WGU Master of Arts in Teaching Social Science

[craigfin]

Curious if anyone have ever taken this degree program from WGU or another Education program from them, I know most people here talk about their MBA programs. However I am wondering if anyone ever has taken this program and then sought licensure as a teacher in their respective states?

Also if anyone can tell me what "Supervised Demonstration Teaching in Social Science, Obs 1 and 2" means? Does WGU have you do a supervised teaching session?

More or less this is just a curiosity of mine and not necessarily something I will pursue. Anyway thank you in advance.

[Leherself]

Part of the degree program is a 12-20 week stint as a student teacher. WGU helps place you with a local school. This is almost always an unpaid term, btw, although in a rare instance some schools will hire you while you complete your student teaching (usually these are high needs school districts that have been unable to fill the position any other way). Since it's an all-day 5-day-a-week thing, you can't hold a regular job while you're student teaching either.

It's a standard requirement for teacher licensure programs.

[sanantone]

Part of the degree program is a 12-20 week stint as a student teacher. WGU helps place you with a local school. This is almost always an unpaid term, btw, although in a rare instance some schools will hire you while you complete your student teaching (usually these are high needs school districts that have been unable to fill the position any other way). Since it's an all-day 5-day-a-week thing, you can't hold a regular job while you're student teaching either.

It's a standard requirement for teacher licensure programs.

WGU's licensure program is traditional. Like you said, you can't really work while student teaching in a traditional program. Since this website has a lot of adult learners with bills to pay, WGU's teaching programs are not going to be popular here. There is also an expensive fee that comes with traditional student teaching. Not only is the work unpaid, but you're paying the school for the opportunity to student teach. A better option, if you can't afford to do traditional student teaching, is to enter an alternative teacher certification program. The way these work is that you are hired on a provisional license for one academic year. You are the full-time teacher of record, so you're getting a full salary during your internship. The alternative teacher certification program, however, might deduct their program fees in installments from your check. But, this is a good setup because you don't pay the few thousand dollars or so for the alternative teacher certification program until you land a job.

[Leherself]

One thing to look into is that teacher licensing varies from state to state. I'm not sure where the op is from, so I have no idea what other options might be available in their state.

In Alaska, there is no accepted alternative route to certification. The closest we get is that someone with a bachelor's degree can be hired on a provisional license if they've already enrolled in a traditional licensure program. WGU's self paced online program is a *much* more flexible option than any of the local universities would be. The downside of choosing that route is that the only school districts that mess around with provisional licenses are rural Alaskan school districts. And "rural" in Alaska means living in a tiny village (less than 1000 people), often off the road system (only accessible by small aircraft, or sometimes boat), with limited amenities.

My SO teaches high school in a tiny village of 500 people, where there's no running water except in the buildings owned by the school (thankfully that includes teacher housing. But just consider what it's like to teach high school in a location where teenagers have limited access to running water... well, your nose adjusts eventually...). Having been out there to visit quite a few times, I don't know that I have any interest in teaching in that kind of environment. There's also the cultural considerations - rural schools are primarily Native Alaskan schools, and Native Alaskans have a colorful and not-very-nice history with public education. Getting parents to get involved with their kids education in some of these places is quite challenging, especially as an outsider. Two of his coworkers this year were hired on provisional licenses, and completed their student teaching as part of their first year teaching at the school.

I'm considering becoming a high school social studies teacher myself. I haven't decided which career transition method makes more sense to me - an unpaid student teacher stint in the urban area where I already live... or a year of teaching at a rural school. Since I don't consider getting student loans to cover my living expenses to be a viable option, it's going to take some consideration.

In any case, there's no point in enrolling in WGU unless and until I'm actually ready to make a career change. Right now I'm hoping to build up my savings so I can cover a semester of not working - that'll give me the most flexibility to consider my options, but I'm not entirely sure what route I'm going to pick at this point.

One source of disappointment for me is that I have the Post 9/11 GI Bill, and the entire WGU degree is considered to be an online program. Even the portion of the degree that you complete in person, as a student teacher, only entitles you to the online housing stipend rate (I actually talked to the school VA reps on this one, to confirm it). So I'll only be getting paid $700 a month by the GI Bill during student teaching, instead of the local rate of $2100 a month for students that are attending school in person. I could sign up at a local school to complete my teaching degree, and get paid more by the GI Bill... but I'd have to quit my current job before I even started the degree, instead of being able to wait to quit until my last semester the way I would with WGU.

It's all about trade-offs, really.

[sanantone]

Having less than a million people, Alaska naturally has limited options. There are several cities in Texas, alone, that have more people than the whole state of Alaska. In larger states, most of your alternative teaching opportunities will be in just about any district if you're certified in a high needs area (typically foreign language, ESL, physics, mathematics, chemistry, and special education) or rural or urban school districts with high poverty rates in just about any certification area.

[craigfin]

This is most likely not something I will pursue, but I did want to thank you guys for your information on this subject.