Continuing my studies…

I have been a little lax on the updates at the moment. This is not because there is nothing to report, but instead it is due to the workload. I will try and keep this brief!

Introduction to Education Theory

In all honesty, I did not enjoy this course. That is not to say it was bad, and it has given me a sound understanding of education theory. The course was well planned on the instructors part, but the main reading was a textbook (provided at no additional cost), and I have never been a fan of textbooks. Am I glad I took the course? Yes! Would I like to take it again? NO!

The course reading, as tedious as it was, was obviously intended as a springboard for further research, and in that respect it was successful. I found myself paying little attention to the course reading once I had fulfilled my obligation to digest it, and my assignments were mostly based around additional readings I had found myself.

The group assignment was fantastic, and I really enjoyed working on that piece. In fact, I would go so far as to say it was probably one of the best pieces I have written thus far.

All in all, it was a good course, and it did what was intended and provided me with knowledge that I am sure will be of use in the future. I just wish the subject matter was a little less tedious!

Effective Classroom Practices

As a direct counterbalance to the Education Theory course, this was FANATSTIC on every level. The readings were superb, and provided almost instant utility. My own classrooms are much better managed now, and that is a direct consequence of taking this course. This course, much like the RE course, was based around current articles and academic research. As a result, the content seemed much more alive, and thus held my attention more.

I was able to adapt what I was learning to my own classroom within 2 weeks of starting! This course alone has made my investment worthwhile, though I am sure it will be surpassed in the near future.

The Future (for me)

My next two courses will be in “Applied Linguistics” and “Child Psychology”. I am sure these will also provide me with some real utility in the near future.

The Future (for KEISIE)

The KEISIE website has received a makeover in the past few weeks, and I expect that more changes will happen in the near future. I have it on good authority that the school is actively working towards accreditation in the UK and the US, and it is hoped that they will receive full recognition in the first half of the new year.

I have also been informed that the school is working on payment options to make the school even more affordable, more accessible, and better equipped to provide access to students who want to take individual courses for credit-transfer purposes, or in order to satisfy their own professional development needs.

I will of course try to keep you posted!

More changes for KEISIE

I recently received some interesting news from the graduate school that will hopefully provide more utility for me in the future. A decision was made to move the base of operations for the school from Korea to the US. The school is now incorporated in Arkansas, and it is hoped that US accreditation will be approved in the near future.

The ultimate goal is to gain accreditation that would give teacher certificate approval to the courses, so that any person taking them could swiftly move into teaching in the US. This aspect doesn’t appeal to me so much as the opportunities it would provide me with international schools in Korea.

Dr. Bottiger is confident that full accreditation can be gained before my course of study is finished. This is a nice touch, and is much more than I had hoped for when I signed up for the course.

Dr. Bottiger is committed to keeping fees low even after US accreditation has been awarded, though looking at the costs for accreditation I am not sure if this is feasible. Whilst he seems confident that there will be no increases in cost, I would suggest that anybody considering the course sign up now, and beat any increase though could come from the additional expense of accreditation. Even at double the current prices, the cost of studying at the school would be much cheaper than the alternatives!

Even if accreditation is not achieved before the end of my course, I would suspect that the school would be willing to transfer in most of their old credits to allow an accredited degree to be awarded with minimal fuss.

An Opportunity for Self-Reflection!

I am not the ‘typical’ student for an M.Ed. I made the move into teaching when I was 30 years old, and had very little knowledge of the profession when I made the switch from my former life. I came to Korea with little in the way of teaching qualifications, and I survived on sheer enthusiasm for some time, and it was only after getting married that I knew I would be here long-term, and that teaching would be my living until I can no longer do it.

The KEISIE M.Ed has already proven to be a worthwhile investment. Just 4 weeks into 2 of the education modules and I have already become familiar with theory that has real application in the classroom, and this has been true of both of the courses I am enrolled on at the moment: “Introduction to Education Theory” and “Effective Classroom Practices“.

The first of these courses, the one about Education Theory, is giving me a hard time. The course reading is an old textbook, one that is pivotal to current education thinking, and yet it is one written so long ago that the language is at times unfamiliar to me. The vocabulary is not a problem, but the prose is such that I need to be in the correct frame of mind to be able to read it comfortably, and that frame of mind is difficult to get into with a 16 week old baby in the house.

