CERG, Online Teaching & Learning (online)

Degree Program Summary:

Are you interested in becoming a competent and successful online educator? Teaching online requires many of the same skills and understandings as teaching well in any context, but it is not the same as teaching face-to-face. Online and blended instruction both offer special challenges and opportunities that you can learn to negotiate with practice.

The OTL certificate is designed to help you meet those challenges and take advantage of those opportunities in your own teaching practice. The program provides a solid foundation in the principles of learning, evaluation, and instructional that guide creation of effective and engaging online learning experiences for diverse students in multiple contexts. You will also gain experience with a broad range of technology tools commonly used in online education and have multiple opportunities to apply this knowledge in authentic online instructional settings relevant to your current or intended career.

This certificate is right for you if you are:

• a graduate student intending to work in higher education who wants to become more knowledgeable and skillful in online teaching AND have that knowledge and skill certified on their diploma;
  a current or intended elementary or secondary teacher looking to enhance your ability to teach fully online or blended classes at any level;
• a K-12 teacher currently or about to be certified in the state of Georgia who wants to earn the PSC-approved Online Teaching Endorsement, available through successful completion of this certificate program;
• a person who works or plans to work in business, public health, public advocacy or one of many other fields in which you will need to be able to communicate and educate clearly and engagingly online;
• someone who is just curious and interested in what this whole online education thing is about and how it might fit into your plans!

The program is available to any graduate student enrolled in a degree program at the University of Georgia, students who wish to enroll at UGA for just this certificate program, and all UGA undergraduate students enrolled in the Honors or Double Dawgs programs.

The only pre-requisite for admission is a Bachelor’s degree from an accredited university (or admission to the Honors or Double Dogs programs here at UGA). You can apply two ways:

If you are already enrolled or will be simultaneously enrolling in a regular graduate degree program at the University of Georgia:

just fill out the Google Form at https://forms.gle/pjT6AWJ9UDP4pqia9, and
email a brief Statement of Purpose to Nancy Knapp , who is the program coordinator, at nfknapp@uga.edu. Your statement should be a single page or less telling us why you want to complete this certificate program and how you hope to use the knowledge you will gain.
If you are not yet a graduate student at UGA, and you wish to enroll just for this certificate program:

Do the two things above AND apply to the UGA Graduate School as an online certificate-only (CERT) student (https://gradapply.uga.edu/apply/).