Need some help for my husband

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by NMTTD, May 27, 2013.

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  1. 03310151

    03310151 Active Member

    Shoot, sorry, forgot to spell it out. Carnegie Mellon
     
  2. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    At least I figured out that it was not California Miramar University.
     
  3. NMTTD

    NMTTD Active Member

    He wants to work for the k12 program teaching either kindergarten or 1st grade (my daughter is in kindergarten online through them) so I know it's out there. Second, he isn't looking to do a degree in game design anymore. He wants the degree in education and he wants his electives in game design so he can learn what he needs so he can work on building and designing games on the side while working as an online teacher full time. Yes, my husband is disabled and would love to work from home. The k12 program actually allows the teachers to work from home as long as they have a quiet, designated space for their class connects, meetings, conferences, etc...
     
  4. Jonathan Whatley

    Jonathan Whatley Well-Known Member

    Is he going to be able and ready to do a supervised student teaching term of about 12 to 20 weeks full-time? Could he do this, with a supervising certified teacher, in a bricks-and-mortar traditional classroom?

    Or is the idea that he would student-teach from home?

    It seems possible that a student could work something out between K12 Inc. or another online grade-school provider, and the faculty in their degree program in education, to perform a student teaching term online from home. Possible, but not certain. I think every pre-certification degree program in elementary education is likely to expect students to show proficiencies in skills working with children that assume the teacher is in a classroom with children – in behavior management with children right there, reading, writing, making art, and playing games with children right there, etc.

    Disability per se would not be an impediment to meeting standards for a student teaching term, but not leaving home really could be.

    I'm not saying not to pursue this. But if his goal is a precertification degree in elementary education with a student teaching term performed from home rather than in a B&M classroom, you should understand that he might be the first person ever to try this. It may a project to find both a grade school, and a degree program in education, that would work with him and each other to make this happen.

    If this is the plan, he should (a) write to K12 or other online grade schools to line up one or more sites that would take him on as student teacher online, and (b) write to schools of education with otherwise promising degree programs, specifically to see whether they would agree to a student teaching term performed online from home rather than in a bricks-and-mortar classroom.

    I don't mean to give you guys a hard time! I just think that if you expect to do this all from home, you should check that assumption very specifically in light of the student teaching requirements that come with any precertification bachelor's degree in K-12 education.

    Now, there are also alternative teacher certification programs [Wikipedia] that may award provisional, temporary, teaching licenses, permits, etc. which may have reduced or deferred student teaching requirements. For instance, iTeachUS has an alternate route to certification in Texas – hat tip to sanantone, our expert on this – that uses a "one-year (two semester) paid internship during which time you are employed full time as a teacher in the field of your content area." Compared to traditional student teaching, this has the disadvantage of being much longer in calendar time, but the advantage of being paid! More generally, perhaps K12 Inc. or another online elementary school might work with an alternate certification program. As well as looking at bachelor's in education, this would be another avenue to explore.
     
  5. Jonathan Whatley

    Jonathan Whatley Well-Known Member

    I went looking for information about whether K12 Inc. takes on student teachers. I found some general reports about K12 Inc. instead.

    Internal Recording Reveals K12 Inc. Struggled to Comply With Florida Law (Trevor Aaronson and John O'Connor, StateImpact Florida, a reporting project of NPR member stations, May 13, 2013)

    K12 Inc. Reaches Tentative Settlement in Investor Lawsuit (Sean Cavanagh, Education Week Marketplace K-12 blog, March 5, 2013)

    Profits and Questions at Online Charter Schools (Stephanie Saul, front page story in The New York Times, December 12, 2011)
     
  6. Jonathan Whatley

    Jonathan Whatley Well-Known Member

    NMTTD: How's the search going if it is?

    I didn't mean to talk down the idea entirely! I hope y'all didn't take this from my posts. I just didn't want any misunderstanding. Colleges advertise online/distance degrees in K-12 education, but this might bury the lede that for an accredited U.S. bachelor's degree in K-12 education, a supervised student teaching requirement will be part of the degree.

    It isn't clear to me that student teaching placements (a) completed entirely by distance and (b) approved to meet these requirements are available readily, or even at all. But this doesn't mean it's impossible that a fully online student teaching placement might be worked out between a student, their college department of education (or an alternate-route-to-certification program), and an online K-12 school.
     

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