Common Challenges in Fast-Track Teaching Programs

Key Infor­ma­tion:

• Adapt­ing to a teach­ing envi­ron­ment in an accel­er­at­ed pro­gram is chal­leng­ing due to the short­er time frame and steep learn­ing curve.
• Accel­er­at­ed pro­grams are gen­er­al­ly less expen­sive over­all but may have high­er year­ly costs due to the con­densed time­frame. Finan­cial aid, schol­ar­ships, and loan for­give­ness pro­grams can help man­age these costs, and the quick­er path to earn­ing can off­set the ini­tial finan­cial burden.
• Bal­anc­ing stud­ies with per­son­al life can be chal­leng­ing in accel­er­at­ed pro­grams. Flex­i­ble sched­ules help, but stu­dents must man­age their time well to avoid burnout.

Accel­er­at­ed pro­grams have become quite pop­u­lar nowa­days, espe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing that the alter­na­tive is to spend four years in col­lege. Some may not have the lux­u­ry of that time. Whether you want to start teach­ing right out of col­lege or wish to change your career, the two-year alter­na­tive sounds much more attractive.

That being said, almost every­one heard dif­fer­ent sto­ries about these cours­es. Some say they are pret­ty intense. Oth­ers say that since most of them are held online, it can be dif­fi­cult to do prop­er net­work­ing. There is some truth in these chal­lenges, but at the same time, it doesn’t mean that they can­not be over­come. This arti­cle will dis­cuss these obsta­cles and give some tips to get past them.

Relat­ed:

• Fast-Track Teach­ing Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Pro­grams for Career Changers
• Accel­er­at­ed Teach­ing Degree Pro­grams Explained
• Accel­er­at­ed Teach­ing Degree Eli­gi­bil­i­ty Criteria
• Accel­er­at­ed Degree Options for STEM Teachers

1. Intensity and Pace

Fast-track teach­ing pro­grams are pre­ferred because you can get the degree much faster. How­ev­er, this does not mean that you will have to study less. Instead, you will have to absorb the infor­ma­tion faster to meet your dead­line. The same thing applies to the prac­ti­cal teach­ing expe­ri­ence, as you won’t have a lot of time to daw­dle – you must pre­pare your­self inten­sive­ly to be ready by the time you go to practice.

This dif­fers from tra­di­tion­al pro­grams, which often leave much breath­ing room between class­es. With the stan­dard sys­tem, the the­o­ret­i­cal lec­tures will pre­pare you for class­es, and you won’t be as rushed, giv­ing you time to absorb the infor­ma­tion. It has a lev­el of relax­ation that does not put you on the verge of burnout if you are not careful.

While tra­di­tion­al pro­grams have length­i­er breaks, such as the sum­mer one, accel­er­at­ed teach­ing degrees have class­es dur­ing sum­mer. It’s the main rea­son you are get­ting your degree so fast – there is lit­tle room for breaks. Keep­ing up with this inten­si­ty and pace requires a high lev­el of ded­i­ca­tion and strict sched­ul­ing. So, with effec­tive time man­age­ment tech­niques, you should be able to get your teach­ing degree with very few issues.

Relat­ed:

• Cheap­est Online Bachelor’s of Edu­ca­tion Degree Programs
• Fastest Online Ear­ly Child­hood Edu­ca­tion Degree Bachelor’s Programs
• Best Ear­ly Child­hood Edu­ca­tion Degree Online Bachelor’s Programs

2. Depth of Learning

Online teach­ing pro­grams were cre­at­ed to quick­ly pre­pare a stu­dent to become the mas­ter – or well, the teacher. That said, accel­er­at­ed pro­grams require you to dive deep into top­ics you may not eas­i­ly under­stand. If the cur­ricu­lum is rather com­plex, you might not have enough time to get through the com­plex sub­jects with­out the appro­pri­ate help.

Con­sid­er­ing the speed at which you would have to absorb the infor­ma­tion, all you could get is a super­fi­cial under­stand­ing of the top­ics. Since your expo­sure to class envi­ron­ments is rel­a­tive­ly lim­it­ed, you might have a dif­fi­cult time grasp­ing how to use cer­tain teach­ing tech­niques. With­out a reli­able men­tor to help you through these teach­ing practicum chal­lenges, you might find it rather dif­fi­cult to adapt.

3. Work-Life Balance

One of the most sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges in teacher train­ing at a fast pace is that you may not have that much time for your­self. Indeed, you have flex­i­ble sched­ules that allow evening and week­end class­es, but this does not mean you will be study­ing less. In fact, you will like­ly have to study even hard­er, as you must be just as ready for an exam as a tra­di­tion­al student.

Find­ing a work-life bal­ance for teach­ers can be chal­leng­ing since you have hob­bies and per­haps even a job requir­ing much of your atten­tion. Many stu­dents even end up with burnout as they try to jug­gle mul­ti­ple respon­si­bil­i­ties simul­ta­ne­ous­ly. This can sig­nif­i­cant­ly affect your per­for­mance if you are not han­dling things right.

An excel­lent way to strike a bal­ance with teacher edu­ca­tion pro­grams is to become a mas­ter of your cal­en­dar. Sched­ul­ing is your best friend here, as it pre­vents you from leav­ing assign­ments for the last minute. You can use to-do lists and dig­i­tal cal­en­dars to pri­or­i­tize your tasks, all while stream­lin­ing your stud­ies with col­lab­o­ra­tive stu­dent plat­forms. Make sure to incor­po­rate relax­ation and exer­cise into your rou­tine, as this can help man­age your stress levels. 

