As I mentioned on Monday in EDTECH597 – Week 8, my Boise State students have to post two entries of any kind this week on any topic they wish. In that entry, I indicated that on Wednesday and Thursday I would post sample entries and that today’s entry would likely be a discussion question entry.
This past September I posted a poll asking, Should States Have Online Teaching Endorsements? Earlier this month I did a retake of that poll for my EDTECH597 course. The first time around there were five votes in favour of the endorsements, five votes against. This time around there were nine votes in favour, two against and one undecided. This means between the two polls, the results were:
- There should be an online teaching endorsement – 14 votes (63.6%)
- There should not be an online teaching endorsement – 7 votes (31.8%)
- I don’t know whether or not there should be an online teaching endorsement – 1 vote (4.5%)
I’ll be honest and say that even though I support K-12 online learning, I don’t think there should be a separate endorsement to a teacher’s certification for online teaching.
I’m of the opinion that online teaching is still, well teaching. The medium may change and that may force teachers to do things a little differently but the underlying pedagogy is still the same. We don’t have endorsements for discovery learning or project-based teaching – both of which are instructional pedagogies. Why separate out online teaching? Most states don’t have endorsements for technology integration (mine is one that does and that’s another ones I think should be eliminated). Simply put, I believe endorsements should be used to indicate a specialization in a specific subject area (e.g., mathematics, English language arts, social studies, etc.), age range (e.g., elementary or secondary), type of learner (e.g., special education endorsements), or specialized position (e.g., school library media specialist). I mean what’s next, an endorsement for multiple intelligences or learning styles?
Most, if not all, of the teachers that have won state-based awards or have been nominated or won national awards for online teaching have not had an endorsement in online teaching. In fact, most of these people recognized as being at the top of their profession have not even had any formal training at the university level in teaching online. This proves that a specialized endorsement to make these teachers “qualified” to teach in this environment is unnecessary. And that is what an endorsement is, it is the state indicating that an individual is considered qualified to teach that subject area or those grade levels. Does this mean that all of the online teachers out there right now are unqualified because they do not have endorsements?
Further, I believe that all teachers should be prepared to teach online as a part of their pre-service teacher education programs. In the same way that technology integration is supposed to be provided to all teacher education students, online teaching should also be fully integrated into the preparation of teachers. For existing teachers this does mean that there will be a need for graduate-level certificates to catch those that have already completed their teacher training, but I believe that these too should be phased out as online teaching familiarization and skills are provided as a regular part the preparation of new teachers.
But that’s just my opinion… What do you think? Is the online teaching endorsement simply a political signal by states to indicate a willingness to adopt the ideas of the proponents of educational reform? Are these programs at the university level simply a cash grab in an age of declining state funding? Are all of the existing online teachers unqualified because they lack the formal training in teaching online? It’s time for you to have your say and explain the votes from those earlier polls.
I have to disagree with your opinion in the short term, but agree for the long term, and then the question is how to get there. I agree completely with you when you say: ” I believe that all teachers should be prepared to teach online as a part of their pre-service teacher education programs.” But we know today that’s not the case, and even more troubling is that there seems to be little movement in that direction.
Would creating an endorsement for online teaching cause more schools of education to enter the 21st Century in their approach to pre-service teacher education? If there were endorsements to encourage SoEs to understand how to include online education into programs could those endorsements be then removed once the goal of including online teaching was achieved?
You’ll remember that a couple of years ago I asked a group of about 100 SITE members and SoE faculty at one my SITE presentations how many taught online and it was most, but when I asked how many prepared their students to teach online it was only about a handful. I’ve seen no indications that situation has changed substantially in the past few years.
I am concerned with some of the online teaching certificate programs offered by universities because some of the ones I’ve looked at seem to focus on the use of technology, not on online teaching. I’m convinced the faculty in those programs (that’s not intended to be a blanket condemnation, but a concern about certain programs) don’t really understand online teaching, and think they can simply move what they do in on-ground courses to an online environment and use lots of technology.
And on your point of existing online teachers — the longer-running online education programs in the US have, since their inception provided the high quality online teacher professional development. I interviewed many of those programs in the early 2000s to find out just what they were doing. But, as more universities created those online teacher certificate programs some of the newer programs contracted their oTPD to them, believing, sometimes erroneously, that the institutions knew what they were doing.
So, while I’d like to see every SoE prepare pre-service teachers for online teaching, I’m concerned about the lack of understanding of the differences in online instruction and in failing to understand the range of online programs, so I have little confidence that programs of the quality of Boise State’s would be developed.
