Note: If you are interested in teaching but not certification,
you may still take teacher preparation courses and do fieldwork in
education. This will give you knowledge and skills that alternative
programs or charter schools may not have time to provide. Whichever
path you take, you will receive individual attention from us in pursuit
of your goals. Our programs are designed to fit with your other
Wellesley courses and you may graduate with certification or with
some amount of preparation for teaching. (One important consideration
in deciding how much to do at Wellesley is the high cost of some
graduate teacher certification programs as recent alumnae have emphasized
to us.)
High School & Middle School Certification
If you wish to be certified for high school or middle school teaching,
you would take specific courses within the academic field of your
major and complete a required sequence of four or five education
and psychology courses. We offer high school and middle school
certification in biology, chemistry, Chinese, earth science, English,
French, Japanese, Latin, Spanish, history, mathematics, physics,
and political science. You may apply for individual certification
in other fields. Coursework for teacher certification concludes
with student teaching, which is completed during spring semester
of your senior year and counts as a regular set of courses.
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Elementary School Certification
If you wish to be certified for elementary school teaching, you may
major in any subject. You would take a sequence of introductory
and upper-level psychology and education courses and do student
teaching, including courses on methods of teaching reading and
other subjects, taught by a team of experienced teachers from the
Wellesley and Boston Public Schools.
Teacher certification requires 50 hours of fieldwork prior to student
teaching, which you can do in conjunction with education or psychology
courses. Students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
may also complete teacher preparation and student teaching through
Wellesley and/or MIT courses.
Below are links to the details of certification requirements. If
you think you might be interested, please discuss these with us to
find ways that a program can work for you.
