WASC says the bulk of what I won, the $8,000, is a grant with no strings attached. All I have to do is get a student teaching placement before the end of the year. The second bit I won which is the "scholarship" of around $800, has strings attached & requires me (after graduation) to teach at a low income public school for whatever % of the year that $800 equals of my tuition. That means I am only required to teach for 2 months or less. And I have TEN YEARS to fulfill that requirement.
July 7 (Sun) - “Elementary Reading Methods” marked complete. 1 assignment for “Assigning…” returned for revision but evaluator’s comments were vague and confusing - stated what I had written has no basis in the data when it does and I clearly justified it.
10) July 8 (Mon) - Course instructor emailed me with much better info for how to revise. If you need to compare two data sheets where 1 has numerical or percentage data and the other has data in symbols (such as “++-”), you are NOT supposed to convert the symbolic data to a percentage (“++- = 66% correct”) in order to compare the two sets of data - which is what I had done (with an explanation attached) and which is why the evaluator had claimed what I wrote had no basis. Additionally when you give feedback to students it is supposed to be positive (apparently they don’t want us telling the kids their weak points on the assessment, they just want us to address it via further instruction or something without explicitly commenting on it). Mentor unlocked next two courses.
July 9 - Started “Language Arts Instruction and Intervention” (2 CU). Notified I won 2 scholarship/grants. Previous courses all marked as complete.
July 10 - My state exam scores (equivalent of PRAXIS) got inputted into WGU, they appear as if they were courses. Not sure if they add to the percentage or not but degree is now 41% complete.
July 11 - Had issues with WGU for several days, it would continuously refresh while claiming it couldn’t load any info, impeding my progress. Eventually saw that clearing out the URL bar and inserting simply https://my.wgu.edu/ often works. Attempted pre-assessment without doing any of the course reading - failed it.
July 14 - Finished all reading for the language arts class, retook pre-assesment and passed. This class contains maybe 80% the same material as in previous classes. The new stuff is details on the SAMR model, examples of how to get kids to read and write more, a few aspects on language output issues, and some new teacher slang like “mirrors and windows” and “mentor text”. The new stuff is sandwiched in the middle of the chapters.
July 15 - Took & passed exam. Tried to schedule NES 102 test required for internship, but their online proctoring system blocks Windows accessibility features so had to message them and delay the test. Began “Mathematics for Elementary Educators” (2 CU). This class teaches: Geometric Shapes & Properties / Transformations, Congruence, Similarity, Coordinate Plane / Perimeter, Area, Surface Area, Volume / Measurement / Data Analysis and Statistics / Probability. However I graduated high school in 2009 and haven’t studied math since then - they have changed how they word things on top of teaching some stuff we never learned.
July 17 - submitted 1/1 assignments for the language arts class.
July 18 - Began process of getting my whole family Italian citizenship by ancestry, via my grandpa's grandpa. My grandpa, who is really proud of his Italian heritage, just got diagnosed with 2 cancers and leukemia... hoping to get the citizenship for us (including him) all before he passes as a sort of present. Paused WGU. Still waiting on NES reply.
July 27 - Submitted last assignment for Language Arts.
July 30 - NES never replied. Messaged WGU who said "we can't do anything about 3rd party tests". Language Arts marked complete. With 33 days left remaining of my first term, my degree is now 45% complete.
Aug 15 (only 16 days left of term 1) - Fell off the bandwagon again. A coworker in my department had left without even 24 hours' notice, so I got scheduled for 24 hour shifts and/or working 7 days a week. That finally ended on Aug 15th. Met with mentor, who said:
- I’m now approved me for Preclinical Experiences. Just “buy liability insurance, submit it then hit apply”. Bought 2 years of student AAE insurance for $79 and requested the certificate proving membership.
- After I finish the Preclinical stuff I can apply for Student Teaching.
- WGU is now promising to get people their Teaching placements within 45 days of applying.
- I need to have the remaining 15 CUs of my degree all done by, absolute latest, the first week of December in order to get my placement & keep my scholarship.
- The hardest course for me that I have left is actually the math course I’m on right now. If I can just push past that everything should be smooth sailing.
@Vle045:
There are a lot of parents on drugs at this elementary school too, or so I've been warned. It gets worse at the high school because by then the kids themselves are also on drugs. And yet this town has much less drug use than all the neighboring ones. Very sad.