And just to add another potentially controversial statement to this discussion…. I don’t believe anyone should teach or create an online course until they’ve taken an online course.
Comment by Ray Rose — July 28, 2011 @ 1:20 pm |
But Ray, where does that stop? Should we have charter school endorsements? It seems that the federal DOE and most states favour charter schooling as a way to educational reform, which must mean that teaching in a charter school is different than in a traditional public school. At Wayne State we even have an Ed.S. program in charter schooling.
I use the example of discovery learning or project-based instructional endorsements in the post, but really we are talking about educational fads here. Depending on how you view it, online teaching is simply an extension or an expansion of pedagogical strategies to include those mediating by technology or it is an extension or expansion of what should be taught as a part of technology integration (I mean isn’t it the purest form of technology integration into one’s teaching?).
While I will agree that there are concerns with the implementation within teacher education, but I’d argue the same of those technology integration courses (in fact I did make that argument in article that I led in that virtual schooling special issue of the Journal of Technology and Teacher Education a year or so ago). Would an endorsement fix those problems with implementation? I doubt it.
Plus, again let’s look at what an endorsement actually means… It means that a person is considered qualified by the state to teach something. I was trained as a high school social studies teacher. Do you really believe that any amount of professional development could turn me into an effective high school mathematics or chemistry or physics teacher? Why do we believe any differently for online teaching? I’d argue you believe differently because it is different, which is why I argue that it shouldn’t be an endorsement.
Comment by mkbnl — July 28, 2011 @ 1:30 pm |
I don’t really want to get this into something just between you and me Michael. I hope others will jump in. Please!
But, I do believe that through professional development we could turn you into an effective high school mathematics teacher…. Chemistry or physics too! You didn’t put a time limit on the PD to accomplish that. :-) BTW if you don’t believe that’s possible should you be in teacher preparation? :-)
I’ve been advocating for significantly longer than you, that SoEs include awareness and some preparation for online teaching as part of teacher pre-service ed. As a colleague once said, getting Soes to change is like pounding concrete.
We both agree on the long-term goal — that online teaching should be part of pre-service education. We’re only discussing how to get there. If all the Boise State graduates could be dispersed to revamp teacher education I’d be pleased. That’s an endorsement of that program.
I believe technology integration should be integrated into teacher preparation, but either the SoE faculty don’t know how to do it or don’t consider it important enough, and there’s always this issue… if it’s separate then I don’t have to worry about it in my course. It’s been that way with equity, and a number of other issues.
So, for me, the bigger question is how do we get SoEs to reflect 21st Century learning? How do we get them to stop looking back and look to the present and future?
Give me an alternative to endorsements that will be successful in getting SoE attention so we don’t have to wait until the 22nd Century to move SoEs into the 21st Century. You’ve been arguing against stuff, but not providing an solution. I want to hear your position on how to improve what is going on in teacher education with respect to online education.
Comment by Ray Rose — July 28, 2011 @ 2:04 pm |
I agree with Ray, I do hope others join the conversation. But since you’re the only one here Ray, let’s continue…
But I do believe that. The reason I believe that is because in order for me to be an effective high school mathematics or chemistry or physics teacher requires content knowledge, in addition to pedagogical knowledge. I have no doubt that you could provide me with the pedagogical knowledge through PD. I have serious doubts you could provide me with the content knowledge through PD alone. And this distinction is where having online teaching as a separate endorsement falls apart for me. I’ll fall back once again to ask if an online teaching endorsement, why not a project-based learning endorsement or a constructivism endorsement?
In terms of how we should reform Colleges of Education for this century, that’s a bit of a different question than simply whether or not there should be a separate endorsement. But since I have very specific ideas, let me give it a shot. First of all, this is for the preparation of secondary teachers only. I suspect the same could be true for middle school (and the programs I have worked in often treat middle or intermediate and secondary together), but this does not apply to the preparation of elementary teachers. I don’t have enough experience or expertise to be able to speak to that level.
