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Beginning Fall 2021, the new Pedagogical Content Knowledge for Elementary Teaching (PCKET) Major will officially launch with its first cohort of students. The PCKET Major is the result of two years of collaborative design involving both CLAS and COE faculty.

The redesign of GVSU’s elementary certification program was in response to the Michigan Department of Education’s new certification structure, which is divided into grade bands for PK-3, 3-6, 5-9, and 7-12.

PCKET is the CLAS major for students seeking certification at the elementary level, and is paired with the Educational Studies Major or the Special Education Major offered through the College of Education. The major will replace the discipline-specific majors for elementary certification. Through the double-major program, students will be prepared to meet all the professional and content-specific standards established by the Michigan Department of Education.

Essentially, students will take courses in subject-matter content along with professional coursework in education. Students in the PCKET program can earn certification for teaching pre-kindergarten through 3rd grade (PK-3) and/or 3rd grade through 6th grade (3-6). The 3-6 emphasis includes a 9-credit concentration in one of four content areas: English Language Arts, Mathematics, Integrated Science, or Social Studies. Students in either the PK-3 or 3-6 program also have the option of adding courses that will earn them a specialization/endorsement in teaching English as a Second Language, Elementary Spanish, or Special Education.

Courses and professors teaching within the major come from departments across CLAS. PCKET students learn content
and pedagogy in the academic disciplines that are taught in an elementary curriculum: English language arts, mathematics, science, social studies, fine arts, and health and physical education. PCKET faculty engage students in discipline-specific teaching and learning, opportunities for research and scholarly activity in the disciplines, experiences in area classrooms and in the community, and study abroad programs.

The PCKET program is dedicated to developing and supporting the highest quality PK-6 teachers, who are grounded in
the content of each of the subject-specific disciplines, value interdisciplinary teaching and learning, support diverse learners, and commit to the pursuit of academic, life-long learningthe bottom to add different kinds of content. You can move a row and adjust its position on the page by using the buttons on the upper left of a block when you hover over it.