Certification in Graduate Intern Teaching
The Graduate Intern Teaching Certification is designed exclusively for candidates who hold a bachelor's degree and who seek to qualify for the Pennsylvania Instructional I Certificate in order to teach at the elementary or secondary school level in PA only.
Completion of all required Praxis, three of the core courses (includes EDUC 540 Student Teaching) and select undergraduate content courses leads to a temporary Intern Teacher Certificate issued by the Pennsylvania Department of Education. This feature makes the program ideal for those who would like to begin teaching in Pennsylvania in as few as nine months to a year while completing the remainder of the required certification courses.
This program is available online.
Eligibility and Requirements
In order to be eligible, students must possess a baccalaureate degree related to their area of certification and a
minimum 3.0 GPA. Students generally must have already completed the state-required content courses — at minimum having
completed six semester credits of college-level mathematics, three semester credits of English composition, and three semester credits of literature.
During the first term, students take the Praxis I: PPST (Reading, Writing, and Mathematics), EDUC 520 Professional Studies in Instruction and EDUC 542 Fundamentals of Education, then apply for field placement, EDUC 540 Graduate Student Teaching, according to the application deadlines and procedures. If a student begins the program in the spring term, the earliest he or she can begin his or her student teaching is during the winter term, thus stretching the duration of the program to one year.
EDUC 540 Graduate Student Teaching requires a minimum of six hours per day, five days a week for 12 weeks. Once a student has successfully completed 520, 542, and 540, along with all Praxis exams necessary for their specific area of teacher certification, the candidate is eligible to apply for the Pennsylvania Intern Certificate.
Once a Pennsylvania Intern Certificate has been obtained, students are required to take a minimum of one course per term toward the remaining requirements for full certification, the PA Instructional I.
IMPORTANT NOTICE:
The Pennsylvania Department of Education has released new regulations for certification that will affect students seeking certification AFTER January 1, 2013. All candidates seeking the current Elementary Education (K-6) Certification must complete all certification requirements and apply for PA Instructional I certification BEFORE January 1, 2013.
Please see the Pennsylvania Department of Education's website for the web version of their Intern Handbook regarding the PA Intern Certification Program.
More information on the Certification in Graduate Intern Teaching is available on the Teacher Education website.
