Guide to Online Education > Online Education In-Depth > Meet Real Online Students > Jen, M.S. in Education, Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment
Jennifer had wanted to be a teacher ever since she was a little girl. She would play "school" on the back porch. Sometimes her little sister, or neighborhood children, could be coaxed into playing her pupils for awhile. She even assigned them homework-- discarded dittos saved for her by indulgent teachers; but eventually the children became restless and too unruly. So mostly her stuffed animals, those trusted friends who had crisscrossed the United States and the Pacific Ocean on many military moves, dutifully lined up for roll call. Jennifer couldn't wait to take attendance with a classroom of real children sitting in real seats.
Name: Jennifer
Age: 36
Marital Status: Married
Kids: Three boys aged 9, 6, and 4
Fact: Both Jen and her husband, Scott, took online courses at the same time to earn their degrees.
School: Walden University
Target: M.S. in Education
So when she received her bachelor's degree in 1991, and teaching credential a year later from CSU, Sacramento in 1992, she was anxious to get right into the classroom.
It was over a decade before she returned to the classroom as a student. And this time it was a virtual university. Walden University has no brick and no mortar presence.
"It took me awhile to come to terms with the fact that I was actually going to enroll," the elementary school teacher says candidly. "Online education was still fairly new to the general public at the time. I had a concern as to how others would view it."
Her husband, Scott, was a part of the decision-making process. Also a teacher, he had started to shop around for master's degree programs over a year earlier. As he matriculated through the Walden University program, he urged his wife on as well.
When Jennifer finally made the decision to return to school, the entire family, including their three boys now 9, 6, and 4, was supportive. "My mom almost got teary-eyed because she'd waited so long for me to go back to school, and she was beginning to fear I wouldn't," recalls Jennifer. "She offered to do anything she could to help. My mother-in-law was also encouraging."
When her husband was taking his courses on-line there wasn't much of an interruption in the family's daily routine. But since Jennifer is the one who usually prepares dinner, preps school lunches, helps with homework, bathes the children and reads the bedtime stories--some concessions had to be made.
The children had to learn to be more flexible, and more patient. "They tuned into television more the year I started school," she laments. "They had to entertain themselves."
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