Engineer to High School Physics Teacher My Journey through the SUNY Buffalo State Alternative Certification Program for Physics Daniel L Ankrom Department of Physics State University of New York Buffalo State College 1300 Elmwood Ave Buffalo NY 14222 danankrom juno com Acknowledgement This manuscript was completed in partial requirement for PHY 690 Masters Project at the State University of New York College at Buffalo Department of Physics under the supervision of Dr Dan MacIsaac Abstract The rise of Alternative Certification brought with it controversy Feistritzer 2008 that has never completely died Unger Nichole 3 29 07 The Chancellors New Clothes March 22 2008 despite these programs becoming more accepted and even being hosted by traditional teacher colleges MacIsaac Zawicki Henry Beery Falconer 2004 Feistritzer 2008 Many of the concerns center around several important questions Can an alternative certification candidate be an effective teacher Unger Nichole 3 29 07 p 1 Will enough candidates be recruited through these programs Grosso de Le n Anne Spring 2005 p 1 Will these candidates stay in the field over the long term Westchester Institute for Human Services Research April 2004 pg 3 My own lived experience in the SUNY Buffalo State Physics Alternative Certification program New York State Department of Education accessed 7 2008 SUNY Buffalo State College Physics Teacher Pathways accessed July 8 2008 is an example where there is evidence to indicate that Alternative Certification candidates are qualified and do remain in the field Success in both of these areas in my personal case as well as for Alternative Certification candidates in general seems dependant on 2 main factors The Alternative Certification program requiring significant content AND pedagogical knowledge of program participants and The program requiring and providing an effective mentoring component to participants Lederman Sweeney Lederman El Khalick April 13 2007 The following is a description of my own lived experience in Alternative Certification and suggestions for others with a desire to enter the field through alternative pathways Brief review of Literature 1 Feistritzer 2008 discusses the origins of alternative certification in the 1980 s and provides a narrative of it s development and proliferation throughout the union to the present She also discusses terminology and definitions statistics and descriptions for programs on a state by state basis The Center for Teaching Quality November 2005 focuses on NC TEACH as a typical example of what was found in studying seven different alternative certification programs and suggests that NC TEACH recruits are valued by principals CTQ states that the program brings in needed teachers for the state and that specifically 41 enrolled are male 30 minority and 21 planned to teach high school math and sciences and 15 plan to teach middle grades math and science These are all needed teacher demographics In conclusion CTQ states that the evidence strongly suggests that policymakers are ill advised to believe that alternative certification programs are more effective than traditional programs or vice versa PG REF HERE The Westchester Institute for Human Services Research April 2008 states that research verifies that alternative certification programs have recruited a more diverse pool of teachers including a higher percentage of males minorities and people over age 30 and that these teachers are more likely to have a broader range of work experience outside education It also says that these teachers serve where the demand is greatest in inner cities and outlying rural areas and in high demand subject areas such as mathematics and science The US Department of Education published data in it s Institute of Educational Sciences May 2008 issue brief that of teachers who left the profession 25 3 of 2 science and math teachers left for better salary or benefits compared to only 12 8 of all other types of teachers Institute of Educational Sciences May 2008 Robert Legler November 2002 writes that a multi state study found no statistically significant difference between alternatively certified teachers reports of their levels of preparation and the levels of preparation reported by other teachers This information came from looking at survey results from new teachers across the Midwest On questions of weather or not teachers had a first year mentor and how helpful they found the mentor to be the same conclusion was reached when comparing alternatively certified candidates to traditionally prepared candidates A survey of principals revealed that a larger percentage of alternatively certified teachers they hired were male than the overall percentage of male teachers A larger number of candidates in their 30 s was reported as well suggesting that alternative certification does attract a more mature and experienced set of candidates The principal survey results also indicated that 74 of respondents rated the performance of their alternatively certified teachers as equal to or above other new hires and 26 rated them below Legler interprets this as indicating that alternative programs have yet to reach full parity with traditional teacherpreparation programs If however in nearly three out of four cases the alternatively certified is deemed equal or better to the traditional one than wouldn t this indicate that traditional candidates are on par or better than traditional candidates When asked about the issue of teacher shortage about 70 of responding principals indicated they had had difficulty finding enough qualified teachers and half of responding principals said that alternatively certified candidates had been somewhat or very helpful in addressing the shortage In contrast to the NC Teach example cited by the Center for 3 Teacher Quality Legler s data didn t find that the alternative certification programs studied had little impact on the diversity of the teaching force in the Midwest However Legler also points out several issues which would skew results on this question New York State Department of Education legal requirements and description for Transition B Alternative Teacher Preparation Programs can be found at http www highered nysed gov ocue AlternativeTeacherCertificationProgram htm July 30 2007 My Decision To Become A Teacher 4 It seems like switching your major during college is almost an expected thing many students switch multiple times until they find what s right for
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