Degree Requirements

Course Requirements

All students need to have sufficient knowledge of the subject they will be teaching.  Illinois State Board of Education requires a minimum of 48 quarter hours (32 semester hours) in the content area subject.  Typically these requirements are met concurrently with the completion of the CSH undergraduate degree program. Prior to admission to the 5th Year Master’s Year, students must meet with their CSH academic advisor to complete an undergraduate degree audit that will include an official written content area evaluation. Any areas of deficiency must be completed prior to beginning student teaching.

Content Area Requirements for Secondary Chemistry Education:

All coursework in the content area must earn a grade of C or better. 

  • General Chemistry I
  • General Chemistry II
  • General Chemistry III
  • Organic Chemistry I
  • Organic Chemistry II
  • Analytical Chemistry
  • Physical Chemistry I
  • Physical Chemistry II
  • Applied Probability and Statistics (2 qh)
  • Chemistry Seminar (2qh)
  • Calculus I
  • Calculus II
  • Calculus III
  • General Physics I
  • General Physics II
  • General Physics III

Choose three of the following Chemistry courses: 12 quarter hours

    • Organic Chemistry III
    • Air Chemistry
    • Solid Waste Chemistry
    • Physical Chemistry III
    • Intermediate Inorganic Chemistry
    • Intermediate Organic Chemistry
    • Biochemistry I
    • Biochemistry II
    • Biochemistry III
    • Nuclear Chemistry
    • Biophysical Chemistry
    • Medicinal Chemistry
    • Drugs and Toxicology
    • Nutrition
    • Applied Spectroscopy

Junior Year Coursework : 4 undergraduate quarter hours required

Senior Year Coursework : 16 quarter hours required

Undergraduate/Graduate Double-Counted Courses: 12 undergraduate/graduate quarter hours required

5th Year Master’s Year Coursework, excluding Student Teaching : 28 graduate quarter hours required

Student Teaching : 10 graduate quarter hours required

Registration in student teaching requires completion of all requirements and procedures listed in the college core section.   EDU 95 indicates to the Illinois State Board of Education that all field experience hours are complete. It is a non-credit, non-tuition course.

Certification Tests

All individuals certified by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) are required to complete certification tests specific to their teaching certificate.  Secondary Education Biology students must complete the following tests:

  • Test of Academic Proficiency (TAP) (test #400) - assesses knowledge of reading comprehension, language arts, writing, and math.  Test is required to qualify for Advanced Standing.
  • Science: Chemistry Content Area Test (test #106) – assesses knowledge of both geological and chemical science as well as general biological and physical sciences. Test is required before Student Teaching (deadlines apply)
  • Assessment of Professional Teaching (APT) (test #103, grade 6-12) – assesses knowledge of teaching planning, delivery, assessment, professionalism, and technology.  Test is required to be certified, recommended to take before Student Teaching.

Field Experiences​

Each student seeking certification from the College of Education/Professional Education Unit must complete supervised field experiences in appropriate settings in conjunction with education courses. The field experiences must include a variety of grade levels, multicultural experiences, and a minimum of 15 hours in special education settings. All field experiences must be completed prior to final approval for student teaching. Students should enter field experience hours into the FEDS system upon completion of each course with field experience requirements.  For details on requirements, expectations, documentation, & courses in your program that require hours, visit the College of Education website.

TCH 320

EXPLORING TEACHING IN THE URBAN HIGH SCHOOL

This course is an invitation to secondary education as a profession, an opportunity for students considering education as a career to explore the reality of teaching and learning a disciplinary content area in a variety of Chicago-area schools. Students will become familiar with different narratives of teaching through teacher and student biographies, testimonials, literature, film, and classroom observations. They will explore the interrelationships between, for example, popular cultural beliefs about schooling; teacher and student identities; and classroom interaction. The instructor will coordinate observations in several classrooms as the basis for intensive, guided reflective work, aimed at supporting students' initial and subsequent efforts of developing identities as disciplinary content educators (25 hours of high school classroom observation required).

TCH 390

CAPSTONE: INTEGRATING EDUCATION & DISCIPLINARY FOUNDATIONS

This course is designed to help students conceptualize issues and opportunities in teaching their disciplinary content to diverse students and in different classroom contexts. Ten hours Level 2 field experiences required. In this course, students will analyze and reflect on how teaching in their disciplines is informed by diverse cultures of schooling and youth, including the influences of economic, social, cultural, political, gender, and religious factors on schooling, educational policy and opportunity. Students will use disciplinary content to critically and creatively reflect on the teaching of that content in secondary schools. Students will be introduced to issues and ways of presenting essential disciplinary content in ways that engage diverse learners, including learners who have not been served well by formal education. Students will also develop a theory of teaching that emphasizes the intersection of disciplinary content with multicultural perspectives.

