Certification Guideline 14

SUBJECT
Teaching Experience: Counting and Reporting

GUIDELINE DEFINITION
Documentation of two years teaching experience is required for a person to obtain certification as an Instructional Administrator, Instructional Supervisor, Instructional Specialist, and Five-Year certification as an Instructor. Documentation does not need to be submitted when an individual has worked as a teacher holding Provisional certification in the technical college system for a minimum of two years.

A normal school year is traditionally considered to be two semesters in length. An individual teaching one course during a normal semester would be recognized as having accumulated one-quarter year of teaching experience. This would then count as one of the eight semesters of part-time teaching necessary to satisfy requirement 64 Professional Experience. Some programs are configured to be delivered over a different time period, such as having students take courses during a summer session. A course taught during a summer session could be identical to a course taught during a regular semester. The experience would be the same in either case.

Compensated teaching outside of formal educational settings, such as in business and industry, manufacturers schools and the armed forces, may be acceptable through evaluation by the System President or designee. The individual must have been involved with the actual delivery of instruction. This experience will accumulate at the same rate as similar teaching experience in the technical college system.

Instructors teaching 50% or more of a full load need four semesters of teaching to meet the two-year teaching equivalency. Each semester is equal to one-half year of teaching.

Instructors teaching less than 50% of a full load need eight semesters of teaching to meet the two-year teaching equivalency. Each semester is equal to one-quarter year of teaching.

Sample Form for Converting Training Time to Teaching Semesters
- Guideline 14

EXAMPLE
Juan teaches an electronics course each year for Wisconsin Bell. He has been employed by Wisconsin Bell for twenty years. He has functioned as an instructor for four years. He teaches a course that is delivered in eighty hours over a two-week period once each year. This would be viewed as one semester of part-time teaching each year. He would be recognized as having obtained one-quarter year of teaching experience each of the four years, for a total of one year of teaching experience.

EXAMPLE
Sandy teaches a group dynamics course during the following time periods: October 1 to October 31, November 1 to November 30, February 1 to March 3, April 1 to May 1, and July 1 to August 1. This will be recognized as three semesters of teaching experiences. The first two courses both happened during the first semester. The third and fourth courses both happened during second semester. If Sandy only taught one course each semester, plus one course during the summer session, it would still be recognized as three semesters of teaching experience.

EXAMPLE
William teaches more than a half-time load first semester, but then only teaches one course second semester. The first semester would be recognized as one-half of a year and second semester would be recognized as one-fourth of a year. This would total three-fourths of a year or three semesters of part-time teaching.

RATIONALE
The two year teaching experience requirement is to ensure that some level of teaching expertise has been achieved. This experience may result from teaching outside of a formal school setting. The code also allows a simple method for calculating part-time teaching experience.

Implemented: August 30, 1993
Last Reviewed/Revised: May 2002

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