Penn GSE and Penn Urban Studies Partner to Launch New Secondary Education Minor

Penn GSE and the Urban Studies Program in the School of Arts & Sciences have partnered to launch a new Secondary Education Minor that is designed to create a direct undergraduate pathway into the teaching profession. This new offering is the second minor at Penn GSE (after the longstanding Urban Education Minor) available to undergraduates and reflects a growing commitment to expanding access to teacher preparation earlier in students’ academic careers.

“We are excited to offer this new pathway into the teaching profession for Penn undergrads,” said Dean Katharine Strunk. “Especially in this moment of nationwide teacher shortages, it is incumbent upon institutions like ours to make it easier for students to pursue their interest in joining the profession.”

The Secondary Education Minor is a teacher licensure–focused program that prepares Penn undergraduates for teaching careers while they pursue their primary fields of study. The nine-unit minor integrates coursework in urban education, research, and educational foundations with subject-specific methods courses in areas such as English, mathematics, science, social studies, and world languages.

A defining feature of the new minor is its embedded student teaching requirement. Students complete a full-time student teaching placement in the spring of their senior year. Research has shown that this kind of full-time student teaching is critical for those training to be teachers, as it enables students to apply theory to practice while working closely with a mentor teacher, receiving detailed and targeted feedback from an experienced coach. This, along with their minor coursework and undergraduate majors, prepares them to not only meet state licensure competencies but also enter the profession well-prepared to tackle the realities of classroom instruction. By aligning undergraduate study with certification requirements, the program lowers traditional barriers to entering the teaching profession and offers students a clear, efficient route into classrooms immediately after college.

“That is the main difference between this new program and the existing Urban Education Minor, which is continuing,” said Assistant Dean for Teacher Preparation and Undergraduate Education Patrick Sexton, noting that the older program requires slightly fewer credits (seven) and is geared towards those students looking to work at the intersection of education and social impact—say, in policy, nonprofits, or research. “We are grateful to our partners in Urban Studies, especially Julie McWilliams, who have worked so hard to respond to student interest in preparing for careers in the classroom. And we are so excited about these amazing students building their commitment to the kids and families of Philadelphia.”