Poking around on the web for student evaluations of WGU. Here’s an interesting one on the MAT in Math http://www.onlinedegreereviews.org/college/western-governors-university-reviews/reviews/:
I recently finished the MAT secondary math program. I came to the program with a fairly recent undergrad degree in elementary education from a traditional university, along with considerable experience in live college math courses (taken many years ago), as well as more recent undergrad and graduate courses in special education and general education courses (taken mostly online). I also have almost 10 years of teaching experience in grades 7-12 math, although I was not certified in secondary math. I chose this program because it was convenient– it fit my busy schedule– it was inexpensive, plus I was offered a scholarship. The program bills itself as being for those who have a teaching degree but not in math. All the other distance education graduate programs in secondary math I researched required me to have a math undergrad, which I do not have. It appeared that this program would give me what I wanted, which was deeper understanding of math, secondary math certification, and a master’s degree.
I was very disappointed in my experience at WGU. My ‘mentor’– the person assigned to oversee my program and my progress– admitted to me that she had no experience in math, that she was an English major. I felt she was more of a cheerleader than a resource for me to get what I needed. Every other online course I have ever taken has included some sort of video lecture component, so this is what I was expecting. Of the close to 60 credits I took, there was NO DIRECT INSTRUCTION. Repeat– NO TEACHING. I am a ‘show me’ kind of person– show me once, and I have it. The lack of any direct teaching made it very difficult to learn the material. If I hadn’t already had an extensive background in math, I don’t think I would have been able to learn the required material. The ‘courses of study’ (what substituted for a syllabus) were just wordy, disjointed conglomerations of sections of the textbooks and online readings (with Wikipedia prominent on the list), much of which had little, if any, value toward helping me learn. The program did utilize some online streaming courses that WGU subscribes to, but these were simplistic (mostly on a high school level) and provided a cursory review of what I already knew. The ‘course mentors’– those staff who knew the course material and were there to help if you had any questions– never really directly answered a question but instead led me to yet more websites, some useful and some not. The ‘exams’ were a joke– 15 question multiple-choice exams taken over several courses worth of material.
The bulk of the work came in the form of ‘tasks’– papers written on math topics– a total of over 60 papers in my program. While there is some value in writing papers on math, this was just about all I did for close to 3 years. For many of the courses, I just studied enough that I could write the papers required for the course. Papers were scored by blind graders– I never knew who was grading my paper, and for quite a few of the tasks the wording of the tasks and rubrics was vague, making it difficult to know what was required. I did manage to pass the required Praxis 2 with a very high score, but that was due to my own initiative, not the education I received at WGU.
I felt that the combination of disjointed courses of study, too easy exams, and too many papers made for a very poor learning experience. I don’t think I know much more about math than I did when I started. While perhaps some of the other programs have more to offer, I would not recommend this program to anyone, especially someone who doesn’t already have an extensive math background.
I contacted a community college Physics professor I know and asked about the high school Physics teacher licensure program at WGU. Here’s his reply:
“The textbook they suggest for use in learning physics is a very well-known and successful one, used in many high-school classes because it is entertaining and has virtually no mathematics and no introduction of any kind to problem-solving and critical thinking. I have used it in the past, but [my college] hasn’t used it for years because the level isn’t even up to what we expect of our students in the one-quarter physics course for non-science majors. If this is where a ‘highly-qualified’ physics teacher learns physics, watch out.”
I am considering pursuing a BA in Mathematics through WGU, and I have a couple of questions.
First, can you give me a list of the courses required to obtain the BA in Mathematics (5-12) degree? Second, were there not a lot of mathematics exams during the program? I do not see how strictly writing papers assesses your ability to do math. Last, would you recommend this program for someone wishing to become a Math teacher who cannot attend a traditional college due to family obligations?
Thanks for your time,
Danielle
The essence of math is not calculation, it is working ones way through proofs and derivations.
I can no more imagine that WGU’s pass fail, no teacher approach can deal with that sort of thing then I can imagine they could teach automobile machnics with9out having students interect with mechanics.
I had a slightly different experience at WGU. It was awesome to me. Not only that I learned from the writings and essays how to take computational applications and explain them in a way that makes sense. Remember the goals is not to reach some advanced level of math understanding, but rather to be able to explain and apply what you’ve learned to student learning level. What good is being able to solve any type of problem and not be able to explain it to a student? Its a math education program, not strictly math. So if one wishes to only learn math, then WGU isn’t for you. Their program are designed to make effective math teachers not mathematicians. For the person who finished the MAT program, would you happen to have the all of the task on file? Not the work, just the task. if so, would you be willing to email it, I’m trying to get a jump start on some work. Again, not your work, just the task and instructions. Again, WGU is an awesome school. Employers love people they don’t have teach but rather can learn and thrive on their own and still be relevant and effective teachers.
I detest the argument that one can learn to teach a subject without knowing it.
I attended WGU for the BA in Math Education discussed here. It really is a paper course. I had done a significant portion of my math undergrad at a regular university but due to life couldn’t finish there. This is much less expensive and much more convenient than a brick and mortar school. That being said there are two major drawbacks to consider before attending here. First this is almost entirely self motivated learning. You don’t have any classes to attend so it’s all up to you to get it done on your own. You have 6 months instead of the 3.5 of a normal school but I had a hard time making myself sit down at a computer and just work. I only finished 9 credits the first term and most of that during the last 6 weeks or so. The second thing is that there’s no teacher. There are content mentors you can schedule time with but from my experience almost all of this was self taught. I had to find the information and teach myself. This was very hard in classes like Abstract Algebra and others. As a transfer student I got 60 credits in but they were all Gen Ed classes and basic math courses. You have to take 3rd semester of Calculus over and go on from there. So all of the classes I had were higher level math courses (super hard) and Education classes. The math courses were almost all proof based. Each had between 4 and 10 proofs to write, most of which were one to two full pages of writing. My longest was 4.5 pages. Basically instead of several small proofs culminating in a large proof at the end of a chapter or unit you have to write that one long proof showing you mastered two or three chapters worth of material from a text book. so your large proof is really just several small proofs all bound up together. This requires a stronger grasp of concepts than just doing homework problems every class. That being said I was at the point where I just needed to graduate and get certified so I could teach. So this was the perfect thing for that. Almost all of the solutions can be found online but it’s not easy. I’m currently going for the Masters in Geo Science and it’s the same thing. A lot of paper writing following step by step instructions. It’s not difficult but it is tedious and time consuming. If you can make yourself work even when you don’t want to and you can learn on your own with some help from teachers in a phone call with online classroom programs then the convenience and price make this an awesome approach. I plan on finishing my Masters in one year. But if you need that classroom approach 3 days a week and doing the homework problems piecemeal then this is hard to make yourself do. Basically you have to be above average intelligence, already have the inclination for the material (like being mathematically inclined), and you HAVE TO HAVE TO HAVE TO be self motivated, or you will fall behind and get discouraged. They actually have a low completion rate and that’s probably why.