The Program in Teaching offers a coordinated cluster of courses, advising and field work that give students the opportunity to study the ideas, questions, and practices involved in good teaching at all levels. The Program seeks to promote and facilitate an exchange of ideas about teachers, learners, and schools, within and beyond the Williams campus. The Program offers a range of opportunities including courses on education, intensive supervised student teaching, workshops, advising, lecture series, and ongoing peer groups for those who teach.
Students may participate in a variety of ways, ranging from taking one course to a sustained in-depth study of teaching and learning geared to those who want to become teachers or educational psychologists. We seek to connect students with one another, to bring in expert teachers to provide mentoring, and to create links across the curriculum so that students can see the vital connections between what they study (French, Algebra or Biology, for example) and the process of teaching those topics to elementary and high school students. The Program is open to any student interested in education and offers opportunities for all levels of interest, including those who want to find out about certification and graduate study.
No specific major is required to participate—although some lend themselves easily to certification, such as Mathematics, English, Biology, American History, or French, almost all of our majors can provide the basis of teacher certification. Alternately, students can major in Psychology, take a concentration of courses in a different field, and then pursue that content area more intensively in graduate work. More information can be found on the Program in Teaching site.