APPLE Course Design Initiative

Now that we’ve finalized our HLC application to offer the Alternative Pathway to Professional Licensure Eligibility (APPLE) – Elementary Education, the Nontraditional Education Team can turn their attention to course design in earnest. We’re not approved to offer APPLE yet, but we continue to move forward, believing that God will continue to bless and guide our efforts to his will.

Both Dr. Martin and Dr. Nichole LaGrow will work closely with MLC faculty to create Required Content, Professional Education, and Field Experience courses that meet Minnesota Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board (PELSB) requirements. These courses will be very similar to our on-campus offerings. They will include the same standards and signature assessments required regardless of modality. However, the modality does change some elements of the coursework. For example, one feature of Brightspace that will be regularly featured in the classes is the ability to integrate digital content with comprehension checks as learners engage with the curated resources.

Dr. Nichole LaGrow will work closely with MLC faculty to create the General Education and Required Content courses that do not have Minnesota Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board requirements. These courses will also closely parallel our on-campus offerings. These courses are not aligned with PELSB standards, but they will be mapped to the same general education and/or program outcomes and follow the same assessment cycle and related assessments as their on-campus offering. Additionally, a writing-intensive general education course remains a writing-intensive course with the same requirements of instruction in writing and the creation of 10-15 pages of polished, professional writing by the end of the course.

Our goal is to ensure that learners have a substantively similar academic experience and are held to the same academic rigor and expectations across all modalities offered by MLC.