University
New Online Program Draws Diverse Students
By Andrea Bennett on July 9, 2009 9:05 AM
- Waite Phillips Hall
Haley Scott DeMaria of Annapolis has had anything but a typical journey leading toward the teaching profession.
The Maryland mother of two was a three-year state champion swimmer and academic All-American for the University of Notre Dame when a fatal car accident left her paralyzed from the waist down.
DeMaria chronicled her compelling recovery, and her return from paralysis to both walking and swimming, in a 2008 book. She went on to teach social studies and coach swimming before enrolling in the innovative new online Master of Arts in Teaching program, MAT@USC, from the USC Rossier School of Education.
“It is the only program in the United States where I can receive not just a degree but a true education from one of the finest graduate schools in the country,” DeMaria said.
“Having the flexibility to study within my community and yet have the wisdom and knowledge of 100 years of leadership in education at Rossier is a unique opportunity. To be the best educator I can be, I need to learn from the best. And the MAT@USC allows me to do this, while raising my children and living on the East Coast.”
The MAT@USC cohort, which officially starts this summer, is a strikingly diverse group that reflects the school’s long-running commitment to promoting diversity in education.
One hundred and forty-four students from across the United States have enrolled in MAT@USC, the first online program of its kind to emerge from a major research university. The program creates an interactive online environment based on streaming video, animation and other Web 2.0 technologies.
Despite wide-ranging backgrounds, the incoming MAT@USC cohort shares a commitment to urban education and an enthusiasm for creating positive change.
Thomas Esparza of Alhambra said once he experienced student teaching for a first-grade class in New Mexico, he caught the teaching bug and became convinced that the classroom is where he truly belongs.
“I believe in the educational vision of justice and equality for all students,” he said. “I am dedicated to the life of an educator, to laying the living foundations upon which successive generations must continue to build their lives.”
Brinan Weeks of Albany, N.Y., worked as a hip hop artist and radio host and pursued West African and Middle Eastern studies before enrolling in the MAT@USC program.
“I have always looked at the world through a multicultural perspective,” Weeks said. “I am African-American (Liberian heritage), Irish American, Blackfoot Indian and Creek Indian.”
Joseph Smith was an educator for more than two decades before he came to MAT@USC. He said he is a product of a single-parent home with several siblings, and his family moved constantly while he was growing up. It was the help of a few educators and coaches along the way that motivated him and guided him on his path, Smith said.
“I became an educator to help kids who are in similar situations and motivate them to go to college,” he said, adding that he aims to be the first person in his family to obtain a master’s degree. “I let them know that if I could do it, they can do it.”
For Vivian Romero, the MAT@USC program will help her transform her community of Boyle Heights in East Los Angeles.
“The thought that I did not receive an education I deserved has always stayed on my mind, even to this day,” she said. “There are other children in Boyle Heights receiving the same poor education I did, and I would love to go back and be an excellent teacher, something they deserve.”
MAT@USC students around the country do their field work in classrooms in their communities, recording observations and interviews with education practitioners to be shared and discussed with colleagues online.
Animation is also used for more controlled learning environments to illustrate how educational theory operates in the classrooms. The program includes regular data assessment to track how students are progressing.
Students leave the program with a portfolio of journals, notes, videos and discussions that can be used to show potential employers their ability to incorporate educational theory and practice with new technology.
TAGS: education
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Los Angeles Times featured the USC Rossier School’s centennial gala, which took place February 1. USC President Steven B. Sample was honored with the Global Education Leadership Award, and USC alumna Cindy McCain was honored with the Dean’s Alumni Achievement Award. “It’s rare for someone who’s lived as long as I have in politics with my husband to be speechless, but I truly am,” McCain said. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa introduced Sample, recounting his work in raising USC’s stature globally, being open to international students, and understanding USC’s position in Los Angeles as “the gateway to Asia and Latin America.” Nearly 350 people attended the event, including Sen. John McCain; Ed Roski, chairman of the USC Board of Trustees; Barbara and Roger Rossier, for whom the Rossier School is named; John Katzman, Princeton Review founder and benefactor of an endowed chair at the Rossier School; and alumni and longtime USC supporters Debbie and J. Terrence Lanni and Verna Dauterive.
The Chronicle of Higher Education included USC in a chart on international fundraising by higher education institutions. USC has received $2.9 million from international philanthropic funds, and is estimated to have more than 6,000 foreign alumni, the story stated.
The Chronicle of Higher Education featured Paul Debevec of USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies, who won an Academy Award for co-creating a light stage capture device and image-based facial rendering system that has been used in movies like “Avatar.” The award will be presented at a formal dinner on February 20, the story noted. Asked whether the technology could be applied to education, Debevec said: “Absolutely, yes. Maybe there’s a little rendering of a chemistry professor at the side of the screen who smiles at you when you get the question right and frowns when you get the question wrong. [In perhaps 10 years] that computer might, through its Web cam, look back at you, see where you’re looking on the screen, see how engaged you are, and actually adapt itself to trying to teach you in the way that it seems to be working the best. Just like one-on-one tutoring.”
The Chronicle of Higher Education featured linguist Paul Frommer of the USC Marshall School, who created the language Na’vi for the Golden Globe-winning movie “Avatar.” “Doing this kind of work as an academic is not going to advance your research reputation. It’s not going to result in publications in peer-reviewed journals,” Frommer said. “But it just may push the world forward in the way it’s turning on young people to the wonders of language”
Los Angeles Times reported that the 22nd annual USC Libraries Scripter Award was given to “Up in the Air” novelist Walter Kirn and to USC alumnus Jason Reitman and Shelton Turner, who adapted Kirn’s book for the screen. Los Angeles Times ran a second story about the Scripter Award.
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