USC Taking Graduate Degree in Teaching Online

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 04/29/09

The University of Southern California's Rossier School of Education is launching a master's of arts in teaching degree that will be delivered online. The new program begins in June of 2009.

MAT@USC combines online learning with field-based experiences and provides ongoing support for new teachers including job placement assistance and tuition reimbursement opportunities. The program can be completed in as little as one year on a full-time basis or can be spread over two to three years part-time. Students will be able to take the online program from anywhere there's access to the Internet.

The USC Rossier School has redesigned its traditional curriculum and customized it for the e-learning environment, which includes the integration of interactive lectures using streaming video, animation, and Web 2.0 technologies. Students will be able to interact with peers and professors through networking discussion feeds and profile pages, more familiar to social networking sites. A newsfeed, much like Facebook, displays upcoming events, assignments, and due dates. A platform allows for interactive video lectures or student group discussions and meetings through video Webcams, Students upload videos of themselves teaching in the classroom using a Flip Video camcorder or other recording device for their professors and peers to review and critique. All videos contain a real-time messaging system that saves and records written notes along with the time in the video the comment was made.

"For the first time ever, students will be able to achieve a master of arts in teaching degree from a highly-respected school like USC without having to relocate to Southern California," said School of Education Dean Karen Symms Gallagher. "Through the quality, convenience, and accessibility of this online program, we are committed to producing many more qualified, rigorously-trained teachers who will effect real change in high-need school districts."

In addition to offering the availability of academic and student services up to 16 hours a day, the program will monitor candidate performance on a variety of metrics to alert faculty of any difficulties in mastering coursework.