I find that I am reading “guerilla” style, and am having to snatch a few pages when the opportunity arises. This makes the task quite a difficult one, and to be honest, not very enjoyable.

The material itself is fascinating, and despite its age, has already got me thinking about (and changing) my teaching habits. I feel that, as difficult as I find it, the course will probably be one of the most important ones that help me become a more student-centred teacher, and this can only be good news for the students! The fact that the work is so important in current education theory also means that it is easy to find related pieces when researching for my papers.

The second course, dealing with classroom management, has been fantastic reading on both the first and second units. Not only have I been able to adopt some new techniques, but it has also allowed me to consider my own role as a student, especially in its relation to my roles as a teacher, husband and father, all of which are competing for my precious time!

Over the next week I need to concentrate on 2 group assignments, and I have decided to work on these before tackling any of the research for the third units. Come this week, I will be half way into the courses. I have a feeling there is much to cover before I am done though!

The new session!

The new session at KEISIE Graduate School started 2 weeks ago. Thanks to the preview module I have already taken, I am able to sit just 2 courses this session. This is useful, as the increase in workload coincides with the increased demands of my 3 month old daughter. She is ‘talkative’ and likes to hear herself scream, and that is not helpful when I need to study. Taking 2 courses together has proven difficult when I am only free to study when she is sleeping, though I have managed well enough.

The courses I am taking are “Effective Classroom Practices” and “Introduction to Educational Theory”. The descriptions, as given in the course catalogue, are as follows:

EDU 6030. EFFECTIVE CLASSROOM PRACTICES. (3) This  course focuses  on the management theories, methods  and  approaches  used  in  educational classroom  settings.  Students  enrolled in this  course  will be  challenged to develop an understanding  of  the  relationship between theory and practice as it relates to classroom management.

EDU  6700.  INTRODUCTION TO  EDUCATIONAL  THEORY. (3)  This  course  examines  the  foundational  theories  used  in  education.  Students will explore the  various  models and  theoretical perspectives  used in  education  and determine  their best  use  for  global  educational needs.

I have already submitted the first assignment for each of these courses. The course on “Effective Classroom Practices” is essentially a classroom management course, as you would expect in any education course. The readings were varied, and the first assignment was a simple paper to check my understanding of what classroom management is. Since completing my TEFL course last year, I have continued reading up on TEFL, and so I was familiar with the ideas and concepts. This piece posed no real problems to me.

The second course, “Introduction to Educational Theory” was different! First of all, the readings included a textbook instead of the academic papers that previous courses have relied on. To make matters appear worse, the textbook was old. Very old!

My understanding of ‘theory’ has always been from the perspective of the EFL teacher, and this course deals with educational theory as it relates to all subjects. Any information I already had was marginally useful at best! Being of curious mind, I did some research into why this particular text was chosen. The book was old and the language was almost alien to me, so it was not an easy read. If I could just figure out why I was reading it, I may be able to get through it!

The research into the author answered all of my questions. The book is the foundation for all modern educational theory. The discussion questions that were suggested for the class forums were all about relating the theory to modern issues and determining just how relevant (or irrelevant) the book is today. Once I knew where the reading was going (and that I was only expected to comment on 5 select chapters for now), I was able to muster on and make sense of the book. Thankfully, this book is quoted in many of the theories being published today, so researching the theory was not as impossible as I first imagined. Indeed, the book is of such importance that journals and textbooks are still discussing it today, and many bricks and mortar institutions are also using it as the basis for their educational courses.

The first 2 weeks were difficult, thanks to the newness of the theory subject matter and the increased workload took some getting used to. Still, I feel better for completing it and I look forward to the next few weeks. I already have the next 4 assignments to start working on and I expect they will provide plenty of food for thought over the next few weeks.

 

Changes

I recently finished up the first module of the KEISIE M.Ed program, and have feeling quite pleased with myself. The grades were good, and the content had given me a lot to consider. Despite my initial reservations about the religious content, I finished the module satisfied that I had just completed a module about education, rather than a module about religion.

