NEWS

William Carey offers new specialist in education degree

Ellen Ciurczak
American Staff Writer

A new degree offered by William Carey University's School of Education this fall already has attracted a student from as far away as China. The completely online degree is geared toward busy administrators and teachers who want to help other teachers with their classroom instruction.

The school is offering the Specialist in Education degree with an instructional leadership concentration. The program is intended for students interested in careers on one of two tracks — instructional leadership or instructional assessment.

"This program is 100 percent online," said Liesa Weaver, chairwoman of the educational leadership department.

The first track of the program is for students interested in instructional leadership, Weaver said.

"It's geared toward preparing them to make instructional decisions in their school," she said. "The second track is instructional assessment, which gears itself to looking at data, analyzing data and making those hard decisions (related to data)."

Ben Burnett, dean of the school of education, said the degree would interest principals, master teachers or lead teachers who want to get into the classroom and help teachers with their instruction.

"It's going to open opportunities for people who are already in leadership to get to the next level or for master teachers to get into instructional leadership," he said.

Burnett said the specialist degree would be below the doctoral level, but above a master's degree.

"A specialist degree will move them up to an AAA license, which is good for anyone who currently holds a teaching license because it puts them in line for better jobs and moves them up to better pay," he said.

Weaver said the instructional leadership track was more of a traditional track and would include courses in such subjects as curriculum models, looking at data, ethics and law.

She said the instructional assessment track would be for someone interested in using student data to help with teachers' professional development, improving instruction in the classroom and helping the teacher make decisions about each and every student in class.

Burnett said because the degree will be completely online, students do not have to come to campus. He said the online courses will include lectures, videos and chats.

The school already has sent 1,200 emails to educators across the state to announce the degree, but it had also gotten interest from students in New Orleans and China, who had seen it advertised on the school's website.

"That's the beauty of online," Burnett said. "There are no barriers as long as they meet admission standards."

But Burnett said there were also advantages to coming to campus for classes.

"We don't want to become strictly an online university because we feel face-to-face interaction with our professors is helpful," he said. "But online degrees are growing in popularity, and we felt like this would be helpful."

Burnett said the degree is timely because teachers need strong instructional leaders to help them as they navigate the Common Core State Standards.

But, he said, the ultimate goal, is to make sure that children are getting the best education possible.

"The bottom line is for this to improve student achievement," he said.

At a glance

William Carey's Specialist in Education (Instructional Leadership) Degree

What: A 30-hour program that can be completed in two years with continuous enrollment of not more than two courses per term

How: Completely online

Enrollment: Open enrollment at the Hattiesburg and Biloxi campuses

Deadline: Applications due by Friday

Details: Liesa Weaver, chairwoman of the educational leadership department, 318-6626 or lweaver@wmcarey.edu