Earn your Graduate Certificate in Teaching History online and prepare for opportunities to teach college-level history courses as dual/concurrent enrollment or with a community college. Deepen your content knowledge and hone your craft of teaching history to K-12 or college students. The program allows you to explore your own historical topic and time period interests, and develop new ways to make history more relevant for your students.
18 Credits in History
The certificate includes 18 graduate credits in history and government, which meets most regional accreditor and department of education requirements to teach college-credit history courses in a dual/concurrent enrollment, Postsecondary Education Option (PSEO) or community college setting. With Northwestern College's online Graduate Certificate in Teaching History, build on what you already know to become an even better teacher. If you want to apply the 18 credits toward a master's degree, earn your M.Ed. in Teaching History by taking just 15 more credits. Here's how.
Students applying for the Graduate Certificate in Teaching History must hold an endorsement in history or social studies for acceptance or receive prior approval from the M.Ed. department chair for admission.
It's more than a lane change. And it's all online.
100% online. 8-week courses.
Earning graduate credits doesn't have to cost you time away from your other responsibilities. Northwestern College's online Graduate Certificate in Teaching History allows you to log into class each week to complete your coursework, whenever it's most convenient for you.
Take one online 8-week class at a time, completing two classes each semester, and you'll earn your certificate in less than 1 year (3 semesters)
Program Requirements
Teaching History Emphasis:
Choose six:
HIS 500 - Play, Games and Athletics: The History of Sport in America (3 credits)
This course explores perceptions of sport and how sport has changed, with afocus on race, gender, class and ethnicity. We will examine the history ofsport in the United States from the colonial period to the present. We willconsider how sports reflected and often shaped ideas about race, gender,ethnicity, class, amateurism, professionalization, international politicsand governmental policies and laws. The class will focus on the ways thatChristians perceived and embraced certain forms of sport and the ways thatChristians influenced sport and were influenced by sport. In addition, thecourse traces the development of sports, investigate the ways in whichspontaneous games played by Americans in the eighteenth and nineteenthcenturies evolved into highly formalized and popular activities that nowcomprise a multi-billion dollar industry. Prerequisite: completed bachelor'sdegree in education. (3 credits)
HIS 510 - Magic, Science, and Religion in the Middle Ages (3 credits)
[The Wolfsthurn Handbook] ?recommends taking the leaves of a particularplant as a remedy for "fever of all sorts"; this in itself would count asscience, or as folk medicine, rather than magic. Before using these leaves,one is supposed to write certain Latin words on them to invoke the power ofthe Holy Trinity...; this in itself would count as religion. There is noscientific or religious reason, however, for repeating this procedure beforesunrise on three consecutive mornings. By adding this requirement, the[medieval] author enhances the power of science and religion with that ofmagic."This course explores two interconnected historical problems: (1) the natureof magic as a theoretical and practical world view that was dominant in thepre-modern Mediterranean world and Europe, and (2) the origin anddevelopment of science from ancient and medieval natural philosophy. Boththe history of magic and the history of science must be understood intandem. A historical treatment of the origin of modern science at the end ofthe Middle Ages that does not discuss medieval magic would be incomplete;similarly, it would be impossible to discuss medieval magic without alsodiscussing medieval natural philosophy (i.e. what we would call todayscience).Further, both of these phenomena are inseparable from religion, andconsequently the course also attends carefully to how the Christian churchresponded to both magic and science. Prerequisite: completed bachelor'sdegree in education. (3 credits)
HIS 520 - By The Bomb’s Early Light: The Atomic Bomb and Nuclear Culture in America (3 credits)
Despite some recent progress toward disarmament, we still exist in a worldin which two nations, each possessing thousands of nuclear warheads, havethe capacity to destroy all of the planet's major cities, not to mentionmuch of the territory in between, many times over. At least seven othernations have control of sufficient nuclear explosives to utterly destroytheir immediate neighbors.1 This course explores how this situation cameabout and how perceptions of nuclear weapons and nuclear energy havechanged. The course focuses on scientific culture, American culture duringthe Cold War, religious responses to the bomb, and the broader implicationsof nuclear weapons and nuclear energy.We will examine how atomic energy was first conceived and how it waseventually harnessed. This new source of destructive power decisivelychanged the socio-political role of the physicist, altered the nature ofwar, and introduced global suicide as strategic policy. The focus of theclass will be to think about the network and recourses necessary to producea technical object like the atom bomb, as well as the socio-cultural impactof the introduction of a new technology. Prerequisite: completed bachelor'sdegree in education. (3 credits)
HIS 530 - Historical Tales Without a Historian: Novels, Movies, and Comic Books (3 credits)
This course concentrates on the most popular forms of historical narrativeoutside the classroom: novels, movies, and comic books. How do artistsrecall, organize, and perhaps mostimportantly, make relevant to us today, various pasts stories? For teachersas well as students, movies, novels and comic books make big impressions.Through carefully selected examples of each students will learn howhistorical narrative works, about distinctive genres of historical narrative(the Western, combat, dystopian stories) make a particular past seemrelevant, and how to think historically about such stories. We'll concludethe class by considering conspiracy theories as particular and fascinatingforms of historical storytelling. Overall, we will work on thinkingcarefully and well about popular culture's various takes on the past, andfinding some ways to help our students do so. Prerequisite: completedbachelor's degree in education. (3 credits)
HIS 540 - European History and Politics Since 1945 (3 credits)
This course examines major political issues in Europe since 1945. Topicscovered include the emergence of a politically divided Europe, ideologicaldebates in post-war European politics, the project of European integration,the breakup of the communist bloc and its aftermath, religion and Europeanpolitics, and current issues in Europe. Prerequisite: completed bachelor'sdegree in education. (3 credits)
HIS 550 - That Godless Court? The Supreme Court and Religious Issues in the United States (3 credits)
This course provides an introduction to some of the key Constitutionalissues swirling around the first sixteen words of the First Amendment: thereligion clause (or in the estimation of some the two religion clauses).Consequently, to begin the semester we will spend a fair amount of timereading about the founding fathers and their view(s) of religious liberty aswell as read some of what these framers wrote themselves about thischerished freedom. We will also consider how this historical background andcontext informs various church-state stances today as well as briefly reviewthe basic procedures and principles of the Supreme Court. Having set thebroad boundaries of our examination, we will then look more closely at thekey Supreme Court cases that have largely defined our current understandingof both the Free Exercise and Establishment clauses. Prerequisite: completedbachelor's degree in education. (3 credits)
HIS 590 - Special Topics in History (3 credits)
Special topics courses explore a narrow focus area within the discipline ofhistory. Students are allowed to register for this course more than once.Prerequisite: completed bachelor's degree in education. (1-3 credits)
Total Credits: 18 credit hours
