The International Schools Review Forum

I was wondering what people have done after spending time abroad? I dont mean retirement, I was meaning going back to work back home. (assuming you're American)

Has anyone gone back and started teaching at the college levels? Or known people that have?

Just trying to gauge an insight for my future plans...

Thanks for your help

I was hired in March at an online school public school - and I love it!
I am seriously considering doing this for the next 10 years.

College teaching usually requires at least a masters, but in those cases you are only going to be adjunct with nearly no benefits. You would be in greater demand and have better security and benefits at independent schools in metro areas. Ideally a school that values diversity and internationalism as a part of its core value system.

HB- Is the school a US school? What age groups and class?

FF- of course higher degree, I finish my EdD up next year...But as I get older, so does my preference for students age and lack of patience I have...hehe

I dont know many ITs who voluntarily returned. of the ones i do, they were tourist ITs to begin with and after the kids got some culture they went back to their old jobs before they left. The others left IT because they had to (medical reasons, etc). For the rest they became career ITs or moved into other fields but remained overseas, a number of them opened language schools, etc. if they didnt retire out of IE.

Many ITs do not re-assimilate well when returning to a regulated school domestically. They are behind on SPED, curriculum and assessment rules and regulation. They are quickly reminded why they left domestic education, they also find their overseas experience is not valued and no one wants to hear about how great their "vacation" or "trip" was. The most successful became consultants or found a domestic independent school.

Tertiary instruction provides more opportunities overseas. Without a research and publication background even with a doctorate you wont find much outside of adjunct appointments and the compensation is truly pauper level.

"HB- Is the school a US school? What age groups and class?"

Yes, its a public school - an online public school, a virtual school, and you can work from anywhere.
I teach grades 10 and 11 but the school itself is k12. In fact the outfit that runs it is called k12.
Just google k12 virtual schools - there are tons of jobs.

@higgsboson I know it's virtual, but are there any face to face interactions necessary? I thought about doing this while overseas as extra income during the summer.

@chimath - They have two programs: virtual and hybrid. The hybrid students spend 3 days a week with teachers andtwo days a week on-line. The virtual program is what I do and it is 100% online. You have to help proctor exams in December and in May but other than that and a few days per semester training, you work from home.

The company that provides maintains the online learning system (OLS) and the learning management system (LMS) is called k12. Their clients are school districts in all 50 states. k12 is trying to get into the international market so there may be opportunities oversea.

I just started in March so my workload is light - I only have 300 students. More experienced teachers have as many as 500 students. I'm guessing this is the beginning of the end of the teaching profession as we know it.

Could you share what your responsibilities are with your 300 students? Are you teaching virtual sessions, calling, e-mailing, grading? Creating assignments or differentiating? Just curious. Are you paid per student or a salary?

I worked for K12 in Minnesota about 12 years ago when it was just getting started. I was the special ed. coordinator for the Twin Cities, so that did mean that I went to a few houses and provided direct services for some very needy students. Others I did via webcam. In Minnesota there was a face-to-face requirement (although that may have changed) and you had to commit to a certain number of field trips/outings that were scheduled by the school in order for teachers to get to know the students. The instructional contact between teachers and students was all done by phone and webcam. I don't think it's the beginning of the end of teaching as we know it, but it is a shift in how we see education being done. My nephews all did K12 in Idaho and their setup and requirements there were different from ours, so I think it can vary state by state.

It's not going to replace face to face classroom teaching any time soon. Firstly all of your lessons would have to be pretty much lecture based as any physical demonstrations which involved moving around the classroom / allowing students to touch something / use specialist equipment would be out of the window. The lessons would only really cater for a specific learning style.

More importantly though is engagement. Students who didn't want to work (which are in huge numbers in some countries such as the UK) just wouldn't, and there would be little motivation for them to change their attitude as there is a massive detachment between teacher and student. How exactly would you implement classroom management?

"Could you share what your responsibilities are with your 300 students? Are you teaching virtual sessions, calling, e-mailing, grading? Creating assignments or differentiating? Just curious. Are you paid per student or a salary?"

I teach one 1-hr online session M - Th; on Friday, I teach two 1 hr help sessions and that's all the teaching I do.
The major time consuming thing is communications: I make 25 - 50 phone calls per day but only get through to 10 - 15 students, usually to discuss grades but sometimes to ask why they are not logging onto the site. Responding to "kmails" is another big time consumer. Differentiating can be done through "breakout rooms" or inviting students to additional sessions. Assignments for the most part are already created for the teacher and are 90% MCQ so there really isn't much grading. Salary wise - I get paid like any other public school employee. Of course, savings are not as good as China or ME but hey, its a teacher's salary.

I disagree with both JeremyIrons and Mamava - once they get the bugs worked out, this is a game-changer. If an experienced online teacher can handle 500 students, and there is no need for a brick and mortar school, just think of the savings to the State! We would only need 1/5 the number of teachers and no more brick and no more schools with their high maintenance costs.

There are still bugs to be worked out but I'd say this is the future of teaching.

...and collaborative work?

We collaborate all the time. The tool we use for collaboration is Blackboard Connect with all teachers given moderator privileges. We can share documents, programs, applications - just anything.

"I am guessing this is the end of the teaching profession as we know it"

The teaching profession is always changing, but it is not the end of the teaching profession. I have taught online and F2F and a mix - and students almost unanimously, when asked, preferred the F2F.

There will be some students who need or prefer the online, but those will continue to be the exception, in my opinion. Teaching is all about human connections, not electronic connections.