The University of Evansville (UE) announced recently that the Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) approved an expansion of their academic program designed to get undergraduate degree holders into a legit state teaching license.
It’s called the Transition2Teaching (T2T) program. According to a UE news release, this program is needed due to the demand for qualified teachers — a topic discussed at the recent State of the Schools address, by Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation Superintendent David Smith.
“So what's the result of that divisive environment as well as inadequate funding for more than a decade? We simply have fewer teachers and we have fewer teachers on the pipeline,” he said.
Sherry Millikan is Co-Department Chair of the School of Education at the University of Evansville. She said UE feels responsible for bolstering the teacher talent pipeline in area schools.
“We want to help them be successful and have very highly effective teachers in the classroom to help prepare our future generations,” she said. “So we feel very responsible for that, especially in the School of Education here.”
The secondary education program has been in operation for a few years, but the elementary program is new.
Anyone with a bachelor’s degree can start on their teaching license at the onset of any coming semester, and be done with 18 credit hours and 600 hours of clinical experience in area classrooms, and teach in K-5 classrooms.
Both secondary and elementary levels can be completed in one year, and require 600 hours of clinical experience in area classrooms.
She said students can be hired at a local school prior to finishing the course.
“Every student is placed with a university supervisor, and an effective, experienced mentor-teacher in the building, wherever they're hired, or if they're not hired, that's okay, too,” she said. “We will place them to have experiential learning in those buildings.”
One important difference to note — is that elementary T2T students can have any bachelors degree to complete the program.
For secondary education, an applicable degree or at least a minor or coursework in the anticipated field of education must be attained.
For example, a future high school math teacher must have applicable mathematics course work to qualify for the program.
The program is offered completely online, or during in-person evening classes.