When Justin Farrar enrolled at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, he probably didn’t expect his parents to follow. However, three-fourths of the Farrar family are now UL Lafayette students.
Luckily, Justin Farrar doesn’t have to worry about running into mom and dad in the quad — they’re both learning online from their Katy, Texas, home.
“From my son going there, we happened upon the online programs,” says mom Ellen Farrar. “I knew I wanted to pursue something more and so looked to see if there was something I was interested in.”
Ellen Farrar said the Graduate Certificate in Instructional Coaching fit perfectly with her career goals, commitment level, and the family’s plans to eventually relocate back to their home state of Louisiana.
“I’ve been an interventionist for almost 10 years now,” she says. “I know it can be difficult to get back in the classroom, or if we move to a smaller area, positions could be limited. I wanted some more options to explore. So I said this would give me a little more of what I wanted to grow in and then more professional options when we move.”
The online Graduate Certificate in Instructional Coaching leads to a Louisiana Department of Education add-on endorsement as an Instructional Coach. Teachers can complete the coursework in 10 months, which can then be applied to a Master of Education.
With balancing a full-time job and a 4-year-old daughter, Farrar says four courses to earn the graduate certificate seemed more manageable than enrolling in a full master’s program.
But as she neared the completion of her certificate this semester, Farrar decided she was up for the challenge. She’ll begin the online Master of Education in Instruction & Curriculum, Instructional Specialist concentration, with UL Lafayette in August 2019.
“If I was able to find the time and managed to do these, I can do the other courses,” she says. “I can see these issues and practices already in place on my campus and now I have a better background knowledge of implementing them for myself.
“Being an interventionist already, I already have a mindset to get to bottom of a problem. Now this is applying it to teachers instead of students.”
The certificate prepares teachers to facilitate change in instructional practices, giving peers the ability to diagnose student needs, plan and teach more effectively.
Farrar said although she’s earning her degree in a different state, communication with professors, as well as library resources, has been great.
“We’re doing action research and finding peer-reviewed articles,” she says. “But when I found one elsewhere, or I couldn’t pull up the full PDF version, I got on the library chat and three times already someone immediately started chatting with me and got me the link so I could access the articles. I was very impressed with that.”
Farrar says she has about eight courses left, which she’ll be able to take in accelerated eight-week terms over the next two years.
Meanwhile, dad and son are on track to celebrate the culmination of their labors next spring, with dad earning his Master of Business Administration online and son earning his bachelor’s in mathematics with an informatics minor.
Interested in earning your graduate certificate online? Request information today about the Graduate Certificate in Instructional Coaching to start summer, fall, or spring.