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Learning to teach online – Montana rural schools desperately need elementary teachers.
Some people living in remote areas of Montana would love to be teachers, but can’t move to a town with a four-year college or university to earn a teaching degree. To address those problems, Montana State University-Billings created online programs for students to earn a bachelor’s or master’s degree in elementary education while living in their hometowns.
By MARY PICKETT
Of The Gazette Staff
Each program takes about two years to complete, said Ken Miller, who oversees the program. Miller is the chairman of the Department of Educational Theory and Practice in the College of Education and Human Services at MSU-Billings.
The online elementary-education programs add another dimension to classes and degree programs that MSU-B has offered over the Internet for several years.
The two education programs are identical to on-campus degree programs, except that online bachelor-degree students take a few more credits. Students move through each program as a cohort or group, with everyone taking the same classes each semester.
The first group of 15 students to graduate from the program received master’s degrees in December 2003. Most got classroom teaching jobs. Of those who didn’t, one is substitute teaching until a full-time job opens up, and another is teaching in a museum.
That first graduate group included a couple of students working on a certification to teach high school.
But, because it was difficult to line up online classes in high school specialty areas, such as biology or upper-level English and history, the program now is designed only for future elementary school teachers.
The first undergraduate group started in spring 2003 and will graduate in May 2005.
Students come from diverse backgrounds. Some are recent graduates of two-year community colleges. Others may have gone to college years ago but didn’t complete a degree. Some work full-time. Others are working in their local schools as aides or tutors. Several live in the Flathead Valley and others in Wyoming.
One member of the upcoming cohort is moving to California from Montana with her military husband and wants to get a teaching degree. Most have always wanted to be a teacher.
Taking online classes isn’t easy and requires motivated self-starters who don’t mind working hard.
In addition to reading assignments and papers, the heart of online classes is "threaded discussions." A professor puts a question on a Web site, and students respond in writing to the original question as well as to other students’ written comments.
Threaded discussions require every student to respond because that’s the only way a professor knows that a student is participating.
"You have to discuss things," Miller said. "You can’t sit in the back of the room and just listen."
Students may get their kids in bed and sit down at the computer and work.
"I get e-mails (from students) at 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. in the morning," Miller said.
Online students also spend extensive amounts of time in classrooms in local schools working with elementary students and teachers.
In addition to online classes, students are required to come to the Billings campus for a five-week summer session. That gives students a chance to meet faculty members and other students, with whom they trade advice and on whom they lean for support.
Some teacher-education courses also are best taught face to face, such as those in art, music and reading. Professors need to see firsthand how a student is interacting with a child when working on reading, for example.
The online program has been a big hit.
Miller has had calls from every state asking about the program, with most applications coming from Montana, Wyoming, eastern Idaho and western North Dakota.
Miller had 44 applicants for 22 openings in the next bachelor’s degree cohort starting this fall.
A federal Learning Online through Ongoing Partnership grant helped finance development of the courses and bought state-of-the art equipment so classes could be offered easily over the Internet.
The two programs are working so well that Miller is thinking about starting an online master’s program for people with degrees who are already teaching.
Bridging distance makes teaching futures possible
Michelle McCarthy started her degree at Montana State University-Billings by driving three times a week from her home in Bridger.
The worst part wasn’t the slippery roads during the winter or the two-hour-a-day commute. The worst was when she ran behind schedule to pick up her two sons after school.
Fortunately for McCarthy, MSU-B developed a program that has kept her on track for a teaching degree while she takes most of her classes online from home.
Even her work with students can be done at Bridger schools.
McCarthy has long thought about being a teacher.
She grew up in Bozeman and went to work in a bank after high school. After her two sons, now 12 and 11, were born, she became a stay-at-home mother.
When her family lived in California, McCarthy volunteered for her oldest son’s kindergarten class and found that she liked working with young children.
After she and her family moved to Bridger seven years ago, she began thinking more seriously about becoming a teacher. She began taking classes on the MSU-B campus and later joined the online bachelor’s degree program. She expects to graduate next spring.
Among the 17 students in her group, eight live in northwestern Montana; two in Casper, Wyo.; and one in Miles City. They include a grandmother and several single mothers.
Like other students in the program, McCarthy has worked with children in a school in her community since she started with the program. She recently finished a semester in Holly Furber’s third-grade class at Bridger Elementary School.
McCarthy is looking forward to having her own class some day and "teaching as I’ve been taught to teach" with a lot of active learning projects that will keep kids excited about school.
Dan Montoya of Colstrip also is taking classes in the online bachelor’s degree program on top of a dizzying work load.
He helps his wife, Reatha, with her Montana Tamale Co. business, which turns out 600 tamales a week in an USDA-inspected kitchen in a former school in Colstrip.
Dan Montoya also drives a school bus route and works in Colstrip School District’s technology department to keep 500 computers in the school system running.
Because of his work load and surgery on his foot in January, he had to drop two of his four online classes with the program.
Montoya, who has a two-year associate degree from a community college, became interested in working with kids when he and his family lived in Arizona, where he and his wife worked for ATT. He coached his son’s baseball team and worked with Special Olympics.
When the Montoyas moved to Colstrip in August 1994, he began to substitute teach and work with special-education children.
The online program has given him a chance to become a teacher, which otherwise would have been difficult because he lives so far from Billings.
"For Montana, online classes are the best thing to happen," he said.
His hopes some day to teach third- or fourth-grade students, a special age according to Montoya.
"Those kids are really something," he said.
Mary Pickett may be reached at 657-1262 or at [email protected].
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Online programs filling for fall
When the Montana State University-Billings online elementary-teaching master’s program started about two years ago, it was the first of its kind in the country.
Now, a few other schools offer such programs, but MSU-B’s remains popular.
Two new groups of students will begin studying for elementary-teaching degrees this fall through MSU-B. The bachelor’s degree program will have 22 students and is full, said Ken Miller, chairman of the Department of Educational Theory and Practice in the College of Education and Human Services at MSU-B.
A master’s program with 15 students so far has more room for a couple more.
For information about online education programs, call Ken Miller at 657-2034 or email him at:
Copyright © The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises.
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