Secondary Education MAT Mathematics Concentration Alternative Teacher Licensure Program

This route to the M.A.T. and teacher licensure is for candidates accepted into NLU's alternative teaching licensure partner program. Candidates in this program are working in school districts as a teacher of record while completing their program coursework. 

Visit Licensure and Endorsement at NLU for more details.

For more information on state licensure and certification information please visit NLU’s Public Disclosures page. 

Program Learning Outcomes (PLOs):

1.      Develop and practice a philosophy of education based on self-reflection.
 
2.      Use knowledge of students to design a respectful learning community in which learning experiences are engaging, challenging, and meet the diverse needs of all learners.
 
3.      Develop instructional practices that facilitate higher-order thinking and depth of student understanding.
 
4.      Design and use formative and summative assessments that align with learning outcomes, inform instruction, and measure multiple forms of evidence. 
 
5.      Provide ongoing, meaningful performance feedback to enhance student learning.
 
6.      Use current technology that is appropriate to the instructional outcomes, complements content-specific material, and actively engages students.
 
7.      Exhibit a clear understanding of the roles and responsibilities of being a teacher.

In addition to National College of Education Graduate Admissions Requirements, applicants must:

• Pass the Mathematics Content Area Exam (208). Candidates without a passing score must attend tutoring sessions in May- June.

• Have 24 SH of coursework in Mathematics completed with a grade of C or better in the following areas:  
• Have at least one course in the following areas:
  • CALCULUS (3 SH)—These courses should cover the topics of limits, continuity, differentiation and applications of integration and possibly some topics from analytic geometry. The use of calculus in solving real life problems with technology should be emphasized. The courses meeting this requirement should be sequential in nature.
  • ADVANCED GEOMETRY (3 SH)—Courses such as projective, affine and topology fit here. These three semester hours of geometry must be upper (300/400/graduate) level.
  • NUMBER THEORY (3 SH)—Courses should contain number theory, comparisons of numbers and number systems, and representation/application of complex numbers. Courses with titles such as group theory, ring theory and field theory will also fit in this area.
  • MODERN/ABSTRACT ALGEBRA (3 SH)—Courses within this area should contain the development of the real number system and its subsystems and the analysis and explanation of procedures used for operations involving integers, rational, real and complex numbers. The use of technology to demonstrate and apply the properties of real numbers and their use in solving real life problems should also be included in this course. OR LINEAR ALGEBRA (3 SH)— The content of the course should include matrices and their operations, solutions of systems and equations, vector spaces, linear transformation, eigen values and eigenvectors with a focus on the use of linear algebra in solving real life problems. A course in matrix algebra or matrix theory will fit in this area.
  • PROBABILITY & STATISTICS (3 SH)—Coursework in this area should contain the treatment of topics as mutually exclusive events, independent ad dependent events, conditional probability, combinatorics, random variables, sampling methods, confidence intervals, inferential statistics, distributions and correlation. Estimating probabilities and data representation using graphing calculators or statistical software should also be covered in this course. A statistics course in other areas (business, economics, etc.) may be placed here.
  • MATH ELECTIVES (9 SH)—Any college-level math courses, if needed to reach 24 SH
  • Note: students may be admitted to the program with three deficiencies (max 9sh) in the content coursework that must be completed by the end of the Fall term in the second year of the program
• Submit written statement describing the candidate’s interest in entering a degree in Secondary Education through an Alternative Licensure program
• Sit for an interview with the Program Coordinator, program faculty and the university partners
• Submit description of candidates’ employment experience in schools and working with students or evidence of a minimum of 4 weeks substitute teaching experience or school support experience in the appropriate grade level or content area
• Submit three references (from BA degree or employment experience appropriate for teaching experience)

Program Details:

• Requires 33 SH for completion
• Requires a grade of B or better in all methods courses: SEC 502, CIL 505, RLP 540, and SEC 514
• Required immersive school placement
• Candidates must meet the ISBE requirements for an Alternative Provisional Educator (APE) License before SEC591. This includes passing the following courses: SEC 502, EDU 572, and CIL 505.

Required Courses

Program Requirements

CIL 505	Methods and Materials for Teaching English as a Second Language	3
EDU 510	Social Justice Perspectives on the History and Philosophy of American Education	2
EDU 572	Creating Diverse and Equitable Classrooms	2
LSE 511	Human Learning and Development in Instructional Contexts	2
RLP 540	Teaching Content Area Literacy at the Middle and Secondary Level	3
SEC 502	Introduction to Teaching at the Secondary Level	3
SEC 514	Methods of Teaching Mathematics at the Secondary and Middle Levels	3
SEC 591	Secondary Education Alternative Licensure Seminar	1 TO 9
SPE 500	Introduction to and Methods of Teaching Students with Disabilities	3
	and
SPE 507	Methods of Social/Emotional Support	3
	or
CIL 500	Foundations of ESL and Bilingual Education	3

Note: SEC 591 must be taken for a total of 9 SH.