We are nearing the end of the approval process to be able to offer the Alternative Pathway to Professional Licensure Eligibility (APPLE) – Elementary Education. Over the past two years, MLC has engaged in several steps of the approval process to make sure that the program we are developing will provide our elementary schools with the qualified, prepared teachers our students deserve.

The Minnesota Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board (PELSB) approves all teacher preparation programs offered in Minnesota. As MLC is located in New Ulm, Minnesota, our teacher preparation progamming follows PELSB guidelines to establish the foundational knowledge in pedagogy required of all of our teacher candidates.

Our first step towards approval was to work with PELSB to demonstrate that the new program we are building and our current program are the same in courses and requirements related to teaching. We received approval from PELSB in September 2023.

The benefit of approval by PELSB is twofold.

One, it assures the schools we send our graduates to that regardless of which program they followed, they were all taught the same fundamental principles of teaching. Individual graduates may have varying levels of skill and ability, but they share a language of teaching and learning to support their continued growth as educators and collabroate with the faculty at their schools.

Two, successful completion of a teacher preparation program approved by PELSB leads to licensure eligbility. All graduates of the program then can apply for a Tier 3 Minnesota State teaching license. This license will serve them well if they are called to teach in a state or at an elementary school that reuqires their teachers to be licensed.

The second step on our journey to approval was an application to the Minnesota Office of Higher Education to offer this alternative pathway to a baccalaureate degree in elemetnary education.

As this program is specifically designed for returning adult learners, we were intentional and thoughtful in how we framed out the program. We realized that many classes completed at other institutions do not have an equivalent at MLC so they cannot be transferred in. And some classes may not be needed of all teachers at an elementary school.

The minimum number of required credits to earn a baccalaureate degree is 120. In recognition that the learners in our program need a streamlined approach and most likely have college credits that cannot apply to their degree, we designed APPLE to require 120 credits. APPLE is 10 credits fewer than the on-campus program, but it still assures that individuals who graduate from MLC have engaged with the General Education curriculum from a Christian perspective. This difference in credits reflects the elimination of activity courses, keyboard classes, and five credits of electives.

As part of our application to the Minnesota Office of Higher Education, we had to demonstrate that the 120 credits of coursework still met the General Education curriculum required of all baccalaureate programs offered by institutions approved in Minnesota.

We received notification that APPLE was approved by the Minnesota Office of Higher Education in May 2024.

The final step in the approval process is review by the Higher Learning Commission (HLC). The Higher Learning Commission is our regional accrediting body. HLC is one of seven regional accreditors that, with the national accreditors, reinforce institutional accountability. While HLC is important because it ensures that we are in compliance with all federal guidelines and expectations that are meant to protect our students, there is great value in the peer review process used to evaluate programming.

As a new modality for MLC, the credit-based, competency-based education program had to go through an extensive review process. The first step in that review process was the application. The application essentially asked MLC to reflect on the resources we have in place to support learners. We needed to demonstrate how we will monitor their progress in the program and how faculty and mentors will engage with and interact with learners. We needed to explain whether or not learners in the program will be eligible to receive institutional and federal financial aid. We were asked to share our plan to assess the program’s effectiveness. The intention of the program application then is not about our specific curriculum — those elements were assured by our internal processes and the review by both PELSB and the Minnesota Office of Higher Education — but about how the program will serve our learners.

We hope to be able to serve APPLE learners soon.

Each of these elements of the approval process are important in their own way. Each step of the process has required time and effort from various departments across campus to complete the associated application. Each submission took several months of waiting and praying for a final decision.

Ultimately, though, we know the final decision of each approval is in God’s hands from whom we continue to receive grace upon grace.