Producing new physics teachers through an online Master's in Physics with Alternative Certification

At Texas A{\&}M University-Commerce, we encounter a significant number of students (often non-physics majors) who only decide they want to become physics teachers late on in their undergraduate career, so miss the opportunity to take our physics degree with physics education emphasis. As part of our successful PhysTEC comprehensive site proposal, we proposed to address this problem by developing a new online Master's in Physics with Teacher Certification. Several years ago we implemented an online Master's in physics for in-service physics teachers. The degree is specifically tailored for teachers, and covers content knowledge through the lens of physics education research and pedagogical applications. In this poster, we discuss how we have combined this degree with our College of Education and Human Service's alternative certification program to open up a new pathway to produce physics teachers with excellent discipline specific pedagogical and content knowledge.