The College of Education is helping remedy the teacher shortage with Accelerating Careers in Teaching, or ACT, an alternative teacher licensure program.
ACT offers online learning in competency-based curriculum through flexible scheduling with asynchronous modules, synchronous video coaching, faculty mentoring, an online learning community to interact with and more. Eligible to those who already hold a bachelor’s degree, the low-cost program is about $7,000 per year and qualifies for over a dozen licensure paths.
“Alternative teacher licensure in Colorado has long emphasized on-the-job training—arguably the most effective way to learn,” said Curtis Turner, UCCS Teaching Professor and ACT Faculty Director. “The Acceleration Careers in Teaching program takes this a step further by deeply integrating content learning with daily classroom practice. Unlike traditional models, this approach allows teacher candidates to demonstrate their content knowledge through real-time application, making their learning both practical and immediately relevant.”
Instead of traditional semester-based coursework, enrollees earn a full-time professional teacher salary while completing the fully online program and are evaluated by performance-based assessments aligned with Colorado Teacher Quality Standards (CTQS). By offering an accelerated program schedule and a full salary, participants can shorten the time between beginning their education and teaching in the classroom while helping bridge the critical teaching gap in Colorado.
“We are proud of this program and are excited to get our alternative licensure candidates into the schools,” said Turner.
The program centers around five pillars to represent the essential capacities of effective educators— relationships, roles and routines; planning, instruction and assessment; the science of learning; the art of teaching and standards and curricula.
To learn more about ACT and how to apply, visit TEACH.org or reach out to ACT Faculty Director Curtis Turner.