Grinnell College has a state approved Practitioner Education Program. Through this program students may be licensed (this is the official word Iowa uses instead of certified) to teach in Iowa, as secondary (5-12) teachers. Students wishing to teach in a state other than Iowa can use their Iowa license to apply for licensure in their state of choice. Most states will grant at least a temporary license on the strength of the Iowa license

Grinnell College has developed a unique program called the Ninth Semester Program. Following graduation students return to Grinnell for one additional semester to do their student teaching. Ninth semester students do not pay tuition during that semester. Instead, they sign a contract with the college obligating them to provide evidence of three years of full-time teaching in an accredited school during the five years following student teaching or to repay the tuition at the end of five years. Over 90% of our students obtain licensure through the ninth semester program, but it is also possible to complete the program in eight semesters.

The ninth semester program enables students to complete a rigorous academic major and take full advantage of Grinnell's outstanding liberal arts offering and off-campus study opportunities as well as obtain licensure.

The Department of Education believes that an effective Practitioner Preparation Program should engage students in a critical consideration of educational theory, history, research and practice. Students' experience should be grounded in an investigation of the interdependence of education and society and the importance of individual identity in teaching and learning. Students in our Practitioner Preparation Program are expected to construct their pedagogy from a broad understanding of the liberal arts and sciences as well as a thorough knowledge of their chosen disciplines.

Our intent is to prepare teachers who have a firm grounding in educational research and theory and who use that knowledge to inform their practice. Students are guided in and held accountable for demonstrating the ways in which research and theory can inform practice, the ways in which those sources are limited as guides to practice, and the ways in which practice can, in turn, inform research and theory.

Students may obtain licensure in secondary education (5-12). Students desiring secondary licensure must have an endorsement in at least one of the following: art, English, foreign languages (French, German, Latin, Russian, Spanish), mathematics, psychology, the natural sciences (biology, chemistry, general science, physics), or social studies (American government, American history, anthropology, economics, sociology, world history). Students obtaining licensure in one of more of these approved areas may also earn licensure n a second teaching field in American government, American history, biology, chemistry, economics, French, general science German, Latin, mathematics, physics, Russian, sociology, Spanish or English as a Second Language (ESL).

Field experiences are an integral part of Grinnell's Education Program. All of the Education courses involve practical experience in the public schools. Students help teachers, work with individual students and in upper level courses do some team teaching.