Alternative Licensure Glossary

Alternative Certification Glossary

Faculty and Consumer Sciences Education (FCSE) presents a shortage of teachers across the country. This licensure guide is meant to assist you in pursuing a career in teaching FCS by providing you with information you need to meet the qualifications for certification in your state. Please remember that state Information changes frequently and quickly. This guide is meant only to provide general information. For more specific information about courses you need please check with your state’s certification agency.

Alternative Certification A process by which a person is awarded a teaching license even though that person has not completed a traditional teacher certification program
Career Technical Education (CTE) Provides students of all ages with the academic and technical stills, knowledge and training necessary to succeed in future careers and to become lifelong learners. (Definition from http://careertech.org/cte)
Certificate or Licensure Ensures that an individual has met required degree, coursework, assessment, and experience requirements for appropriate classroom practice.
Credit for Prior Learning

Prior learning may carry possibilities for applicable credit to your program. Allowance for prior learning credits will vary concerning both methods for acquiring the credit as well as by credit hours allowed. Not all universities have processes for allowing prior learning credit. Please contact your university to determine whether there is a vehicle for acceptance of prior learning credits and for the process or exams that will lead to that credit being awarded. General information concerning prior learning may be found through the links below.
Financial Aid Certain individuals may qualify for financial aid through their local, state or federal government. In order to determine your eligibility please complete the FAFSA once you have been accepted to your program.
Loan Forgiveness The process in which certain federally backed student loans can be forgiven or discharged. Such loans as subsidized and Perkins Loans may qualify. This does not include student loans from private financers. Qualifiers for loan forgiveness vary from state to state.
Prior Knowledge Prior Learning is a term that educators use to describe learning that a student acquires outside of a traditional academic environment. This learning may have been attained through work experience, professional development courses, military training or experience, independent study, noncredit courses, volunteer or community service, travel, or non-college courses or seminars, many of which are offered online, through vehicles such as massive open online courses (MOOCs). (Adapted from Pearson Education)
Supplemental Certification

A certificate issued to a certified classroom teacher to enable them to teach in a different subject area where a shortage exists