CTL Teaching Certificate

The CTL Teaching Certificate provides Penn doctoral students with support to hone and reflect upon their teaching, and with recognition of their commitment to developing as teachers. The program encourages graduate students to become self-reflective teachers and to enhance their awareness of additional teaching practices by engaging in discussions about teaching.

Directed by the School of Arts and Sciences’ Center for Teaching and Learning, the CTL Teaching Certificate offers a structure through which interested graduate students can both improve their teaching at Penn and prepare themselves to become faculty in the future. As the University of Pennsylvania's statement that a graduate student who intendes to teach on the college or university level has pursued advanced training in that teaching, the certificate is noted on a student’s transcript. The certifiacte can help demonstrate a job candidate’s commitment to teaching.

Participants in the program take part in a series of workshops and formal conversations about teaching and reflect on their own teaching with a fellow from the Center for Teaching and Learning who has observed them in the classroom. The certificate contains four components.

1.) Pedagogical Discussion and Training: Participants must complete five CTL-approved teaching workshops. CTL-approved semester-long programs may be substituted for three of the five training workshops.

2.) Teaching Experience: Participants must complete at least two semesters as a teaching assistant or instructor.

3.) Observation and Review: Participants must have a full teaching session observed and reviewed by a member of the CTL staff.

4.) Teaching Philosophy: Participants must develop a statement of teaching philosophy and discuss it in a CTL session culminating the certificate program.

More information about the certificate can be found in "The CTL Teaching Certificate and Conversations about Teaching."

Contact the Center for Teaching and Learning with any questions.