The Office of Virtual Education offers professional development cohorts through VirtualSC Professional Development. A cohort is a group of South Carolina certified teachers from a district, school, agency, or association that would like to study specific online content.
Cohort courses can be offered across each of the following course categories:
- Read to Succeed courses
- Online Teaching Endorsement courses
- VirtualSC PD’s Graduate course catalog
- VirtualSC PD’s Renewal course catalog
- Customized courses just for your organization
Our courses are delivered completely online, and last for a total of seven (7) weeks. We offer renewal credit and graduate credit courses. All of our renewal courses have been approved by the South Carolina Department of Education, Office of Educator Services. Our graduate courses are approved and offered in partnership with The College of Charleston.
VirtualSC PD cohorts can be created and paid for in a variety of different ways. Read the examples below to better understand some possible options for your needs:
Example #1
- Course Type: Read to Succeed Course
- Payment Option: The sponsor (district or school) is paying for their teachers to take the course to help their teachers meet the Read to Succeed endorsement requirements.
- Cohort Discount: All VirtualSC PD Read to Succeed courses are 60 renewal credits and are $85.00 per course. Forming a cohort with our program will give your school or district a $5.00 discount per participant. Meaning the course cost will be $80.00 per course participant.
Example #2
- Course Type: Online Teaching Endorsement
- Payment Option: The sponsor (district or school) is paying the complete graduate level fee for a group of their teachers to take all 4 courses for the add-on Teaching Online Certification/Endorsement.
- Cohort Details: There are 2 required courses and 2 elective courses for this add-on certification. Each course is a 3 graduate credit course, and costs $225.00 each.
Example #3
- Course Type: Custom Course Build
- Payment Option: The sponsor (district or school) will work with an instructional designer from our office to build a custom built course. The content for the course would be provided by the sponsor, and must meet copyright laws. A renewal course with 6 instructional modules costs approximately $3,000. A graduate course build will be $3,500. If a course build contains complex components, then the cost increases.
Example #4
- Course Type: Any VirtualSC PD graduate or renewal course
- Payment Option: The sponsor (district or school) pays for part of the participant’s course cost.
- Payment Details: Our system will just charge the participant a partial fee for the course (the remainder of what the sponsor did not pay).
Course Payment Options
VirtualSC PD offers three payment options for sponsors and participants:
- The course participant pays the full course fee amount.
- The sponsor (district or school) pays the full course fee amount for each course participant.
- The full course fee amount is split between the sponsor (district or school) and the course participant.
Forming a Cohort
Are you interested in getting a cohort started with your school or district? Contact Tammy Hegler at 803.734.8030 or Kathleen Williams at 803.734.3738. You just promote the program and send out directions, and we do the rest!