For those of you who may not know, after three years of teaching you have to renew or upgrade your teaching license. My teaching license will expire in June of 2010, so I've been looking at the requirements for the past few months. I'm going to try to upgrade to a Level 2 license. The biggest benefit is that I will get 5 years to renew my license instead of only 3. I'm planning on keeping a current teaching license even when I'm not using it, so that I could fall back on it if I needed to.
One of the things that I have to do is take a Praxis exam. To get my teaching license initially, I took a math content Praxis exam. But to get my Level 2 license, I also need to take another Praxis exam that tests me on the Principles of Learning and Teaching.
At least, that's what the test makers claim. The test is made up of 24 multiple-choice questions and 4 case studies with three essay questions each. And you only have 2 hours to take the test. Basically, to pass the test you have to become familiar with the concepts and key words that they're looking for, and try to write really fast.
I took the exam last month at the University of Utah. Fortunately, I left myself plenty of time, because I'm only moderately familiar with the campus and thought I might get lost. Which I did. There was some construction that confused me and made it difficult for me to find the right building, even though I knew the general area where it should be. So after driving around campus for a good 20-30 minutes, I finally made it in to the test room right as they were shutting the door.
It was a miserable test. At the end of the 2 hours I had an awful headache and a horrible hand cramp. But it was over. I managed to answer every question, but I knew some of my essays were pretty pathetic.
I had to wait a month to find out my score and see if I passed with a high enough grade. I REALLY didn't want to have to take it again. But this past week I found out that I passed! I needed 160 out of 200, and I scored a 182. HORRAY!!!
And let me tell you, I am SO glad that I don't have to take it again. Now I just need to work on the paperwork for my Level 2 license. I have until June, but I'm going to try to get it out of the way earlier.
4 comments:
Yay! Good for you to pass the Praxis. I remember the one we had to take before graduation, and everyone stressed big time about it. Since I was Early Childhood Ed, it was basic questions about all the core subjects in Elementary School. It ended up not being a huge deal at all, but I heard other teachers talking about the other Praxis exam, and I'm NOT looking forward to taking that one!
Congratulations! I remember what a pain my own Praxis test was and how relieved I was when I found out I'd passed. I'm glad you won't have to take yours again for a while. Great job!
Good job, Christine! What a relief. I've never had to take a Praxis exam, but I can just tell it doesn't sound like any fun. It will be a relief when the paperwork is done and you don't have to worry about it for another 5 years.
I have never heard of the Praxis exam. Hmmmm...
Congrats on passing! I bet that is a relief!
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