Model Teaching

Model Teaching is an online professional development provider for K-12 teachers, based in Sugar Land, Texas, according to its footer. The home page calls it "A Complete Professional Development Solution for K-12 Educators": teachers "Earn PD hours or credits for license renewal, or graduate‑level credits for salary advancement", all 100% online and self-paced. It sells to individual teachers and to schools and districts, which get an administrator dashboard and group pricing.

The home page claims 100+ courses, 650+ PD hours of content, 1,200+ implementation resources, 20K+ course reviews and 30K+ teachers trained, and a rating of 4.9/5 by 20,000+ teachers. It describes itself as "one of the fastest growing online professional development providers for teachers in the United States". The entry sits in teacher professional development, continuing education and training libraries, because the same catalog serves a teacher renewing a license and a district licensing a full menu for its staff.

Two kinds of credit

Model Teaching sells two credit types, and the FAQ explains both. Professional development courses are hours-based: clock hours, CPEs, CTLEs, Act 48 hours and similar, and the FAQ says these PD courses "are pre-approved in many states". Academic credit courses are graduate-level semester credits offered "in partnership with regionally accredited universities", which it says are "accepted by most school districts across the country for salary scale advancement and/or lane change". The FAQ adds that most states accept the university-partnered courses for license renewal, and a state selector covers all 50 states with the courses Model Teaching recommends for each.

Six university partners are listed: Southern New Hampshire University, Augustana University, UMass Global, University of the Pacific, Valley City State University and Northeastern Illinois University. Credit courses include "An Official Transcript & Letter Grade", and the site advertises rolling credit processing and "Ultra-fast credit & transcript processing" to help teachers meet salary advancement deadlines. A teacher can start immediately or wait to begin in the semester of their choice.

Through Augustana University, the FAQ says "9 credits of coursework through Model Teaching may be applied toward Augustana's Master of Education (M.Ed.) degree as part of Augustana's learner-designed concentration." Every course ends in a certificate of completion documenting the credit hours earned.

What a course looks like

The format is standardized. Courses use video-based lessons, which the site says are "structured similar to webinars and include transcripts or complete articles of all content". Assignments are template-based "with no long essays", which the site sums up as "No busy work". There is built-in live chat with instructors, and "Quick Courses" offer learning in an hour or less, finishing with a short quiz and a certificate.

Each course comes with resources teachers keep: lesson plan templates with examples, mastery, behavior and documentation trackers, graphic organizers for students, planning checklists, and implementation tracking tools for administrators. The site says these editable tools can be used "for the remainder of your teaching career". Teachers do not need to be teaching to take a course; applying the lessons in a classroom is optional.

Topics listed on the free PD page include instructional and assessment design, differentiation and Universal Design for Learning, social-emotional learning, family and parent engagement, support for English language learners, math, reading and science, online learning and technology, trauma-informed teaching, classroom management, and supporting autistic and dyslexic children and children with ADHD. The topic list in the footer adds areas such as gifted and talented, financial literacy, PreK, new teachers, teacher burnout and special education.

Pricing

Prices are printed on the home page. Individual courses are "$15 & Up", with 1 year of full access. Build Your Own Course Bundles are "$25 & Up": a teacher buys a package of PD hours or credits and then picks any courses from the full menu, again with 1 year of access, which the free PD page calls "significantly more time than the majority of other PD providers".

Credit courses are "True Pay-As-You-Go". A sample credit course on the free PD page, The Notecard System (1 Credit), shows a total course cost of $165: $95 to register for 1 year of course access, then a credit fee of $70 per credit once the course is done, to process the credit and receive the university transcript. The site claims it offers "the lowest cost-per-credit salary advancement courses you will find" and credits from the same regionally accredited universities as other providers "at up to 50% less"; those are its own comparisons.

The free PD page also lists discounts: 10% off all course and bundle registrations with the code MT10, and a referral program paying a $20 Amazon gift card for every colleague who signs up for a course or bundle.

Free courses and resources

The free PD page offers 1-hour Quick Courses that "provide clock hours, CTLEs, CPEs, Act48 Credits, Etc." with a certificate and "no additional fees required". Teachers register with the coupon code Free-PD. Current free courses are Educating Diverse Student Populations in Your Classroom, Outdoor Education: Learning Beyond the Classroom Walls, and Introduction to Student Discourse. A new free PD webinar is published each month, drawn from the Quick Courses; watching is free, and a certificate for it means registering for the course at a discount. Free downloadable teaching resources include graphic organizers, planning tools, data trackers, lesson plans and classroom activities.

For schools and districts

Schools get "Implementation-focused courses with campus administrator management and tracking". Every school account includes an administrator dashboard where leaders can assign courses to specific teachers, monitor progress and time spent learning, and generate progress reports. All full-length courses come with classroom observation and feedback tools that administrators can download, so they can "Monitor from training, to the classroom."

The site serves public schools and private, charter and religious schools, offers live teacher training, and promotes courses for new teachers, PLCs and support staff. Districts can build a price quote online, get group discounts, pay by purchase order, and get help with vendor approval applications. The menu also has pages on using Title II and ESSER funds for professional development.

Reviews and support

The FAQ points to a live list of running reviews from teachers currently taking courses. Support is by live chat during regular hours, tickets, email at courses@modelteaching.com, and phone at 888.828.7950, with office hours Monday to Friday, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM CST. Instructors help teachers pick courses that meet their state or district requirements.

Who it suits

Model Teaching suits a K-12 teacher who needs PD hours for renewal or graduate credits for a lane change and wants to pay as little as possible, pay for credits only after finishing, and keep the classroom templates. The M.Ed. pathway with Augustana suits a teacher heading toward a master's degree. Principals and district PD coordinators who want to assign courses, track progress and pay by purchase order are served by the school accounts.

It suits less well a teacher in a state where neither the PD hours nor the partnered credits are accepted, which the state selector and the instructors can check, or a teacher who wants live, cohort-based classes. Course creators looking for a platform to sell their own courses are not the audience.