State Alignment

Tennessee

Earn your Professional Development Points (PDP) toward your Tennessee License requirement with our self-paced online courses.

CLICK HERE TO REVIEW COURSE OPTIONS

  • State Professional Development Hours Option- For each course completed, you will earn either 30-45 Professional Development Points (PDPs) toward the 60 PDP points requirement. You can now register for our courses at any time. When you register for one of our self-paced courses you will have up to 4 months from the date of registration to complete your course. Since these courses are completely self-paced the amount of time to complete it will be dependent on how much time you put into them on a regular basis. Most teachers are able to finish their course within a 4-week period.

(1 clock hour = 1 PDP)

  • Graduate Credits Option: Teach & Kids Learn (TKL) provides accredited university graduate credits courses. We provide official transcripts. and letter grades upon the successful completion of your selected course. When selecting your course, choose any of our Graduate Credit level courses from our registration page.

(1 graduate/semester credit = 10 PDP)

We always recommend that you follow any pre-approval requirements in your district before you register for courses. However, many teachers have been successful using our courses to advance on their district’s salary scale—and have typically been able to use our university/college-level course offerings.

Please contact us if you need assistance with the submission of your district approval forms, course syllabus, etc.

State Requirements:

The Educator Licensure Policy 5.502 describes the use of professional development points (PDPs) for educator licensure advancement or renewal. Once educators staffed in a Tennessee public school enter their PDPs into TNCompass, appropriate district staff approve or deny PDPs based on state guidelines. If an educator is not staffed in a Tennessee public school at the time of application, the department of education will approve or deny PDPs based on state guidelines.

Educator licenses must be renewed on or before the date of expiration. To renew a professional license, an educator must earn 60 professional development points (PDPs). To earn PDPs, an activity must be related to improving educator effectiveness by:

  1. developing content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, or pedagogical content knowledge; or
  2. enhancing educator effectiveness (e.g., world language courses for those working with students for whom English is a second language or coursework that supports understanding and use of data).

FAQ for Educators

For more information, visit the Tennessee Department of Education website.