Bowling Green offers alternative route to teaching

LIMA — An alternative teaching pathway at Bowling Green State University trains professionals to become licensed teachers to offset Ohio’s teacher shortage.

The year-long online program is available to anyone who completed a bachelor’s degree in another subject.

Bowling Green is one of five universities in the state where adults who have already finished a bachelor’s degree in another field can transition to teaching.

“They know their content, we just need to teach them the pedagogy or how to teach this topic to (middle or high school) students,” said Angela Falter Thomas, an associate professor of teaching who leads the alternative program.

Thomas spoke to the Lima Rotary Club on Monday to raise awareness for the program and Bowling Green’s Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship.

The scholarship, funded by the National Science Foundation, provides $20,000 stipends to aspiring math and science teachers who want to teach at high-need schools. Six have applied for the stipend thus far, Thomas said.

Roughly 145 newly licensed teachers have completed Bowling Green’s alternative licensure program since it started four years ago, Thomas said. Their former occupations and college majors are as varied as accounting, astronomy and the military.

Each student works with a mentor throughout the studies and first year of teaching to ease the transition.

Nearly half of those newly licensed teachers are now special education teachers. “That’s the biggest need,” Thomas said. Science and math rank close behind.

The teacher shortage has grown more acute since Thomas first started teaching at Bowling Green 15 years ago.

“We know the importance of having a strong, educated society, especially in math and science, for economic growth in our communities, in our state, in our world,” Thomas said. “So we need to make sure we are getting the best and brightest and those that will be the most effective in the classroom.”