July 7 (Sun) - “Elementary Reading Methods” marked complete. 1 assignment for “Assigning…” returned for revision but evaluator’s comments were vague and confusing - stated what I had written has no basis in the data when it does and I clearly justified it.
10) July 8 (Mon) - Course instructor emailed me with much better info for how to revise. If you need to compare two data sheets where 1 has numerical or percentage data and the other has data in symbols (such as “++-”), you are NOT supposed to convert the symbolic data to a percentage (“++- = 66% correct”) in order to compare the two sets of data - which is what I had done (with an explanation attached) and which is why the evaluator had claimed what I wrote had no basis. Additionally when you give feedback to students it is supposed to be positive (apparently they don’t want us telling the kids their weak points on the assessment, they just want us to address it via further instruction or something without explicitly commenting on it). Mentor unlocked next two courses.
July 9 - Started “Language Arts Instruction and Intervention” (2 CU). Notified I won 2 scholarship/grants. Previous courses all marked as complete.
July 10 - My state exam scores (equivalent of PRAXIS) got inputted into WGU, they appear as if they were courses. Not sure if they add to the percentage or not but degree is now 41% complete.
July 11 - Had issues with WGU for several days, it would continuously refresh while claiming it couldn’t load any info, impeding my progress. Eventually saw that clearing out the URL bar and inserting simply https://my.wgu.edu/ often works. Attempted pre-assessment without doing any of the course reading - failed it.
July 14 - Finished all reading for the language arts class, retook pre-assesment and passed. This class contains maybe 80% the same material as in previous classes. The new stuff is details on the SAMR model, examples of how to get kids to read and write more, a few aspects on language output issues, and some new teacher slang like “mirrors and windows” and “mentor text”. The new stuff is sandwiched in the middle of the chapters.
July 15 - Took & passed exam. Tried to schedule NES 102 test required for internship, but their online proctoring system blocks Windows accessibility features so had to message them and delay the test. Began “Mathematics for Elementary Educators” (2 CU). This class teaches: Geometric Shapes & Properties / Transformations, Congruence, Similarity, Coordinate Plane / Perimeter, Area, Surface Area, Volume / Measurement / Data Analysis and Statistics / Probability. However I graduated high school in 2009 and haven’t studied math since then - they have changed how they word things on top of teaching some stuff we never learned.
July 17 - submitted 1/1 assignments for the language arts class.
July 18 - Began process of getting my whole family Italian citizenship by ancestry, via my grandpa's grandpa. My grandpa, who is really proud of his Italian heritage, just got diagnosed with 2 cancers and leukemia... hoping to get the citizenship for us (including him) all before he passes as a sort of present. Paused WGU. Still waiting on NES reply.
July 27 - Submitted last assignment for Language Arts.
July 30 - NES never replied. Messaged WGU who said "we can't do anything about 3rd party tests". Language Arts marked complete. With 33 days left remaining of my first term, my degree is now 45% complete.
Aug 15 (only 16 days left of term 1) - Fell off the bandwagon again. A coworker in my department had left without even 24 hours' notice, so I got scheduled for 24 hour shifts and/or working 7 days a week. That finally ended on Aug 15th. Met with mentor, who said:
- I’m now approved me for Preclinical Experiences. Just “buy liability insurance, submit it then hit apply”. Bought 2 years of student AAE insurance for $79 and requested the certificate proving membership.
- After I finish the Preclinical stuff I can apply for Student Teaching.
- WGU is now promising to get people their Teaching placements within 45 days of applying.
- I need to have the remaining 15 CUs of my degree all done by, absolute latest, the first week of December in order to get my placement & keep my scholarship.
- The hardest course for me that I have left is actually the math course I’m on right now. If I can just push past that everything should be smooth sailing.
@Vle045:
There are a lot of parents on drugs at this elementary school too, or so I've been warned. It gets worse at the high school because by then the kids themselves are also on drugs. And yet this town has much less drug use than all the neighboring ones. Very sad.
Finished: 2 AAs, 1 BA, 2 trade schools, 3 ENEB MAs, JLPT N1.
In Progress: 1 WGU MA, 2 Mastercurssos, 3 more ENEB MAs, teacher license.
In Progress: 1 WGU MA, 2 Mastercurssos, 3 more ENEB MAs, teacher license.
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