I don’t think there should be any initial program certification programs (i.e., graduate from high school and start a Bachelor’s program that leads to teacher certification). I think all teacher certificate programs should be at the undergraduate level, but be two year add on degrees after a student has a Bachelor’s degree with a major in one teachable area and a minor in a second teachable area (or a double major in two teachable areas). The add on program would be a four or five semester program and be solely focused on education courses. The first semester would be a full-time course load of education courses in things like general pedagogy, technology integration, content-focused pedagogy, assessment, and educational psychology/learning theory. Also courses would include web-based support (i.e., content, resources, some assessment, even some classes in an online format). The first semester would also include a one day a week observation in the schools. The second semester would be split into two seven week components. The first seven weeks the students would complete a teaching practicum (i.e., not a complete student teaching experience, but more of an observational/mentored experience) and take one online course on online pedagogy. The second seven week period would include an online teaching practicum, and there would be a teaching practicum seminar that met weekly (one week face-to-face and one week online) throughout the entire semester. The third semester the students would be back taking courses: more learning theory, more content-focused pedagogy, special education, an advanced technology integration course (and the second half of this course would focus on online and blended integration strategies), and an elective or two. The fourth semester would be the students’ actual student teaching semester and this could be done in a face-to-face format, an online format, or a half and half format. The students would also have a student teaching seminar during this semester that met weekly (one week face-to-face and one week online) throughout the entire semester.
If we did have a fifth semester, it could go one of a couple of ways. It could be modeled exactly like semester four (as I believe that we don’t mentor teachers enough in their initial preparation). It could use a half and half model, where if the student taught only face-to-face or online online during their first student teaching experience they must complete a seven week student teaching experience in the other deliver format and if they did experience both in the fourth semester they could choose which one they wanted in this fifth semester. While the students were on their student teaching there would also be a student teaching seminar. During the final seven weeks they could be back in the classroom for some final instruction (e.g., more content-focused pedagogy, more assessment, and an elective or two).
Under this model, it would mean that you’d need six or seven years to become a high school teacher (i.e., four or five for your initial Bachelors degree and then two more for your Bachelor’s of Education). I also have some very specific ideas about how I’d change Master’s degrees in Education as well, but that’s also a totally different discussion.
Comment by mkbnl — July 28, 2011 @ 2:55 pm |
RE I have no doubt that you could provide me with the pedagogical knowledge through PD. I have serious doubts you could provide me with the content knowledge through PD alone.
Depends on how you think about PD. The oTPD project I directed at Concord Consortium, Seeing Math, successfully improved (so said our outside evaluator) math teacher’s content knowledge. Yes, we were ostensibly starting with math teachers, but that may not have been the situation in all cases, and the Louisiana Virtual School Algebra project is, through long-term o/TPD, producing certified math teachers from teachers certified in other subjects, maybe even social studies.
RE your redesign of SoE. Interesting, and as you say, it’s a different discussion, but one I could easily engage in. (Maybe we should make it a SITE panel) One broad comment though. (and an attempt to tie this back the original focus). [and I love using research with the researcher] :-) I think you’ll agree the research is clear that teachers teach the way they’ve been taught. So, pulling out things like tech integration, and courses about how to teach online, or PBL don’t fully fit modeling the teaching we want to see used.
Back to the initial focus, we both agree we want pre-service teachers to be prepared to teach online. We both agree that’s not being well done today at many SoEs in the US. (What about Canada?) And we both believe an endorsement for online teaching isn’t the way to do that (At least long-term. You say no generally, but I’m willing to try to use it now as a lever) So, you’re still unwilling to offer a solution.
So Michael, until you, or someone else posts another option that moves this issue forward in this decade I say you are part of the problem.
(Bet your students love that one ;-) Maybe a few would be willing join in with justification for why that’s not the case, and maybe be rewarded with an additional 5 points on their grade.)
Comment by Ray Rose — July 28, 2011 @ 4:59 pm |
Ray, I think we’ll disagree on the PD being able to teach me enough mathematics to be a sound mathematics teacher. I also think we’ll disagree on the pulling out things like technology integration and teaching online. I recommend these as separate courses because research has shown that assuming teachers have the technology skills and assuming them will learn the pedagogical skills to incorporate them into their face-to-face teaching or online teaching simply by modeling and having pervasive environments don’t work. Teachers need to be taught how to use the technology. Then they need to be taught the pedagogy of how to use that technology in the face-to-face or online classroom. You also need to model effective pedagogical use of the tools while teachers are both learning the tools and being taught how to use them effectively. Finally, teachers need to have mentored experiences themselves when they begin to implement those tools.
You ask about Canada, most Canadian faculties of education have a one year (i.e., three semester) add on program for secondary teachers. Five or six courses (with a one day a week observation), followed by a semester of student teaching, and finished by another five or six courses.
And I’d hardly say I’m part of the problem. We’ve created a Graduate Certificate in Online Teaching here at Wayne State. It has a nice focus on tools, pedagogy, and theory – along with a practicum component. I’m working with a supplemental virtual school to add an online option for students during their student teaching semester. Plus I’m creating open access curriculum that other teacher education programs could use. And let’s not discount the fact that I maintain this blog as a way to connect university faculty and practitioners.