TCH 401

TEACHING AS A PROFESSION IN SECONDARY SCHOOL

This course is an introduction to the five-year Program, including the College of Education's conceptual framework and teacher dispositions, and to the professional world of secondary school teaching, including the policy bodies and stakeholders that impact teaching. Within this developing understanding of the larger context of secondary education, students will begin to articulate clearly professional identities and the behaviors inherent in those identities, including their impact on student learning. Drawing on previous coursework and their growing understanding of differences in individual, ethnic, and cultural group attitudes, values, and needs, students also will learn to recognize the complexities of teaching and learning in a pluralistic society. Ultimately, students will be committed to teaching as a responsible professional who acts in an ethical and collegial fashion. Twenty hours of Level 2 field experience is required.

TCH 414

THE NATURE OF SCIENCE

This course is about the nature of science and the interactions between science and society. It will build on the foundation of understandings that students already have about the processes and conventions of science developed through their years as science students to create opportunities for deeper understandings of the beliefs and assumptions inherent to the creation of scientific knowledge. These opportunities will be developed through direct interactions with professional scientists as well as through case studies and readings that illustrate the strengths, limits and pitfalls of the scientific endeavor as well as provide opportunities for students to relate science to their daily lives and interests and to a larger framework of human endeavor and understanding (e.g., relationships among systems of human endeavor including science and technology; relationships among scientific, technological, personal, social and cultural values). Cases will be drawn from different scientific disciplines as well as from modern and historic times. In this way, science students will have a better understanding of what it means to be a scientist and how science interfaces with society. The course is a prerequisite for TCH 424.

TCH 424

INQUIRY & APPLICATION IN DEVELOPING SECONDARY SCIENCE PEDAGOGY

Following TCH 414, this course transitions from asking "what does a scientist do?" to a consideration of why science literacy in the general public has been so difficult to achieve. The focusing questions for TCH 424 are: "How do we teach science? What is science literacy? Why is an understanding of science important to the general public? and What are the major obstacles and strategies to achieving science literacy?" The course begins by participants self-reflecting on their own educational experiences that led to their paths in science education: what have been their successful learning strategies, how have teachers influenced their education and what have been successful (and less than successful) classroom instructional strategies? From this, students will begin science classroom observation, discussing their observations with their peers, and speaking with educators about their experiences teaching high school science and about the goals and short-comings of science education. Throughout this process, students will read seminal literature on science literacy and explore cases challenging their notions of the teacher-learner relationship and the relationship between science and society. As a result of this course, students will gain a deeper understanding of scientific literacy and the barriers to understanding and teaching science as well as identify what makes an exceptional science teacher able to prepare both future scientists and a knowledgeable public.

SCG 406

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT AND LEARNING:SECONDARY

This course focuses on the multiple factors that contribute to the period of adolescence, bridging childhood and adulthood. Particular attention is given to the intrapsychic, interpersonal, biological, and socio-cultural processes that are mediated by the meanings that youth give to their identity vis a vis rac, class, and gender formations within the broader society. Students will engage in interdisciplinary study of theories to examine the implications for teaching and learning processes and the role of educational institutions in fostering the healthy development of youth in society. Forms of inquiry will include students' examination of their own lives and assumptions, critique of theory, and observations of young people in a variety of contexts.

LSI 446

PSYCHOLOGY AND EDUCATION OF THE EXCEPTIONAL CHILD

Identification, characteristics, programs, schools, curricular variations, techniques for securing maximal development. Includes historical background, current legal and service provision issues including mainstreaming and inclusion.
Prerequisites:
Advanced Teacher Candidate Standing is a prerequisite for this class.

TCH 454

RESEARCH METHODS & DISCIPLINARY INQUIRY: SCIENCE

This course introduces students to education research methods and discipline-specific research and inquiry. During the first five weeks, the course focuses on basic questions, issues, and theoretical frameworks central to the purpose, conceptualization, conducting, writing, reading and using education research as a means for informing education theory, practice and policy. Candidates will be exposed to the multiple frameworks that inform education research and various methodologies employed in collecting and analyzing data. During the last 6 weeks of the course, the course focuses on research related to the teaching of the sciences in the middle school and high school and pedagogical content knowledge, including research on teaching and learning, curricula and instructional delivery, assessment, and the relationship of socio-cultural, economic, and language use to teaching and learning disciplinary-specific content. Students will develop and implement small discipline-specific research projects, identifying research questions, conducting a literature search, developing a theoretical framework, and collecting and analyzing data.

