TEAC 889

You will be receiving info on enrolling in TEAC 889 from Jess shortly. This will be for the First Five Week Session of the UNL Summer Semester.

I thought I would take the opportunity to clarify some technical aspects of completing a masters degree at UNL in general and in your program of study in particular and that is represented in your Memorandum of Courses.

The design of the MAet is that you can become eligible for a NE teaching license AND earn a masters degree in 14 months. These are, however, 2 separate things.

1) At the conclusion of successful student teaching, at the end of the public school year in a few weeks, you will have completed all certification and endorsement requirements for the State of Nebraska for elementary education. We will be sending over to NDE UNL's "recommendation" that you be certified (meaning, we attest to your having completed all requirements). Yeah! Happy moment!

2) However, this is not sufficient to automatically award you a masters degree. University standards for completion of a graduate degree are not the same as the minimal requirements for a state teaching license. The state awards you a teaching license; UNL awards you a graduate degree.

What you have remaining after this semester is TEAC 889, the Masters Seminar. This is a required course for all M.A. students in TLTE. Please refer to p. 7 in the TLTE Masters Handbook. As it says in the handbook, this is a capstone that culminates in an exam or defense. This is not an optional course or one that can be waived for automatic credit. Passing the class means passing the exam/defense and the seminar is designed to prepare and support you to successfully pass the exam/defense (this is determined by the faculty, not me alone).

Some students in past cohorts have expressed that they feel that this is unnecessary and that TEAC 889 is a "hoop" they have to jump through after successfully completing students teaching. They say that they would like to prioritize their summer for something other than a course. But passing student teaching is passing TEAC 897, not TEAC 889.

I can see how they arrive at this conclusion and ask Why do I have to do this?   The answer is simply that there is the MA in MAet and they will not be able to say they have an earned masters degree without successful completion of TEAC 889.

What this means is that you do not have to do TEAC 889 this summer. Really. You can earn your license and, therefore, start your first job in the fall (unless your job offer is contingent upon your finishing the M.A.). You simply will not have your masters degree in hand this fall and will not graduate in August, 2016. You can enroll in a later semester and take the exam/defense and graduate then. Or you do not have to do it at all and move on without a masters :(

If you do forgo taking TEAC 889 this summer, it is highly inadvisable to enroll, for example, in the Fall 2016 or Spring 2017.  These are semesters where you will be teaching full-time and consumed with your first year of your professional career. TEAC 889 will require time, energy and focused study that will prove to be difficult even for the most organized student. It will inevitably detract from your performance in your crucial first year of teaching. It is better to wait until summer 2017.

Please make and appointment to come talk with me about this if you have any questions! I'd love to talk with you more about it.

Turns Out You Really Do Think Brilliant Thoughts in the Shower

Scientific American says: 

Because such processing occurs largely outside a person’s awareness, it is all or nothing—a fully formed answer either comes to mind or it doesn’t. This hypothesis is supported by EEG and functional MRI scans, which revealed in previous studies that just before insight takes place, the occipital cortex, which is responsible for visual processing, momentarily shuts down, or “blinks,” so that ideas can “bubble into consciousness”. As a result, insights are less likely to be incorrect. Analytical thinking, in contrast, happens consciously and is therefore more subject to rushing and lapses in reasoning.

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Mental Health Break

RADIANCE from Lake Superior Photo on Vimeo.