teaching credential while receiving their bachelor’s degree. The minor curriculum includes five courses and will tentatively be available starting fall 206.

The courses are in partnership with the USC Joint Educational Project (JEP) with an emphasis on interdisciplinary approaches to teaching topics including climate change, equity and sustainability. Clinical education professor Fred Freking — one of the faculty involved in creating this minor — believed this program is necessary in the current teaching climate.

“Texas and California had a program to get undergraduate students — smart science and math majors — into the field of teaching, and I think this program has a lot of similarities to that, where you can just get exposed,” Freking said. “The schools around USC really need more support and I think once students get in there and see good stuff that’s going on and how they can contribute, there’s a lot of fulfillment.”

The syllabi for the five courses were largely developed by DJ Kast, the JEP director of STEM education programs, and Jenifer Crawford, the professor of clinical education. One of the courses is a Maymester program where students will obtain real-world time and experience in one of JEP’s LA partner schools.

“I’m currently developing all of the sixth-grade curriculum as the expansion of our program and getting all the supplies for hands-on experiments,” Kast said. “When the program starts, the students who are taking those classes will work with us and be put into sixth-grade classrooms with our six schools.”

California, along with several other states, is currently facing a teacher shortage. According to Proximity Learning, over 80% of California teachers cannot keep up financially with their current salaries. According to Scholaroo, California also has one of the highest student-to-teacher ratios in the country.

Now, the state of California is changing requirements for obtaining teaching credentials — which previously could only be earned post-baccalaureate level — because of the demand for teachers.

This program will help get more science-credentialed teachers into the world of education, said Freking.

“The Rossier mission is all about helping out those schools where they really need great teachers,” Freking said. “It’s so important that we understand science — everybody, not just the people that go to college — so it’s really important to have great teachers that know science and that can teach students.”

An info meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, Nov. 19, from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. at the University Club. This meeting is space-limited with preference to STEM majors, and students can register here.