Information about State Teacher Licensing Requirements
Ken Zeichner, Associate Dean for Teacher Education
August 24, 2006

If you are teaching a course or supervising a field experience in one of our 20 + teacher education programs, you need to be aware of some basic information about state teacher licensing requirements in Wisconsin. Information about how the state teacher licensing law (PI34) affects our teacher education programs can be found by clicking on the PI34 link above. This site lists all of our pre-service teacher education programs and the specific standards, rules, and statutes that are met by required courses in each program.

When the new law went into effect a few years ago, our faculty decided which standards, rules, and statutes would be addressed by required courses in our programs, which artifacts from these courses, how student work in relation to the standards, rules, and statutes would be assessed, and which artifacts from these assessments would be put into students’ teaching portfolios.

Syllabus Requirements

If the course that you are teaching or the field experience that you are supervising addresses any of the standards, rules and statutes in PI34 (see link above) then you should make sure that you include in your syllabus:

• The standards, rules, or statutes addressed in your course or field experience
• Information about how the assessments are made in your course for standards and the rules and statutes
• Most courses have identified specific assignments that will be used to determine if students have met specific standards, rules or statutes.
• Students may also be provided with an option to choose among a list of possible assignments or they may be allowed or required to plan and select how they will address standards.

Note: Courses in the departments of Educational Policy Studies and Educational Psychology have set specific course grade requirements for making these decisions.

Standards and the Rules and Statutes Tracking

If your course addresses any of the elements of PI34, you will be responsible for recording whether students have or have not met the PI34 components addressed by the course at the end of the semester . Click on one of the Setting Standards / Rules link above to get instructions on setting standards, rules, and statutes. If you do not have a portfolio account, click on Account Setup to get information on setting up your portfolio system login.

Student Learning

Although we are required by the state education department (DPI) to provide information that our students have met the elements of PI34 to receive an initial teaching license in Wisconsin, we have been working very hard to try and implement these requirements in a way where they are valuable to our students in their learning to be teachers. All of our work has been focused on maximizing the impact on teacher learning of the assessment and portfolio systems. Click above on Integrating Portfolio in classes and seminars. The site will also provide you with information about portfolio support for students and integrating the portfolio processes into your class. Additional information on the Portfolio Project is available at the School of Education web site by clicking Teacher Preparation, then Portfolios

Teaching Assistants should discuss the issues raised in this memo with their faculty supervisor.

I will be happy to come and meet with people in specific teacher education programs if there is an interest.