Creating a Masters in Numeracy Program

The Master of Science in Numeracy program at Alfred University received full approval from the New York State Education Department (NYSED) in May of 2007. This first-of-its-kind program seeks to provide teachers at all levels, from across the curriculum, the skills, and more importantly the confidence, to introduce relevant quantitative concepts in their own disciplines. Created to be a complement of the MS Ed. in Literacy, the 30-hour MS in Numeracy program consists of four required core courses (Teaching Numeracy, Teaching with Data, Assessment and Learning Theories in Numeracy, and Doing Science and Numeracy), five electives from a list of numeracy and literacy courses, and a Masters project. The program graduated its first student in May 2008 and three more since then. Major challenges for the program have included the uncertain (i.e., by-application) connection between an MS and licensure (in contrast to the automatic professional certification for MS Ed. degrees) and the small number of faculty involved in teaching the numeracy courses. The current status of the program is questionable as the person (the author) who taught the first three core courses has left the University and has not yet been replaced. Even so, I believe this MS in Numeracy program offers a potentially useful example of a strategy to enhance the spread of QL through teacher preparation.