Comment by mkbnl — July 28, 2011 @ 10:04 pm |
Ray, Michael, can we keep the conversation going? How about a special blog post? Maybe Point/Counterpoint? Both make great points, so much so I’m going to share with my Dean.
Comment by Dr. Bob- Blog Curator — July 29, 2011 @ 12:53 am |
Bob, I always welcome Ray to post a guest blog entry in this space (and note that Ray also has his own blog – see http://rmrose.blogspot.com/). For those that don’t know, Ray and I are friends and he always tries to push my buttons by arguing with me (even when he agrees with me). And I welcome others contributions to this discussion (as I know Ray does, as evidenced by his entry Online Teaching Endorsement — Yeah or Nay? – where Ray mistakenly believes he is winning).
Comment by mkbnl — July 29, 2011 @ 8:09 am |
Okay, okay, you’re taking away some of the fun by telling everyone we are friends.
I’ll trust you on your willingness to learn math, but I still know that TPD — not event-driven TPD but sustained program-based TPD can provide both content and pedagological knowledge to someone trained as a teacher to begin with.
You’re right in that this blog does raise issues and does connect with online ed practitioners and IHE faculty. And I forgot to give credit to the Wayne State program as a good program, but do we see any evidence of any of these efforts as having impact on the field — that is, back the original topic — bringing virtual education into teacher preparation programs. Iowa State’s FIPSE-funded TEGiVS project developed modules, which are still available, but I didn’t see those have much reach beyond the partner institutions. (see http://ctlt.iastate.edu/~tegivs/TEGIVS/homepage.html)
So, we can point to small pockets of success, but we know the majority of Ed Schools act as if virtual schools are a passing fancy and something they can ignore. And, my goal is broad-scale change. I’d like to see at a minimum, awareness of the scope and range of variation in virtual education permeate all pre-service education programs and ed leadership programs. (Another topic we should get into in a different post — I will take you up on doing that as a guest here sometime.)
So, Michael, what else can we do to get some movement, movement in schools of education? (I’ve been talking with a couple of IHEs here in Texas pointing out both the growth of online education and the darth of acknowledgement of that in their pre-service programs.) This conversation has given Dr Bob some ammunition to use with his Dean, so there’s another.
Comment by Ray Rose — July 29, 2011 @ 1:21 pm |
Ray, If you go back a few days to a post I made on How Finland Became An Education Leader, we were discussing teacher content knowledge. One of the things that came out of that post as the importance that Finland places on content knowledge – both at the undergraduate level and at the graduate level (as opposed to what the interviewee calls “silly courses on education theory and history”). It is worth looking at how much content knowledge our teachers actually have (which is why I believe education should be a second degree program) and why I think it is a fallacy that you could provide enough content knowledge to be a strong subject matter expert at the high school level (at least to the levels that we see in countries other than the United States). And I do say countries other than the United States because when a high school mathematics teacher in the United States can take as few as 12-15 undergraduate courses in mathematics and no graduate courses, but still have a B.Sc. and an M.Ed. and be considered highly qualified. It would likely be much easier to impart enough content knowledge via for me to be a mathematics teachers if this was what I was being measured against.
I also think you may under estimate the scope of the TEGIVS reach. I know of at least two Canadian universities that use parts of the curriculum. We use both the TEGIVS scenarios and the ILO case studies here at Wayne State. I recommend them to every K-12 online learning program I deal with as useful PD material (and know of one that uses it quite extensively). I can list about a dozen high schools here in Michigan that use it as a way of helping their teachers support students completing their online learning graduation requirement.
In terms of what we need to do, I don’t know the answer to that exactly. As a university-based researcher interested in K-12 online learning, I’m almost completely occupied in trying to fight the dominant narrative of educational reform that is using K-12 online learning to corporatize and privatize public education. I’m not sure I have the time or resources to also be fighting on a second front (beyond the reach of my own institution). But there are now thirteen university-based researchers that I can quickly name off the top of my head (i.e., Archambault, Black, Cavanaugh, Dawley, DePietro, Ferdig, Irvin, Kennedy, Lowes, Oliver, Perkins, Rice, Wiley – at least those that have published or have been funded for some project in the last year ). If each of us were to pick a front to do battle on, we’d have better odds making an impact than the current scatter shot efforts that we have now by the few of us willing to stick our heads above the trench line.
Comment by mkbnl — July 30, 2011 @ 8:25 am |
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Michael: It’s nice to know some folks are using The TEGiVS modules. It was disheartening to see how many folks just didn’t know about or choose to use them. But, even with the handful of IHEs (not counting the LEAs) that’s small impact for the dollars spent.
