Yes. Traditional certification is not the only path for good teachers. These kinds of programs bring highly educated, highly motivated teachers into schools that need them and can increase the diversity of the teaching workforce.
46% (70 votes)
No. Too many of these programs do little more than throw poorly prepared teachers into underserved classrooms, which hinders student learning and contributes to high teacher-turnover rates.
23% (34 votes)
It depends on the program. Some underprepare their teachers, but others, such as Teach for America, have excellent track records.
28% (43 votes)
None of the above. (Comment below.)
3% (4 votes)
Total votes: 151
Comments (22)
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Non-traditional certification
Non-traditional certification teachers are great mentors for our youths, because many of our Non-traditional teachers are professional sharing knowledge, experience and great mentoring skills. In today's society our youths are coming from many troubled homes in comparison to previous years. I really don't think we should limit the certification to tradition, because we are closing the doors to experienced Engineers (math), Lawyers and many other professionals.
Non-traditional certification allow professionals to mentor students oppose to traditional certification teachers. Professionals who obtain their teaching certification as a second career are Engineers, Human Resourse Exec.etc., and many other professional careers sharing knowledge as well as experience. I personally think they are preparing our youths for a better education,career and future.
Are there any teacher
Are there any teacher programs for someone with less than a 2.5 gpa?
Fast Track Certification
Western Governors University
www.wgu.edu
Teaching Certification Programs
What are some good fast track teacher certification programs on the east coast?
I am in a similar situation
I am in a similar situation ... BS Physics, BE Electrical Engineering, MS Electrical Engineering, and an MBA in Finance all from top 10 universities ..... 16 years tech experience, and real world business development and financial analysis .... I have taught and tutored in math (calc, algebra and H.S. level Physics) every year to help friends and children of friends and because I love the subjects and feel very comfortable teaching .... and have also taught teams of applications engineers in group settings on a regular basis
I have been informed that I need courses in a foreign language, another in art or music (I have been playing guitar for 40 years but that doesn't count) and some other non related classes to what I would like to teach (Physics and/or Calc)
Here's the sadness .... if you can't fast track to get some type of transitional cert, then you will probably get a full time sub assignment and could very well teach non related subject matter, and get paid on a per diem sub basis ($100-150) for 2 -3 years while completing all of the required ed. classes. It's as though you need to pay your dues and be scutinized for a few years .... how encouraging! So how does one justify leaving a $150K job to make $25k while acting as a substitute?
The teaching unions, in my opinion have caused this nightmare .... as long as they last there will be essentially no industry qualified workers coming into the educational arena lest they want to get poorer and misused.
Some one please wake up (the mayors or chancellors perhaps) and realize that the list of so called certification requirements are little relevant to hard core math and applications oriented science curriculums .... and that's what the country and cities are crying for ..... if the cert requirements and miserable staring salaries associated with pre cert continue, there will be no industry experts transitioning to education lest they be at the end of their rope with little respect for their own accomplishments and themselves .... but then again perhaps the unions want these individuals to teach our future scientists and engineers? the US tech industry is in big trouble and will get worse without qualified, reasonably paid, and respected career transitioners .... by the way, how is it that every article I read about cities needing qualified science and math teachers never mention the ridiculous cert hurdles, additional unrelated coursework (out of pocket expense, no less,) and low ball salaries offered to career transitioners? It's a sad state of affairs my friends!
Fast track to certification
I am a second career teacher that participated in a program that would be considered a fast track to certification. I am & always have been "highly qualified." I had to pass the PRAXIS & PLT for my areas. I believe that being the teacher, the one in charge of the class is the only thing that is going to get you that hands on experience that you need for good classroom management. I began in a poor performing school that was 99% minority. I felt at times I needed to bring a whistle as a gym teacher would to my classes that first year. It was a very rough school. No teacher certification program through a university could have taught me what I needed to know to survive there. These schools have a hard time getting teachers. They should not be further hindered in getting qualified teachers just because they have not been through a traditional education program. My brother-in-law is currently attending a very highly regarded university in a traditional teacher certification program. He does spend time visiting schools throughout his training & thus spends time in teachers classrooms. However, haven't we all spent years in classrooms? My brother-in-law will still have a rough first year, same as everyone entering the profession. The reason why is simply because it will be his first year to be in charge of the classroom. All the years of being in a classroom or student teaching or teacher shadowing, cannot give you that experience. Instead of figuring out ways to remove highly qualified teachers from the classroom, perhaps we should instead consider better mentoring programs and support programs for new teachers to help retention.
Classroom management and multisensory teaching techniques
I am studying to work with children who have dyslexia. I am already realizing through my lesson planning and the time constraints of doing therapy with children that "newbees" desperately need mentoring from their veteran peers. No newbee wants to be shadowing their veteran peers for the rest of their career as
some may think but there must be a set period according to one's need for the "newbee" to be networking and learning various teaching techniques with multisensory methods. I recently borrowed an idea from my daughter's teacher for example. She did biography boxes with the fifth grade girls. First the girls had to pick out a biography of someone who made the world a better place to live in. For each chapter she had them write a summary of the chapter. Then she had them do a biography box (which is type of graphic organizer) that actually is presented as a cube made of paper with each side presenting important information about the person's life events and accomplishments etc. Things like this help me to provide interesting and meaningful ways to teach good reading comprehension and sequencing. It keeps the students excited about learning and pushing themselves to the next milestone. I hope when I start my alternative certification program, I will be welcomed into a group that provides little mini-workshops on various ideas for making learning meaningful and exciting.
I long to be back in the teaching environment and be around creative minds so we can feed off each others creativity.
Happy Thanksgiving!
David, I could not agree
David,
I could not agree more with your ideas on exactly what a program ends up covering. I just graduated from college after completing countless hours of lesson plans that never were taught the way they were written and only about six hours actually talking about classroom discipline. I could not bring myself to become a classroom teacher this year because I felt that what I learned would not be sufficient enough to take complete control. I am now substituting to try and fill in the gaps for my self that my professors left empty. I did have a good program in that each class was accompanied by a field placement in a classroom but the prep work for that placement was meaningless most of the time.
Fast Track Certification
I think there needs to be a balance. A new teacher should have the background knowledge of the subjects s/he will teach. You can't get that 'on the job', you need to study it - before you go in front of a group of students. But academic coursework alone will not prepare a new teacher to use effective strategies to help students learn. Skill in actually 'managing a classroom' only comes from real experience. Fast track certification programs too often shortchange the participants, which ends up cheating their eventual students.