Online Teaching
Okay, there was an item in my Bloglines from a while back that I saw on the Distance-Educator.com’s Daily News blog that caught my attention.
K-12 Online Teaching Endorsements: Are They Needed?
According to the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (2007), “Research shows that the single most important school-related factor in raising student achievement is the quality of the teacher in the classroom. Today, in the era of high standards and increased accountability, boosting teacher quality is more crucial than ever before” (p. 4). The nature of the 21st-century classroom is rapidly changing. Online education in K-12, also called virtual schooling, is growing at about 30 percent annually (North American Council for Online Learning [NACOL], 2007).
Then late last week I received my weekly T.H.E. SmartClassroom message in my inbox and this was one of the item.
:::::: Interview ::::: K-12 Online Teaching Endorsements: Ohio Department of Education Perspectives
In “K-12 Online Teaching Endorsements: Are They Needed?” (Deubel, 2008), I noted that four states, including Georgia, have endorsement programs for teaching online and suspected that it is only a matter of time for more to follow. A reader responded with concerns. Endorsements might deter current licensed teachers from pursuing teaching online, require some colleges and universities to create new courses for their teacher preparation programs, add thousands of dollars to the expenses for teachers-to-be to take additional coursework, and ultimately impact state departments of education, which might need to create new administrative offices. Of course, this is just one opinion, but the reader raised legitimate issues. There is the flip side to an endorsement movement.
Click to continue: http://www.thejournal.com/articles/22218
This THE Journal article, was actually in response or a follow-up to an earlier article they published entitled K-12 Online Teaching Endorsements: Are They Needed? (which I believe I mentioned back in Article - K-12 Online Teaching Endorsements: Are They Needed?).
Now the reason I bring up these items, other than the fact that they all came at me around the same time period, is because this is seemingly becoming a bigger issue in the virtual school community. It isn’t necessarily a new thing:
- New Grad Course in Virtual School Leadership from VHSM
- Virtual Teachers For The Future from VHSM
- Virtual Teaching Internships from VHSM
- Teaching How To Teach Online from VHSM
- National Standards for Quality Online Teaching from NACOL
- Professional Development for Virtual Schooling and Online Learning from NACOL
- Going Virtual! The Status of Professional Development for K-12 Online Teachers from Kerry Rice and Lisa Dawley of Boise State University
- Teacher Education Goes into Virtual Schooling (TEGIVS) from Iowa State University
I also mention this because we have adopted some of the TEGIVS material into one of our own courses here at Wayne State and are in the process of proposing a Graduate Certificate in Online Teaching that would have both a K-12 (i.e., virtual school) and higher education foci.
The reason we are moving in this direction is because the State of Michigan has instituted a new requirement for graduation that students must have an online learning experience. This has been reflected in proposed changes to the educational technology standards for teachers, which the latest drafts adds three new standards related to online course design, online course management, and online teaching. As the K-12 emphasis track of our Master’s in Instructional Technology can lead to the educational technology endorsement by the State, our courses must now reflect these new standards once they are adopted. Given that states like Georgia have already started to add an actual online teaching endorsement, and the proposed compromise in Wisconsin specifies that teachers must undergo a certain number of hours of training and/or professional development, I wonder how far off is an online teaching endorsement in Michigan?
