Earning a Maryland Teaching Certificate

Resident Teacher Certificate

All enrolled Teaching Fellows who successfully complete the Summer Institute Training will be granted a Resident Teacher Certificate (RTC) by the Maryland State Department of Education.

The RTC was created to allow outstanding individuals with no previous education coursework the opportunity to teach while participating in an alternate route certification program. This certificate is considered a "highly qualified" license in accordance with No Child Left Behind guidelines.

Standard Professional I Certificate

Within their first two years in the classroom, Fellows must apply for their Standard Professional I Teaching Certificate. In order to meet the requirements of the Standard Professional I Certificate, Fellows enroll in the Maryland Practitioner Teacher Program. The Maryland Practitioner Teacher Program (MPTP) is the exclusive certification provider for the Prince George's County Teaching Fellows program. The specific requirements of the MPTP are as follows:

MPTP Requirements

Content Seminar Series: Teaching for Results

At the heart of MPTP is a series of professional development content seminars called Teaching for Results (TfR).  The TfR series focuses on how to maximize a teacher’s effectiveness teaching specific subject matter through a standards-based approach to instructional planning.  Each title in the series is grounded in an inquiry process through which course participants learn research-based instructional strategies specific to a content area and are taught to constantly evaluate the efficacy of those strategies against authentic student performance data. This process encourages new teachers to make real-time adjustments to their instructional practice with the goal of increasing student achievement.

Teaching for Results Seminars are held in small-group, content specific sessions, and are led by carefully selected and trained TfR Seminar Leaders, who are current excellent educators in the Prince George's County Public School System. Seminar sessions meet twice a month for 3 hours each for a total of 16 sessions throughout the school year.

The TfR Seminar series is implemented with Teaching Fellows programs across the country. A study was recently conducted on the Louisiana Practitioner Teacher Program (the same seminar series used in Prince George's County). The study found that teachers trained through the Practitioner Teacher Program outperform both beginning and experienced teachers in the core content areas of math, reading and language arts. To read the study in full, click here.

End of year survey results from 2008 Prince George's County Fellows mirrored what was found in Louisiana: Fellows felt strongly that the Seminars helped them become better teachers.

  • 96% of Fellows agreed that participating in the Seminars prepared them to understand and prioritize content standards, develop lesson and unit plans, and select appropriate assessments.

  • 99% of Fellows agreed that Seminars were valuable for providing instructional strategies for teaching within their content area.

  • 94% of Fellows agreed that participating in Seminars helped them to become a more effective teacher;

  • 92% of Fellows agreed that their Seminar Leader helped them become a more effective teacher.

Literacy Coursework

One of the critical aspects of MPTP is the literacy coursework that is required for certification. In July 1998 the Maryland State Department of Education passed amendments that increased the amount of reading coursework current and prospective teachers must have. Elementary and early childhood teachers must complete coursework in specific reading topics such as language and cognitive development, phonics, semantics, and syntactics; selecting and using reading materials; and reading assessment. Teachers at the secondary level, as well as teachers with N-12 certification (i.e., Music), must complete coursework in cognitive development, reading assessment, reading in the content areas, and the application of theories and practices in daily classroom instruction.

Elementary Literacy

Fellows with an early childhood or elementary special education placement participate in the Maryland Practitioner Teacher Program's Elementary Literacy Seminar series. The literacy coursework consists of three parts:

  • In Big Ideas and Great Teaching in Elementary Literacy I, Fellows explore the fundamental reading skills that all students must master: letter knowledge, phonemic awareness, phonics, word study, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension.

  • In Big Ideas and Great Teaching in Elementary Literacy II, Fellows delve deeper into reading comprehension and learn ways to ensure that students have the necessary skills to truly understand what they read.

  • In Big Ideas and Great Teaching in Elementary Literacy III, Fellows examine an approach to diagnosing students' current levels of literacy acquisition, setting goals for individual students based on their current level of performance, and monitoring the effectiveness of literacy instruction in relation to those goals.

Part I of the course is taken over the summer with classes held two or three times a week in the evenings during Summer Institute. Parts II and III of the course are taken during the 2010-2011 school year, with two-and-a-half -hour classes held bi-monthly. Literacy coursework is taught by outstanding current teachers in PGCPS who specialize in reading and literacy. The cost of the elementary literacy coursework is included in the MPTP tuition.

2009 Fellows felt strongly that Big Ideas and Great Teaching in Elementary Literacy I helped them become better teachers:

  • 100% of Fellows agreed that the course increased their understanding of elementary literacy principles;

  • 100% of Fellows agreed that the course will help to increase their effectiveness as an educator when they enter the classroom;

  • 100% of Fellows agreed that their instructor helped them to become a more effective teacher.

Adolescent Literacy

Fellows with a Secondary placement and teachers with an N-12 certification participate in the Maryland Practitioner Teacher Program's Adolescent Literacy Seminar series. The literacy coursework consists of two parts:

  • In Big Ideas and Great Teaching in Adolescent Literacy I, Fellows examine the specific needs of the adolescent reader in relation to motivation, fundamental language acquisition principles, comprehension, and how to translate these principles into literacy practice that furthers content knowledge.

  • In Big Ideas and Great Teaching in Adolescent Literacy II, Fellows focus on embedding writing into content area classrooms and specifically examine the principles that contribute to a student's ability to use writing to learn: content, motivation, encoding, coherence and voice.

Part I of the course is taken over the summer with classes held twice a week in the evenings after Summer Institute. Part II of the course is taken during the 2010-2011 school year, with a two-and-a-half -hour class held bi-monthly. Literacy coursework is taught by outstanding current teachers in PGCPS who specialize in reading and literacy. The cost of the adolescent literacy coursework is included in the MPTP tuition.

2009 Fellows felt strongly that Big Ideas and Great Teaching in Adolescent Literacy I helped them become better teachers:

  • 97% of Fellows agreed that the course increased their understanding of adolescent literacy principles and ways to meet the needs of struggling readers;

  • 94% of Fellows agreed that the course will help to increase their effectiveness as an educator when they enter the classroom;

  • 97% of Fellows agreed that their instructor helped them to become a more effective teacher.

Mentoring

Research has documented the importance of a mentor for first year teachers. Therefore, each Teaching Fellow is paired with a PGCPS mentor for the first year of teaching. Mentors spend at least 25 hours over the course of the school year providing a variety of means of support including observing and providing feedback on teaching, doing demonstration lessons, co-teaching, looking at classroom routines and management systems, or helping plan.

MPTP Costs

Tuition for MPTP is used to cover all expenses related to training and professionally developing Fellows throughout their time with the program, including the costs of all materials. Our goal is to ensure that our tuition costs are low and remain competitive among other certification providers. The tuition cost for Fellows teaching general education is $3,500.  The tuition cost for Fellows teaching Special Education is $5,500 which covers the cost of both Special Education and Content Area certification.