Elsewhere, the Elementary Subject Specialization model requires that classroom subject specialists teach one to two core subjects in which they excel, for two to four classes of students.
HELP also provides courses in: English, French, and Leadership, as well as subject specialization courses for university entrance exams.
Applicants to STEP Secondary should demonstrate a strong knowledge of and commitment to the subject matter of their teaching specialization (i.e., Math, Science, English, History/Social Science, or World Languages).
Others have subject-matter expertise.
Subject-matter experts were given double weight.
The subject matter for such practice and specialization has recently been gathered in the first textbook dedicated to this area [ 49].
This becomes critical in the k-5 classrooms as, O'Brien et al. (2014) express, there is a limited number of k-5 teachers with a STEM specialization and "a lack of STEM subject matter expertise and experiences, coupled with high anxiety and low self-efficacy can lead to low teacher effectiveness and lack of interest in STEM subjects by k-5 students" (p. 280).
Skill specialization is related more to areas of knowledge required, such as subject matter, services produced or equipment used.
One possible way that the MOE is working on to overcome this issue of low confidence with subject matter knowledge is to have formal peer mentoring structures whereby pre-service teachers with different specialization backgrounds are put together in learning communities.
My career path was a natural progression of starting from the ground up, developing a preference for one particular specialization within the IT field, and then centering my efforts to develop into a subject matter expert in a niche area.
