The Urban Teaching Minors/Special Concentrations

To apply to the Urban Teaching Track in either Secondary/Adolescent Education or Elementary/Childhood Education, you must:

1. Attend an Open House and a Program Planning meeting in your first or second year
2. Complete the Urban Teaching Application.
3. Interview

Criteria for Acceptance

The Barnard Education Program is a rigorous preparation program for NYS teacher certification.

There are 3 main criteria for acceptance into the program.

• GPA of 3.0 or higher, demonstrated by review of transcript
• Ability to complete the program, demonstrated through the program plan, other application materials, and letters of recommendation
• Desire to pursue a career in education demonstrated through the essay and interview.

Open Houses and Program Planning 

Open Houses and Program Planning are arranged through Barnard and Columbia Colleges and take place in the fall and spring semesters. All students are welcome. Please find our upcoming Open House and Program Planning dates in the News and Events page.

The Application

The Urban Teaching application has 5 parts. All parts should be completed and delivered to the Education Program Office: 335-336 Milbank Hall, Barnard College, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027

• Urban Teaching Application: This portion of the application provides general background information and your education program plan. All students should download the application, fill out the clickable form, and print a copy for submission.
• Program Plan: This portion of the application demonstrates when you intend to complete required content area coursework. All students should download and complete the content area Program Plan Worksheet for their certification grade level/subject area. Note: For program applicants, this is a draft. The actual courses you take may change depending on course availability or conflicts with other required courses for the major, minor/concentration, or general college requirements.  Please see Content Core Program Plan Worksheets at the end of this section.** 
• Essay: Since our program is situated in an urban center and you will be interning in urban classrooms, we are interested in how your interests and experiences relate to our commitment to serve urban youth.  Discuss briefly (500-1000) your interests in the field of education and the special interests or skills you feel you bring to it. Some autobiographical material would be helpful. Please include experience you have had with children or adolescents. You should complete this essay as a Word document and submit it with your application.
• Resume. Please attach a current resume to your application.
• Recommendations: Recommendation forms are available here: Ed Program - Urban Teaching Recommendation Form 2023. Please download this form and have 2 faculty members fill it out. The first should be a faculty member from your major field of study. The second may be a faculty member or a current or previous employer. At least one recommendation should be from a Barnard or Columbia faculty member. Recommendations should not come from TA's. You will be asked to provide the names of the people writing your recommendations on the General Information portion of your application.

Interview

After reviewing applications, program faculty will meet with all qualified candidates individually. Candidates will be contacted by the program’s administrative assistant to schedule the interview.

This program prepares students for New York State Initial Certificate in Childhood Education (grades 1-6).

Note: If you wish to fulfill a requirement with a course not listed below, please fill out the Petition to Count a Course for an Education Requirement.

This program prepares students for New York State Initial Certificate in Adolescent Education (grades 7-12) in the fields of English, Foreign and Ancient Languages, Mathematics, the Sciences, and Social Studies.

Note: If you wish to fulfill a requirement with a course not listed below, please fill out the Petition to Count a Course for an Education Requirement.

The Barnard Education Program requires three levels of clinical experiences for Urban Teaching candidates prior to student teaching. These experiences provide rich opportunities for prospective teachers to connect theory to practice and build a reflective practice as they apply their developing skills in informal and formal, school and community educational settings. Urban Teaching candidates must map out a plan to complete each level of clinical experience prior to the subsequent one. All experiences must be completed with children and youth in the age group for which you are seeking certification. For childhood certification, you should work with children in grades 1-6. For adolescent certification, you should work with youth in grades 7-12. Placements for Urban School Practicum and Student Teaching will be made so that by the time students complete the program, Childhood Education candidates have experience in grades 1-3 and 4-6 and Adolescent Education candidates have experience in grades 7-9 and 10-12.

As part of the NYS Certification process, students are required to complete a minimum of 520 hours of supervised education-based clinical experiences. Students spend 100+ hours in NYC public school classrooms as part of pre-student teaching pedagogical courses, and 70+ days in Student Teaching. Additionally, as part of the Barnard Education Program, students are required to complete a 40-hour minimum foundational fieldwork experience prior to the start of student teaching. These clinical experiences are described below. 
 

Foundational Clinical Experiences: Exploring Educational Settings (40 hours)

All Urban Teaching candidates must complete 40 hours of independent fieldwork prior to or during the first year of admission to the Education Program. This fieldwork may be completed during the summer or during the academic year and should be documented using the Fieldwork in Education Packet. Students must keep a journal during their fieldwork experience and write a reflective essay that is submitted with the completed packet.
 

Intermediate Clinical Experiences I: Course-Related Fieldwork in Education (35 hours)

For the Pedagogical Elective requirement for Urban Teaching, students enroll in one of the courses listed below and complete 35 hours of fieldwork connected to their coursework. This fieldwork is documented using the Fieldwork Record Sheets which must be signed by the candidate, the cooperating teacher, and the instructor for the course and forwarded to the Education Program Office. All Urban Teaching candidates should complete one of the courses listed below prior to taking the courses EDUC BC 3025 Inclusive Approaches to Teaching Literacy and EDUC BC 3053 or 3054 Multicultural Elementary or Secondary Pedagogy in the Junior year.

