Elementary Education & Special Education Major
Back to Majors, Minors & Academic Programs
About the Major
This program is one degree with two majors, elementary education and special education. Students collaborate with faculty and teachers from local schools to learn the best ways to meet the needs of students with learning differences. Veteran instructors offer guidance as students discover the special legal and developmental challenges that students and their families face.
Jobs in Elementary Education & Special Education
- Resource teacher
- Self-contained teacher
- Inclusion teacher
- Classroom teacher
Past Elon Elementary Education & Special Education Internships
- E. M. Holt Elementary
- Altamahaw-Ossipee Elementary
- South Mebane Elementary
- North Graham Elementary
- Alexander Wilson Elementary
Related Majors
‘Lifelong learner’ mentality came directly from Elon’s education classrooms
Jenna Mason struggled in school growing up. But during a prerequisite government course during her first year at Elon University, she discovered the magic of learning.
Her instructor “just had this way of holding class,” she said. “I was like, ‘Oh, wow, I’m learning and I’m not afraid to ask questions.’ It was such a vulnerable, cool learning space, and I very quickly realized that if that had been my experience for longer, I would have loved school a lot earlier.” In that classroom, the theatrical design and production major decided she actually wanted to be a teacher.
By the end of her first year, she decided to transfer to the Dr. Jo Watts Williams School of Education, where she pursued a Bachelor of Arts in special education and teaching, with concentrations in K–12 special education (today, the comparable program is called elementary education and special education) and middle school social studies.
I’m constantly seeking research to make sure that what I’m doing in my teaching is the best practice it can be at any given time, and I think that was modeled in every classroom I was in at Elon.
Though she was a year behind schedule because of the transfer, she still felt immensely prepared to begin her career by the time she graduated from Elon in 2016. After spending a year in Thailand as a Fulbright Scholar, she started teaching special education at Eagle Hill School in Greenwich, Connecticut, in January 2018.
“I truly tell everyone, I think Elon’s practicum and internship experience is really unparalleled,” said Mason, noting that every semester, education students are assigned to a public school and do a certain number of hours based on the courses they’re taking, so by the time they do their student teaching, they’ve been observing and assisting in six to eight schools. “That’s probably what makes the Elon School of Ed stand out the most — just having their teaching candidates in schools and constantly connecting the coursework to what is happening. It keeps it really fresh and just makes their candidates more well-versed, so that by the time we were student teaching, people really had a better sense of what they were looking for.”
Across four consecutive semesters her sophomore and junior years, Mason did practicums in seventh-grade general education, K–5 speech language, second-grade general education, fifth-grade general education and K–5 special education.
When it came time for her to student teach her senior year, she was torn between her love of elementary special education — which she became attracted to while working at Eagle Hill’s summer programs in Greenwich, Connecticut — and middle school social studies. Unsure what to do, she sought out her mentor, associate professor of education Stephen Byrd.
“Within a day, Dr. Byrd had made a call to all these people and found a charter school that would allow me to do both,” Mason said. At Clover Garden Charter School in Burlington, North Carolina, she would spend half the day teaching social studies and the other half teaching K–5 special education.
In 2023, Mason wrote an essay for Elon about Byrd, noting that this moment “illustrates what I try to do every day as a teacher. He listened, validated, advocated for his student’s needs and created a modified but effective program.”
Mason had multiple other opportunities at Elon that enriched her time there. As a Periclean Scholar, she engaged in a three-year cohort program studying humanitarian aid in Honduras. She also studied abroad for a January term in Costa Rica, learning about ecotourism and how to engage in the world sustainably. She received a School of Education scholarship that allowed her to study abroad for the summer in Salamanca, Spain. And she was awarded the prestigious Fulbright scholarship, which she credits to the support that Elon’s National and International Fellowships Office gave her during the application process.
“I think some of the best writing instruction I got was in applying for my Fulbright,” said Mason, who in speaking with her Fulbright peers from other colleges learned that most of them didn’t receive university assistance in applying. “I really felt supported at every step, that Elon had my best interest at heart. That just speaks to the really invested faculty.”
In rural northern Thailand for the Fulbright, Mason taught secondary-level conversational English to high school students while collaborating with native Thai English teachers to create a sustainable English education program. She also facilitated and ran English camps throughout the country.
Back in the United States in 2017, she started teaching special education at Eagle Hill, where she stayed for six years. There, teaching kids with language-based learning disabilities in K–8, she focused on individualized instruction. And whereas sometimes special education primarily focuses on literacy, she was able to teach all subjects.
“I really liked having the full scope and full-child picture, and I think that’s a shift that we’re seeing in general in special education now,” she said.
In 2023, she earned her Master of Arts in Independent School Leadership from the Klingenstein Center at Columbia University Teachers College and then became a lower school learning specialist at the Chapin School in New York.
“I’ve been really interested in systems around supporting children who learn differently in independent schools, where there are so many resources and so many opportunities,” she said. “I think there’s a very specific way of teaching and learning that can meet the needs of everyone in the room.”
At Chapin, Mason works with students in kindergarten through third grades, collaborating with teachers through the push-in approach (as opposed to the pull-out model, where special education students are pulled out of the classroom to learn), differentiating and building support within the classroom.
She encourages those who are considering a major in elementary education or middle grades education to pursue the dual major in elementary education and special education or middle grades education and special education.
“I think it really strengthens an academic profile,” she said. “At the end of the day, all kids learn differently.”
Because of the strong bond she had with her mentor, Byrd, at Elon, she still talks with him regularly, seeking out his career advice because she knows his answers will be honest and thoughtful. In doing so, she has discovered since graduation how much of an influence he and the university have had on her as a person, a teacher and a learner.
“I feel like my strongest identity as a teacher and a student is just being a lifelong learner, and I think that did come from Elon,” she said. “I’m constantly seeking research to make sure that what I’m doing in my teaching is the best practice it can be at any given time, and I think that was modeled in every classroom I was in at Elon.”
About a year ago, Mason had coffee with Byrd and was in awe as he asked her questions about her research and experiences with remote learning.
“I think of him as this person I hold as the expert in all of this, and he so quickly was able to sit down and say, ‘Wait, here’s this experience you have, tell me what this is like with remote learning, tell me what this looks like now,’ and I left thinking, ‘It really did come from Elon’—that kind of humility and just knowing that there’s always more we can learn.”
Did You Know?
- The Dr. Jo Watts Williams School of Education combines a challenging curriculum with ongoing internship experiences and opportunities for students to participate in international study in their major. Students begin with a firm foundation in the arts and sciences and work with students in local schools as early as their first year.
- A foundation in a broad range of topics ensures that graduates are prepared to lead, can adapt to changing professional demands and will be ready to work with families and the community. Students pursue in-depth research studies and analysis of educational theories and practices.
- A Bachelor of Arts degree with majors in Special Education and Elementary Education meets the coursework requirements for special education and elementary education (K-6) licensure in North Carolina. Other licensure components (testing, edTPA) are required for licensure referral.