Hiring Academic Subject Instructors

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Appropriate Academic Preparation

An academic subject instructor is required to have an earned baccalaureate degree with a minimum of twenty semester credits appropriate to the subject being taught. These credits are usually for courses that would be recognized towards a major in a given area.

A great deal of work has been done to identify what should be considered appropriate academic preparation for the instructional areas associated with General Education. These efforts have allowed a great deal of input from WTC districts as to what should be considered appropriate academic preparation. This information is critical when the individual does not have a major or a minor clearly associated with the instructional area for which certification is being requested. The documents identifying appropriate academic preparation have been distributed to WTC district Certification Officers.

Occupational Experience

The technical college system requires academic instructors to have occupational experience outside of education before certification can be granted. This requirement ensures that academic instructors have had some association with work in business and industry. This requirement dramatizes and enforces the need for applied academics. It helps to maintain the focus on the system's mission of preparing people for employment.

Most academic instructors do not have a problem in satisfying the code requirement for 2,000 hours of occupational experience. There are often times when it is difficult to verify this occupational experience. Assistance must be sought from the District Certification Officer if there is a problem in obtaining the necessary verification.

There is a need to make certain that the occupational experience is outside the field of education. An individual performing as an instructor in a college, elementary school, middle school, or high school is not working in an occupational area outside of education. Positions in an educational setting where certification is not required, such as school secretary, do satisfy the requirement of being outside the field of education. A nurse functioning as an instructor in a teaching hospital would have that experience recognized as teaching. Military experience, except for that portion where the individual may be functioning as an instructor, is recognized as occupational experience outside the field of education.

Certification By Course or Instructional Area

It is important that supervisors understand when certification should be requested for an instructional area and when it should be requested by course. Supervisors must be aware of course content, the role the course plays in the program where it is used, and the staffing that might be used to deliver the course when determining whether the course should be identified as a core, supportive, or general education course. A good understanding of these items will result in high quality instruction for students, while maintaining the greatest amount of flexibility for the assignment of staff.

Core courses play a critical role in preparing students for a given occupation and they are almost always taught by occupational subject instructors. Supportive courses play a less critical role in the program and are often utilized in more than one program. Core courses provide for a high level of application towards a specific area, while supportive courses provide for a more general level of application towards one or more areas. Supportive courses vary in the level of application and this will influence the staff assigned to teach the course. Depending upon the level of application, the district may utilize an occupational or an academic subject instructor to teach supportive courses.

Approval status will be granted for a supportive course when an academic instructor is certified for an instructional area which is reflected in the title of the course. An example would be certification of a mathematics instructor for a supportive course identified as business mathematics. The course must not be identified as a core course in a different program. When the course is identified as a core course in a different program, the instructor must be able to be certified for the instructional area identified in the course number.

Situation 7: Susan Charles has a college degree in Chemistry, with an additional fifteen credits in Physics. She has 3,000 hours of occupational experience as a lab technician. Can she be certified to teach a Physics course?

Susan Charles could indeed be certified to teach a physics course. The supervisor would have to make certain that her academic course work did provide the necessary foundation. The situation could easily arise where the physics course to be taught might be for topics where she has never had the necessary physics courses. If Susan Charles has already been certified for instructional area 806 Science, there is no need to request approval for the physics courses since they are also numbered 806. There is a need to recognize that certification for a given instructional area does not mean that the individual can teach all courses identified with that instructional area.

Last reviewed: January 29, 2002

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