4. Financial Burdens

In the long term, fast-paced edu­ca­tion­al pro­grams are less expen­sive than tra­di­tion­al ones. This is because you will only have to pay for 2 years worth of tuition instead of 4. Indeed, pay­ing around $10,000-$20,000 for an accel­er­at­ed pro­gram instead of up to $60,000 for the aver­age pro­gram might sound bet­ter, but you still need these funds. And since accel­er­at­ed class­es have few­er semes­ters than con­ven­tion­al pro­grams, the year­ly tax could be higher.

If you do not have the funds to pay for your edu­ca­tion, a good option could be to seek finan­cial aid. The most obvi­ous choice is to go for grants and schol­ar­ships, which can be mer­it or income-based. If you do not meet their cri­te­ria, you could also go for loan for­give­ness pro­grams. These can cov­er your tuition and defer your pay­ment for years after grad­u­at­ing until you earn an income.

The good news is that since you will be get­ting your degree faster, you should be able to start earn­ing just as well. The debt should also be small­er since inten­sive teacher train­ing is short, and with a well-estab­lished finan­cial plan, you should be able to get through the program.

5. Student Support Services

Giv­en the high demand for accel­er­at­ed learn­ing, a well-struc­tured sup­port sys­tem becomes nec­es­sary. Many pro­grams that end in fast teacher cer­ti­fi­ca­tion offer this, allow­ing stu­dents to gain men­tors and access coun­sel­ing ser­vices. These con­tacts can even be achieved online, espe­cial­ly with pro­grams that have a remote study­ing system.

The chal­lenge that accel­er­at­ed pro­grams bring is that you will have lim­it­ed time to get in touch with your men­tors. Between bal­anc­ing your practicum, course­work, and per­son­al respon­si­bil­i­ties, stu­dents may not be able to uti­lize the resources to their full extent. Many stu­dents aren’t even aware that they can opt for these sup­port ser­vices, so main­tain­ing a line of com­mu­ni­ca­tion could keep you updat­ed with all the features.

6. Adaption to Teaching Environments

With a tra­di­tion­al pro­gram, it is often eas­i­er to adapt to the new teach­ing envi­ron­ment, as you have four years to get acquaint­ed with it. Not to men­tion that you also get more hours of prac­tice, which allows you to cre­ate a more exten­sive net­work and sup­port system.

When it comes to accel­er­at­ed teach­ing pro­grams, you only have two years or less to adjust. Dur­ing this time, you will have to go through the steep learn­ing curve, bal­ance your course­work, find the men­tor­ship you need, and fig­ure out how you will be teach­ing the class­es. This can be both phys­i­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly demand­ing, and by the time you grad­u­ate, you risk not know­ing how to inte­grate yourself.

Find­ing some cop­ing strate­gies to hang onto your well-being can go a long way when get­ting your teach­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tion fast track. A good idea would be to join a strong men­tor­ship pro­gram or find some con­nec­tions that can offer ongo­ing sup­port. You could also join some peer sup­port net­works, as the exchange of expe­ri­ences helps you get ready to tran­si­tion into a new career.

7. Technology Integration

Near­ly half of the adult pop­u­la­tion has knowl­edge lim­i­ta­tions regard­ing tech­nol­o­gy. As the IT indus­try keeps pro­gress­ing faster than some indi­vid­u­als can keep up, they strug­gle with the tech­nol­o­gy inte­gra­tions asso­ci­at­ed with fast-paced pro­grams. Indeed, while mil­len­ni­als stand out for their abil­i­ty to use avail­able tech­nolo­gies, much of this is mere­ly lim­it­ed to the abil­i­ty to use the Internet.

Con­sid­er­ing that a lot of the course­work is done online, with vir­tu­al class­rooms and sim­u­la­tion tools being the stan­dard, some stu­dents have their lim­i­ta­tions. With­out effec­tive dig­i­tal lit­er­a­cy train­ing, peo­ple might not be able to bypass bar­ri­ers to accel­er­at­ed learn­ing in teach­ing. In these cas­es, a good idea would be to go for pro­grams that offer blend­ed learn­ing mod­els and flex­i­ble resources that can be used based on user preference.

8. Certification and Accreditation

When you go to a tra­di­tion­al state or pri­vate uni­ver­si­ty to get your degree, chances are that they are already cer­ti­fied and accred­it­ed. This ensures that you get the qual­i­ty edu­ca­tion you need and poten­tial­ly opens doors to obtain­ing a state-backed teach­ing license. The prob­lem is that since accel­er­at­ed pro­grams are short­er and some­times less for­mal, not all of them can be accredited.

It’s rec­om­mend­ed that you always look into accel­er­at­ed teach­ing cre­den­tials when you are search­ing for a good pro­gram to join. Check that they passed the stan­dards of author­i­ty accred­it­ing bod­ies such as the Coun­cil for the Accred­i­ta­tion of Edu­ca­tor Prepa­ra­tion (CAEP). This way, you are guar­an­teed that your degree is rec­og­nized when you want to start teaching.

The Bottom Line

Going for a fast-track teach­ing pro­gram may have its chal­lenges, espe­cial­ly for those who like tak­ing their time study­ing. How­ev­er, peo­ple with great deter­mi­na­tion and a good strat­e­gy can eas­i­ly over­come these obsta­cles. Use all the resources avail­able and stick to a strict sched­ule as much as pos­si­ble, as this can help you meet your deadlines.

Sources:

Research Gate

Sta­tista

Pew Research Center