After completing the final assignment and exam, I spent some time reflecting on what I had accomplished in 10 weeks…

• 20 course readings
• 50+ additional readings
• 5 short assignments of 1-2,000 words
• 1 large Group assignment
• 1 large individual assignment
• 2 exams

The real question is, did it feel like more or less than I would expect from a quality course of instruction? At first it felt like more. A lot more! With the new baby in the house, and the new job, I was worried that I had taken on too much. As this was really just a ’sample’ of the course, I really should have thanked Dr. Bottiger and re-enrolled when I was better prepared to do the work, but I have never been one to give up so easily!

Whilst these outside pressures did undoubtedly make the workload seem increased, I have since come to the conclusion that my perceptions were reality. The work was indeed more than I would have expected. At first! The content was structured so that there was a clear progression. At first, I was doing a lot of additional reading, yet by the mid-way point (when the first large assignment was introduced), my reading had dropped significantly as I was able to call upon past readings to supplement my arguments. New readings were reduced to around 4 or 5 per assignments, and most of my citations were pulled from older course readings, or works I had already used.

So, in the first few weeks, the readings were significant, and coursework was light. Towards the end, readings were lighter and coursework was increased. As a result, the course was well balanced and very well structured. I can only guess that the same could be true when I am sitting 2 or 3 courses together – I would expect significant overlap between courses that would allow me to complete courses with less reading, which will then enable me to concentrate on the increase in assignments.

So what does this have to do with change? Well, the time has come for me to officially enrol as a student. Dr. Bottiger sent me out a copy of the course catalogue (which you can now download from the front page of the KEISIE website), and I have noticed a LOT of change! Whilst you can often expect some changes with a new organisation, (and indeed I was told to expect some by Dr. Bottiger) the amount of change to the programs on offer is much higher than I could have anticipated.

For the M.Ed course, there are not numerous options available. The choice between the Department of Educational Administration and the Department of Teaching and Instruction decides the core courses (either admin or teaching based).

When I enrolled on the course, I expected to be completing 3 religious modules, 1 of which dealt with religious content, and the other 2 on Religion in Education. For the M.Ed from the Dept. of Teaching and Instruction, the requirement has been dropped to 1 religious courses, and that is the course I have already completed, the one dealing explicitly with education. As I have already completed one of these, it leaves me just 1 to complete. As much as I enjoyed the previous course, I am looking forward to focusing on the educational courses, as I am an educator looking to become better at his job!

So, the core courses I must complete are:

• SOC 6525 Culture and Education
• EDU 6250 Comparative Issues in Education
• EDU 6700 Introduction to Educational Theory
• REL 6601 Philosophy of Religious Education (completed)

Now I must choose my Major. I wish to study International Language, and so I must study two courses that are considered the core of my selected area:

• EDU 6005 Principles of Teaching
• EDU 6020 Curriculum Theory and Design

Then I get to supplement my area of concentration with and 2 of the following(bold indicates my my likely choices):

• EDU 6400 The Teaching of Language
• EDU 6405 Applied Linguistics
• EDU 6410 Second Language Teaching Strategies
• EDU 6415  Strategies for Teaching Reading
• EDU 6440  The  Adolescent L earner

And then there are 2 course electives.

• PSY 6800 Educational Psychology
• EDU 5350 Educational Interaction with Parents and Officials
• EDU 6030  Effective Classroom Practices
• EDU 5910 Problem Solving in Education

The catalogue indicates that it is possible to take any one of a number of courses from the School of Psychology, so I am tempted to change to Child Psychology, to help me better understand my daughter, or perhaps social psychology.

After all of that, I will be writing a These. Ouch! To be honest, I am afraid of this, but I do have some good ideas for research, and I have a few contacts who could help me out.

The previous incarnation of the Graduate School, whilst offering good value, was limited and there was some course content that I was settling for in order to get access to the courses I really wanted to study. The new catalogue shows that there is a much greater vision for the school, and allows Students to personalise their degree to their needs.

A quick summary of the courses offered (this was a quick count, so I may have missed one or 2 from the Education courses):

• 3 Business courses
• 70 Education courses
• 5 Information Technology courses
• 9 Psychology courses
• 10 Religion courses
• 7 Humanities courses

Impressive!