Master's in Experiential Education Capstone Project - Becoming a teacher in Alaska

 

Becoming qualified as a teacher without holding an undergraduate degree in Education is an adruous, and costly, process. Despite the fact that in spring 2015 I had a Master's degree in Experiential Education, most states (including Alaska) require a traditional teaching degree in order to become professionally certified as a teacher. For myself, this meant an additional Master's degree.

 

Fortunately, for those like myself who feel qualified to teach in a public school, Alaska has an alternative option - initial teacher certification. Initial certification requires only that I be enrolled in a teaching program in order to be qualified to work as a teacher. After completing my degree (done through distance classes in the evenings), I can then apply for professional certification. "Student teaching" in the normal sense is waived since I will already be working as a teacher. 

 

The only catch: all the preparation I would have done over the course of my degree (building my Alaska teaching job application, taking Praxis exams, obtaining background checks, fingerprinting, filling out tens of pages of paperwork for the State of Alaska, among other things) had to be done in one semester - in addition to applying and being accepted into a teaching program. And, to be better prepared to teach in the fall, I wanted to design a curriculum integrating experiential teaching into two subjects I would likely be teaching - World History and Government. And because this was such an interesting process, I decided I will at some point document it on my blog (currently still a work in progress). 

 

Three months and about $1000 later, I was enrolled in the University of Alaska Southeast's Masters in Teaching program, and had accepted a teaching job that I am very excited about in Naukati, Alaska, on Prince of Wales Island. Since, I have taught for two years on "POW" and completed my MAT. To learn more about my application to UAS, initial teacher application, and job application materials, see teacher certification. To read more about my World History and Government courses, see curriculum. 

 

 

Projects for UAS MAT Program

Here is a project that I designed as part of Educational Psychology: a ten-minute NPR-esque audio story about effective teaching. Listen to the story on my SoundCloud site here.