The Professional Education Unit (the “Unit”) at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP) includes all programs culminating in either a teacher education degree or Pennsylvania teacher certification, or both. The Unit is comprised of teacher education programs from all six academic colleges in the university.

The teacher education programs at IUP are guided by an integrated set of overarching principles and values derived from research and best practices to continually improve programs and services. These principles and values are incorporated into the IUP Conceptual Framework for intial and advanced programs.  Click here to learn more about the Conceptual Framework. These best practices constitute the theme of the Unit: "Improving learning opportunities for all students through development, use, and transfer of best practices in teaching, learning and communicating."

The Unit is proud to be accredited, recognized, and approved by a variety of national and regional accrediting bodies, professional organizations, and the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE). This level of recognition is clear evidence that the Unit does an excellent job of preparing teacher education candidates with the knowledge, skills, and professional dispositions they will need to be successful and effective teachers in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and beyond.

A critical element of any accreditation or program recognition process is assessment.  The Unit maintains a sophisticated assessment system, the Key Assessment Rating System (KARS) as well as LiveText,  that allows us to measure the performance of teacher education candidates as well as the effectiveness of our own operations.

Please use the NCATE Electronic Evidence Room to learn more about our NCATE accreditation, national recognition of our teacher education programs by Specialized Professional Associations, and approval of our teacher certification programs by PDE and learn more about our assessment of teacher education at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.