When Karen Symms Gallagher ran into
fellow education deans last year, many of them were "politely
skeptical," the University of Southern California dean says (politely),
about her institution's experiment to take its master's program in teaching online.
Many
of them seemed to appreciate Gallagher's argument that the traditional
model of teacher education programs had largely failed to produce the
many more top-notch teachers that California (and so many other states)
desperately needed. But could a high-quality MAT program be delivered
online? And through a partnership with a for-profit entity (2Tor), no less? Really?
Early results about the program known as MAT@USC
have greatly pleased Gallagher and USC. One hundred forty-four students
enrolled in the Rossier School of Education program's first full cohort
in May, 50 percent more than anticipated and significantly larger than
the 100 students who started at that time in the traditional master's
in teaching program on the university's Los Angeles campus.
And
this month, a new group of 302 students started in the second of three
planned "starts" per year, meaning that USC has already quadrupled the
number of would-be teachers it is educating this year and, depending on
how many students enroll in January, is on track to increase it a few
times more than that.
It will be a while — years, probably, until outcomes on teacher
certification exams are in and the program's graduates have been
successful (or not) in the classroom — before questions about the
program's quality and performance are fully answered (though officials
there point out that the technology platform, like much online learning
software, provides steady insight into how successfully students are
staying on track). But USC officials say that short of quantitative
measures such as those, they believe the online program is attracting
equally qualified students and is providing an education that is fully
equivalent to Rossier's on-ground master's program — goals that the
institution viewed as essential so as not to "dilute the brand" of
USC's well-regarded program.
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