Earning online teaching credentials might sound like a simple way of getting ready to enter the field of education, yet do you have what it takes to pursue an online teaching degree? While in decades past the requirements for becoming a tenured teacher were very well defined, with the increase of pressure on the education system, the waning funds, and the consistent drive to try new approaches, change existing procedures, and in some cases revamp an entire methodology because of the advent of sustainable technology, the role of the teacher – and thus also the skills sets and training requirements – are in a state of flux.
Understanding the intricacies and requirements of an online teaching degree is now a lot more complicated than simply hoping for advanced career training. Sure, the look and feel of the online teaching degree option is still very much the same: educators retrieve their required courses and associated materials online and follow the lesson plans, interact virtually with peers, and finally submit all of the completed materials to the overseeing course instructor. In some cases, publication of finished written course work may accompany the graduation from the course of study.
Yet for new teachers, the options with respect to coursework, level of intricacy, and even subject matter have greatly increased. For example, should an instructor focus heavily on the methodology of writing and teaching students how to engage in this art or would it be wiser to rely on technology and thus emphasize computer learning and software training as part of the online teaching degree? Questions such as these are but a small cross section of the consideration that now plague those seeking to earn their advanced education degree but for failure of seeing a congruent set of requirements in the education field will continue to make online teaching degrees a very diverse offering.