Initiatives in Educational Transformation (IET)

New Professional Studies-Teaching (NPST) Academic Offerings

• 30-credit New Professional Studies-Teaching, Master of Arts Degree
• 15-credit NPST: Transformative Teacher Leadership Graduate Certificate
• 15-credit NPST: Teaching Historic Places with Diverse Populations Graduate Certificate

All three offerings are designed with your schedule in mind and your teaching and learning concerns as the focus. Learners will design more effective instruction while meeting standards through reflection, collaboration, and action research. The uniquely friendly schedule helps to ensure completion in a timely fashion (cohort classes are held 1-2 weeks during the summer, and on Saturdays during the school year). Graduates of an IET certificate can expand and build on their professional development by taking another year of studies to earn the New Professional Studies–Teaching, MA.

Master of Arts in New Professional Studies-Teaching

Created to provide an opportunity for practicing teachers to grow professionally by engaging in critical reflection and by developing an inquiry stance in their classrooms. For licensed, practicing K-12 school teachers in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia. The program will help teachers to develop as critically reflective educators who continually examine and rethink the routines and assumptions that shape their work. Details

Transformative Teacher Leadership Graduate Certificate

Teachers will gain skills and dispositions to be highly effective in their classrooms and to be leaders in their schools, in their professional associations, and in their communities as civically engaged advocates for teachers and students. Details

Teaching Historic Places with Diverse Populations Graduate Certificate

New this summer! Designed for DC metropolitan area classroom history, social studies and language arts teachers, as well as historic site interpreters, education outreach coordinators, and others who interact with diverse populations of K-12 children and youth. Students will deepen historical thinking and practice. While exploring historic places around the nation's capital students will experience and deepen understanding of key moments and cultural memories in US and DC history. Details

What are the core values of the NPST Program?

• New Professionalism
• Collaboration
• Research-Based Practice
• Technology Integration
• Reflective Practice
• Social Justice/Diversity
• Transformative Leadership
• Meeting the Needs of 21st Century Learners

IET Gets Praise From FCPS 2010 Principal of the Year

Augie Frattali, Fairfax County Public Schools 2010 Principal of the Year says "Rachel Carson Middle School currently has five teachers pursuing a Master’s in George Mason University’s Initiatives in Educational Transformation (IET) program. The focus of the IET courses blends perfectly with the programs and initiatives that we are engaged in at our school. We pride ourselves on maintaining a collaborative culture where we value teachers’ contributions and leadership. Through the IET program, teachers have used our school as a test-bed for new and innovative ideas directed at staff development and impacting student instruction. The benefits are numerous, and have helped us to improve our school climate and address challenges with our student population. The staff who are involved in the University’s graduate program have realized the power they have as teachers to make positive changes in the classroom and throughout our community."

Augie Frattali, Fairfax County Public Schools 2010 Principal of the Year