MA in Teaching
Great teachers are great students: they love working with words and numbers, microscopes and paintbrushes. For them, teaching is the attempt to inspire the same kind of curiosity, to help their students discover the power to pursue a passion of their own. The education of great teachers cannot be dry or boring; it must be every bit as challenging and exciting as an historian's or a mathematician's or a novelist's. These are the principles that inform Bennington's Center for Creative Teaching (CCT), which offers both a Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) program and an accelerated Bachelor of Arts/Master of Arts in Teaching (BA/MAT) program.
BA/MAT Program
The Center for Creative Teaching (CCT) at Bennington offers students small classes, individualized faculty advising, and the opportunity for a self-directed, interdisciplinary education. Candidates may enter the BA/MAT program in their second year at Bennington. By taking a year of graduate study after completing their BA, they earn a Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) as well as certification to teach at the early childhood, elementary, or secondary levels.
For more information about this program, please contact Assistant Director of Programs in Teacher Education Nancy Pearlman at 802-440-4710 or npearlman@bennington.edu.
MAT Program
The Center for Creative Teaching (CCT) at Bennington offers small classes, individualized faculty advising, and the opportunity for a self-directed, interdisciplinary education. The CCT offers two Master of Arts in Teaching programs: a two-year MAT for candidates who seek certification and a one-year MAT for teachers who do not seek certification. (The CCT also offers an accelerated BA/MAT program.)
Candidates who do not seek teacher certification and wish to pursue the MAT work closely with the program's directors to develop programs of study that use the resources of the College to better their practice as teachers. MAT students sometimes concentrate in a single discipline (mathematics, for example) and sometimes draw connections between two or three (e.g., biology and architecture). Students earn an MAT through full- or part-time study, completing a total of 32 credits on campus.
Candidates seeking certification as well as the MAT take the equivalent of two years of coursework (64 credits) through full- or part-time study. Full-time students spend most of the first year taking classes on campus, and most of the second student-teaching in local schools.
In their first year, candidates take a combination of required Teaching Seminars and elective coursework in the liberal arts. The elective courses are organized by the programs of study that candidates develop in collaboration with their faculty advisors.
For more information about this program, please contact Assistant Director, Nancy Pearlman @ 802-440-4710 or npearlman@bennington.edu.