I like your idea of getting that group of researchers (and there are a few others perhaps) to pick a “front to do battle on” and be able to call on the rest for support when necessary (that was my addition) that would be an interesting start to having a broader impact. In fact, I thought that was one of the original goals of the VSS research committee.
Maybe we can pull that group together either at a conference, or electronically, to talk about that. (Do you think, by chance. they might be watching this conversation?)
My goal, is and always will be, to have a bigger impact than on just a single program. It may be it has to be a one-at-a-time strategy, but looking at school report in the US we can see that one-at-a-time approach takes a long time and doesn’t have much reach.
And, this has been fun, and I hope we’ve gotten a few folks thinking.
Be well
Comment by Ray Rose — July 31, 2011 @ 3:08 pm |
One of the difficulties Ray is that some of the university-based researchers don’t see any problem with the current state of affairs. Some are more interested in simply going along with the current trend and playing nice. I’ve had one that was blunt in saying that she didn’t care if the way in which we got to increased use of online learning and twenty-first century skills was through charter schools and other private corporate involvement (essentially that the ends justified the means). Then there are some who are still in the early part of their promotion and tenure process, and may not feel like they can rock the boat too much. Not everyone is willing to call a spade a spade, or if necessary a f@$^ing shovel (as my late great aunt Jean used to say) – particularly when it could have career implications.
As for an avenue, I think the Virtual Schooling SIG within SITE is a good place. Anything associated with iNACOL will be a no go. The Research Committee is a tool of the board and should reflect organizational goals. And to date, I have yet to see much of a distinction between the new Research SIG and the old Research Committee. I had argued that it should be more exclusive, at least in terms of the membership – but that idea seemed to be a no go. And almost a year and a half into the Research SIG and it has yet to do anything besides hold an organizational meeting.
Comment by mkbnl — July 31, 2011 @ 9:15 pm |
Okay Michael, as a member of the local program committee for SITE 2012 — it is happening in Austin, TX — I think we should consider doing something more than just the SIG meeting. (STOP, I know there are a number of virtual school sessions that normally are offered during SITE.) But I’m thinking of a panel that would attract the researchers and see if we could agree on some coordination of efforts.
Personally, I’d like to see virtual schooling issues moved into Ed Leadership programs. I keep hearing at VSS about on-ground administrators who make decisions that have impact on online education and they just don’t understand how the decision can hurt, hinder, or help the online program/students.
Comment by Ray Rose — August 2, 2011 @ 2:11 pm |
Ray, I would be happy to help organize a panel session. Is this something that needs to be submitted through the regular review process or is there another means to get this done?
Given the folks that normally attend I have a few people in mind that I’d ask to be on the panel. A good mix, but all folks are pre-promotion and tenure – so I’m not sure if they’ll have the same stick-your-neck-out-there attitude that you want.
Comment by mkbnl — August 2, 2011 @ 2:37 pm |
I think Ray’s idea is a good one and the problem he cites is dead-on. One challenge, however, is that the number of virtual school leadership positions is growing but still relatively small (compared to the nearly 140,000 traditional schools and districts that exist in the U.S., which translate into hundreds of thousands of brick-and-mortar leadership positions). As such, Ed Leadership programs are not going to pay too much attention to this issue or carve out much instructional space for it, similar to how most also don’t focus on particularized charter school leadership issues.
Comment by Scott McLeod — August 2, 2011 @ 2:59 pm |
Scott, I know that graduate education often specializes. For example, when I was looking at places to go for Instructional Technology I was told rather bluntly that the University of Georgia, Indiana University, and Florida State University were the top three programs out there. Given that we’d be talking about an online program (so geography wouldn’t be an issue), I’m wondering if some university couldn’t specialize in this?!? It might be much the same as the program I announced some months ago at Boise State University, where they had created a specific program or a specific cohort of online teachers from California that they were going to take through their Graduate Certificate in Online Teaching.
For that matter, why does it even have to be a single university? All you’d need is a single university for the administrative aspects, but this could be a program offered over multiple universities (maybe even using special cohorts of existing courses that were just focused on K-12 online learning). I’ve seen instances of joint graduate degrees in the past between two universities, whynot having two or three universities come together to do this?
Given your background in school leadership and technology issues, and the fact that you have done virtual schooling work before, I’m wondering if this might be something your institution would be interested in doing or participating in or leading?
Comment by mkbnl — August 2, 2011 @ 3:56 pm |
[...] see, it was only in the last week or two that Ray Rose and I were discussing the merits of online teaching endorsements to state-based teacher cer…, which lead to a conversation about what we thought teacher education should look like if it were [...]
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