TCH 464

INQUIRY & TEACHING OF MIDDLE SCHOOL SCIENCE

This course addresses issues of teaching and learning the sciences at the middle-school level (grades 5 through 8). During the first five weeks, the course focuses on foundational and contemporary theories of middle-school-aged adolescent development. It introduces candidates to theoretical and philosophical issues related to contemporary questions of youth and middle level education. It explores the historical invention of adolescence, changing ideas about the meaning of childhood, as well as some of the broader social, economic, political, and cultural implications of these changing ideas. The last six weeks of the course explore the differences between middle school and high school students within the context of designing science curriculum, creating a classroom environment, and implementing instructional delivery strategies and methods that meet diverse middle school students, including English language learners and students who speak nonmainstream dialects of English.

TCH 474

TEACHING THE SCIENCES IN THE HIGH SCHOOL 1

This course introduces students to the theoretical and practical issues of teaching the sciences in secondary classrooms. The course introduces candidates to research-based and theoretically grounded best practices in the teaching of the different sciences, including biology, chemistry, environmental science, and physics. Students will practice and reflect on writing instructional objectives, developing lesson plans, designing a curriculum unit, creating a classroom environment, and implementing instructional delivery strategies and methods, including the use of technology resources, that meet the needs of diverse learners, including English language learners and students who speak nonmainstream dialects of English. Students will reflect on their own emerging educational philosophies and theories. They will also demonstrate commitment to teaching as a professional who acts responsibly, ethically, and collegially in accordance to Vincentian personalism.

TCH 484

TEACHING THE SCIENCES IN THE HIGH SCHOOL 2

This course continues students' immersion into the pedagogical content knowledge development and practices that began in TCH 424 and TCH 474. The course provides students opportunities to continue to explore and develop research-based and theoretically grounded best practices in the teaching of the different sciences, including biology, chemistry, environmental science, and physics with an emphasis on reflective and collaborative practice. The course provides extensive opportunities for planning, using, and evaluating a variety of instructional strategies, including the use of technology resources, through teaching demonstrations and modeling and field experiences. Students will fine-tune and reflect on writing instructional objectives, developing lesson plans, designing a curriculum unit, creating a classroom environment, and implementing instructional delivery strategies and methods that meet the needs of diverse learners, including English language learners and students who speak nonmainstream dialects of English. And like in TCH 471, students will reflect on and clearly articulate orally, in writing, and through practice an educational philosophy and theory. Students will also demonstrate commitment to teaching as a professional who acts responsibly, ethically, and collegially in accordance to Vincentian personalism.

TCH 495

ASSESSMENT ISSUES IN SECONDARY EDUCATION

This course introduces candidates to theoretical and philosophical issues related to educational assessment. It addresses the range of assessments teachers will encounter in school settings, including individual cognitive and social and emotional assessments; course material, curricula, and disciplinary program assessments; and large scale high-stakes testing. The course provides candidates opportunities to explore student, program, and curricular assessment issues, including assessment methods and tools; standardized, quantitative, and qualitative assessments; formal and informal assessments; formative and summative assessments; integrated, self-, and peer assessments; cultural, social, economic, and language influences on assessments; and issues of reliability and validity in assessment.

A&S 491

ADMINISTRATIVE THEORY AND BEHAVIOR

This course concerns theoretical concepts and empirical research relating to administrative behavior in organizations with special reference to educational organizations. Concepts are examined within the typical decisional framework of supervisors, chief school business officers, principles, and superintendents, and similar positions in the helping professions. Assignments are individualized.
Prerequisites:
Status as an Advanced Masters Education student is a prerequisite for this class.

TCH 590

STUDENT TEACHING

This course is the culminating experience for TCH Program students and requires 11 weeks of onsite student teaching in a high school content area classroom. The course requires students to be in a high school full-time, participating in both in-class instruction and extra-curricular activities related to the school. PREREQUISITES: Open only to TEACH Program Students; Student teaching application and approval required.

TCH 591

STUDENT TEACHING SEMINAR

This course must be taken concurrently with TCH 590. The seminar format provides students an opportunity to reflect on their student teaching experiences and to reach back and consider what they have learned in the TCH Program and their next steps as practicing teachers. COREQUISITE(S): TCH 590.

EDU 95

CLINICAL EXPERIENCE WITH CHILDREN AND YOUTH

(no credit) Required of all students. Observations and participatory experience with children and youth in a school or agency. This course is a prerequisite for student teaching and related professional courses.
​