STEM Alternative Certification Pathway

LSU offers students in the colleges of Science and Engineering an opportunity to expand their STEM career options after graduation to include middle/secondary school teaching. While you are an undergraduate in a STEM field at LSU, you are invited to integrate a sequence of 5 courses into your program of studies. With these courses plus two Praxis Exams, you are pre-qualified to come back to LSU at some time in your future to step into a fully paid one-year teaching internship program. Successful completion of the paid internship fully certifies you as a teacher of mathematics or a science in Louisiana and in many other states.

The Alternative Certification Pathway is ideal for STEM majors who intend to work in business or industry for several years, but wish to explore teaching at some point in the future. The United States has a severe shortage of STEM teachers in our nation’s middle and secondary schools; upwards of 450,000 STEM teachers will be needed in the next 10 years. The GeauxTeach STEM Alternative Certification pathway offers you a way of giving back to society by taking on new challenges of working with our nation’s youths. 

Course Requirements

For students in Science and Engineering, taking 5 extra courses can seem daunting. But one of these courses fulfills a Gen Ed Social Sciences (ILC Social/Behavioral Sciences) requirement, and many of the remaining “extra” courses can substitute in as electives, resulting in minimal or no extension of your program of studies. Contact geauxteach@lsu.edu to review your personal program of studies to see how these courses could fit in.

• SCI 2012* Inquiry Teaching (2) - a combination class of SCI 2010 and SCI 2011 (No prerequisites)
• EDCI 2500 Knowing and Learning in Mathematics and Science (3) - (GE SS) (No prerequisites)
• EDCI 3550 Classroom Interactions (3) - Spring-only (Prerequisites: SCI 2012 (or 2010 & 2011); EDCI 2500; GPA 2.5; ACT 22 or above)
• EDCI 4500 Instructional Models (3) - Fall-only (Prerequisites: EDCI 3550)
• EDCI 3136 Reading in the Content Area (3) - (No Prerequisites)

Below is a sample course matriculation. Registering for SCI 2012, the first course in the sequence, allows you to “Test Drive” teaching in a middle school classroom to discover if you may have a passion for it. If so, the subsequent 4 courses will get you ready with the knowledge and experience you need to step into a classroom teaching position upon graduation or at some later time in your STEM career. If teaching is not for you, this 2-credit hour course may count as an elective in your STEM degree.

*Note that two 1-credit hour courses SCI 2010 and SCI 2011 can be taken in place of SCI 2012 if that better fits your schedule.

*EDCI 3136 (3) can be taken any of these three semesters.

Scholarship 

After taking SCI 2012, students who are ready to commit to the internship phase of the program upon graduation can apply for scholarship support. Support details include: 

• $7000 paid to recipients, in equal installments, through the remainder of their undergraduate degree.
• Reimbursement of registration fees for Praxis Exams

Students who receive the financial package will be required to sign a Plan of Study and SEED Contract that commits them to repaying all funds received if they do not successfully complete

• a STEM degree with a minimum 2.5 GPA,
• a Praxis content exam,
• the Praxis PLT exam, and
• the post baccalaureate 1-year paid internship.

For more information on the program or the scholarship option please contact geauxteach@lsu.edu.