• EDUC BC 3050 Science in the City I
• EDUC BC 3058 Science in the City II
• EDUC BC 3052 Math and the City
• EDUC BC 3055 Arts & Humanities in the City
   

Intermediate Clinical Experiences II & III: Inclusive Approaches to Teaching Literacy and Multicultural Pedagogy (100+ hours)

The courses EDUC BC 3053/3054 Multicultural Elementary/Secondary Pedagogy and EDUC BC 3025 Inclusive Approaches to Teaching Literacy are taken in the fall and spring of the junior year, respectively. These two courses are the first of two supervised fieldwork experiences. Students are placed in a public school to observe and work alongside an experienced teacher. Students complete a minimum of 100 practica hours in the academic year.

Student Teaching (70+ days)

Student Teaching is the capstone experience of the Urban Teaching Program. Students are placed in New York City public school classrooms for the duration of the senior year. In the fall, while taking Critical Inquiry in Urban Teaching, students are engaged in fieldwork 1-2 days a week.  In the spring semester, they work 5 days a week full-time. This full time teaching experience allows students to put theory into practice with the guidance of an experienced cooperating teacher. During the student teaching semester, students are only allowed to take two additional classes that meet one day a week in the afternoon. Some majors have requirements or opportunities for seniors that conflict with student teaching; therefore, it is important that students plan their programs carefully.

The Urban Teaching program is a member of the Association for Advancing Quality in Education Preparation (AAQEP) and approved by the New York State Education Department to recommend students who complete the program for Initial Certification in either Childhood Education (grades 1-6) or Adolescent Education (grades 7-12). 

Certification is based on demonstrated competency in both academic and field settings. Students are required to complete a minimum of 520 hours of education-based field experiences. Students must pass the New York State Teacher Certification Examinations.  Also required are workshops in Child Abuse Identification; School Violence Intervention and Prevention; and the Dignity for All Students Act (DASA), offered at Teachers College.

Note: For certification in New York State, undergraduates must pass all courses counting toward certification with a letter grade of C or better. Pass/D/Fail grading is not an option.

Fingerprinting Forms 

• OSPRA 104
• OSPRA 103

Certification

• Certification Pending Letter Request Form

Links

• New York State Education Department
• NYS Teacher Certification Examinations
• New York City Department of Education
• TeachNYC
• Violence and Child Abuse Workshop
• Child Abuse and Maltreatment Workshop at CU
• DASA Training

We are proud of the accomplishments of our students and alumni, and the data support our claims that program students are skilled and reflective teachers who can effectively respond to the learning needs of diverse learners, and create supportive and intellectually stimulating classroom communities.

The Barnard College Education Program is registered with the New York State Department of Education and is accredited by the Association for Advancing Quality in Educator Preparation (AAQEP). The 2023 accreditation report can be found here. 

1. Indicators of program effectiveness & satisfaction of employers

Employer and Alumni Surveys conducted in 2022 as part of the accreditation process were designed to investigate program effectiveness, one item stands out as emblematic of the feedback we have received about the effectiveness of our program. This question on the Employer Survey asked, “How well do you believe your teacher was prepared to teach through the Barnard Education Program in comparison to other new teachers in your school?” Seven of the eleven employers surveyed had hired one of our completers during their 1st-3rd year of teaching. Of these, five (71.4%) said that our teacher was more prepared to teach than most other new teachers. The other two employers (28.5%) thought our teacher was as prepared as other new teachers, with a mean response of 2.7/3.0 (n=7, SD±0.0.49). None of the employers thought our completers were less prepared than other new teachers in their school. See Figure 18.

Figure 18. Employer Survey: Preparation in the Barnard Education Program

2. Indicators of program effectiveness & satisfaction of completers

 While the Alumni Survey was designed to investigate program effectiveness, one item stands out as emblematic of the feedback we have received about the overall effectiveness of our program. This question asked, “How well do you believe your experience in the Barnard Education Program prepared you in comparison to other new teachers in your school?” The majority of respondents thought they were more prepared, and 30 % (n=30) thought they were as prepared as other new teachers in their school, with a mean response of (67%, n=67) response of 2.7/3.0 (n=7, SD±0.0.49).

3. Graduation and completion rates

*Anticipated

4. Ability of completers to meet licensing requirements and additional state requirements

*This table does not account for completers taking certification exams in other states.

5. Ability of completers to be hired in education positions for which they have prepared

*Please note that teaching and enrollment in graduate school are not mutually exclusive.

** Currently working in an education-adjacent field.

6. Consumer information

Cost of Attendance
Below are Barnard College's tuition and fees for the following academic years. The expected length of time to complete the teacher education program is three years.

Student Loan Default Rates

Student loan default rates for Barnard College can be found on the Federal Student Aid (FSA) site.

Teacher Salaries

The New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) provides teaching salary and benefit information for New York City.