Department of Secondary Education

Dr. Lawrence Scharmann, Chair
364 Bluemont Hall
1100 MId-Campus Drive
Manhattan, KS 66506-5301
(785) 532-5904
FAX (785) 532-7304
seced@ksu.edu

The Department of Secondary Education, College of Education, Kansas State University is committed to addressing the needs of a broadly divergent set of constituencies. Our primary responsibility, as a major component of one of the oldest and strongest land-grant universities in the nation, is providing quality instruction and clinical supervision in both on-campus and field-based settings. Examination of our programs, our students’ skills and understandings, and the reactions of those institutions that employ our graduates, highlights our success in adhering to our major goal – Developing educators who are knowledgeable, ethical, caring decision makers.

This goal is intertwined throughout our undergraduate program and is the basis for our national accreditation by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). To meet the stated goal, students are prepared as educators to appreciate differing viewpoints, consider new and divergent thinking, weigh ideas carefully, evaluate conventional wisdom, and obtain accurate and useful knowledge. 

Critical and analytical thinking, careful and thoughtful communication, and a desire to explore, question, and solve problems are promoted in the secondary education major. These institutional commitments are anchored in a research agenda and further exemplified through best instructional practice, professional service, and local school districts.

Each candidate preparing to seek teacher licensure in grades 6 through 12 will concentrate studies in three areas:

General Education »
Courses in the humanities; social and behavioral sciences; mathematics; and biological and physical sciences. A teacher is, first of all, a well-educated citizen. The general education portion of your preparation is directed toward this goal.

Teaching Field(s) »
You will receive in-depth preparation by taking extensive course work in the field(s) you are preparing to teach. The College of Education offers a degree in secondary education for all teaching fields except these noted here. A music teaching degree is earned through the College of Arts and Sciences; a family and consumers sciences teaching degree is earned in the College of Human Ecology; and agriculture teachers earn a degree in the College of Agriculture. A list of the courses you should take to be certified in a given teaching field may be secured from the Center for Student and Professional Services.

Professional Education »
The professional portion of your program will include courses in teaching as a career, learning and development, educational psychology, methods of teaching, foundations of education, and multicultural and interpersonal relations. You will learn about uses of personal computers in the classroom, how to help students with reading in your content field, and how to adjust teaching methods to the needs of exceptional youngsters.