Applying for the Certificate

The Certificate in the Study of Education will be awarded to students who successfully complete (with a grade of B or higher) seven credits from the approved curriculum. The courses must include at least one course in each of the following categories: 1) Cognitive and psychological influences on learning and schooling; 2) Social and structural analyses of education; 3) Statistics; 4) Broader contexts; 5) In-school experience. The two additional courses should be chosen from those in categories 1 and/or 2. The current list of courses in the approved curriculum is available at the certificate website (http://www.wesleyan.edu/cse/requirements.html). The courses may be completed in any order consistent with their prerequisites.

Applications will accepted at any time before the end of add/drop in the semester prior to the student’s graduation. All of the materials noted below must be submitted (with advisor signatures) and incomplete applications will be returned without review. The application materials may be submitted to any of the supervising faculty (see http://www.wesleyan.edu/cse/faculty.html for the current list).

1) A completed Certificate Declaration Form available from the Registrar (or at this link). Complete and sign the upper section and select “CSED - Study of Education Certificate” from the drop-down menu in the second section. The appropriate signature will be added to this section after the supervising faculty have completed their review.

2) The completed Application for the Certificate in the Study of Education, which is available as a fillable PDF file at this link.

The supervising faculty strongly encourage completion of the certificate requirements using the approved course list. In exceptional circumstances it may be possible to substitute a limited number of other courses for those on the approved list. Approval for substitution requires that a petition for each such course be submitted with the other application materials. The petition must give a full description of the education-related content of the course (e.g., from the detailed syllabus) and describe how it fulfills the requirements of the certificate equivalently to approved courses. No more than a total of two individual or group tutorials (and no student fora) may be used to fulfill the certificate requirements.

Questions regarding the certificate or the application procedures may be directed to any of the supervising faculty.

Note that the Certificate in the Study of Education does not provide the course credentials for CT State Initial Educator Certification that are required for teaching positions in public schools.