Wilson College Online Blog

Those who enter education as a second career can be among the most creative and passionate teachers. Krystal Boburchock, a recent graduate of Wilson College Online’s Master of Education (MEd) program , perfectly exemplifies this. Boburchock originally planned to go into law and earned her bachelor’s degree in paralegal studies.

“I actually did my internship at the attorney general’s office in Harrisburg,” she remembered. “I worked in the information technology part of the office. I was figuring out laws and other things that were missing at the time because there wasn’t a lot of stuff going on to protect kids when the internet was starting to take off in the mid-90s.”

Today, Boburchock is an educator certified by the Pennsylvania Business Education Association  (PBEA). She teaches a unique blend of finance, business, and technology classes to students in grades nine to 12, implementing everything from project-based learning to artificial intelligence (AI) into her lessons. Outside the classroom, she also helps PBEA with seminars and online resources for teachers.

However, by the time Boburchock got started on this journey, she had a family to support and no shortage of other responsibilities to keep up with. At every stage, though, she’s turned to Wilson for support.

Making Teacher Education Accessible to Working Parents

Boburchock began her career as a substitute teacher in 2013. At the time, she’d been working nights at a big-box retail store, allowing her and her husband to support their three children. However, when her husband suffered a debilitating work injury, working a third shift was no longer feasible.

“I was taking whatever job I could that would work with the hours,” Boburchock said. “Then, the kids’ school sent home a thing saying they needed substitute teachers.”

This was the ideal scenario. Now, she could align her schedule with her children’s school schedule. More important, though, Boburchock fell in love with teaching and stayed on as a substitute for eight years.

However, when the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered schools across the globe, Boburchock’s classroom time was limited to just a couple of days a month. She picked up a job at a home improvement store, but she craved more classroom time. That’s when Boburchock’s relationship with Wilson began.

“I saw an ad for Wilson that said, ‘Hey, if you have a bachelor’s degree, you could get your teaching certification,’” she said. “So I called and did three little mini sessions with questions. They said I could start classes in a month and everybody was so helpful with it.”

In addition to getting her enrolled quickly, Boburchock says Wilson staff were instrumental in getting her set up with an online schedule that met her personal needs. They also helped her get certified to teach the wide range of classes she now teaches.

Building Community in an Online Environment

“I could go to my kids’ football games on Friday night. I could participate in things, have family dinners, do things like that, and still get all my schoolwork done,” Boburchock said. “And then after it worked so well with the certificate program, I was like, this will be the best MEd program for me.”

After enrolling in Wilson’s online MEd program, Boburchock quickly realized that her intuition was correct. She knew she’d need more support for graduate-level studies, but at Wilson, she also knew she’d get it.

“The library staff is just phenomenal,” she said. “When I couldn’t get research stuff to come up, I would send them the link and they’d say, ‘No problem. We got you.’ It was a quick turnaround with stuff like that. I didn’t feel like I was just another number.”

Just as important, even though Boburchock’s MEd classes were primarily online and asynchronous, she says her professors were always there when she really needed it.

“The teachers were so available. I knew I could hop onto a Zoom meeting every Monday with some of them,” she said. “Even at graduation, I had never seen them in person, and yet when they saw the name, they said, ‘I remember you from my class!’”

Fostering Impactful Learning Experiences

At her core, Boburchock is an intensely curious lifelong learner. Her main goal is to spark that same fire within each and every one of her students. She’s constantly rethinking and fine-tuning her approach.

For example, when Boburchock took on the role of personal finance teacher, she quickly updated her school’s outdated, prepackaged curriculum to make it more interesting and relevant to her students.

“I literally stopped the program a few times and said, ‘This is ridiculous. In the real world, you’re going to end up possibly with bankruptcy. In the real world, you’re going to end up with picking one thing over the other,’” she said.

However, Boburchock did more than update the curriculum. She also instituted a system of project-based learning. Instead of doing worksheets and abstract projects, she had her students learn financial management by doing exercises based around cars, houses, and other things they actually wanted to purchase.

“It worked great because I have remedial and advanced students in those courses,” she said. “I didn’t have to differentiate as much because the kids got to pick what was important to them.”

To that end, Boburchock needed an MEd program capable of enhancing her already advanced and inventive skills. At Wilson, she found that in not only the core curriculum but also the additional learning opportunities her professors offered.

“When the NAME [National Association for Multicultural Education] conference came up, Daniela Gregorio told us we should try it out and she’d give bonus points for showing up to her session,” Boburchock said. There, Boburchock found camaraderie with teachers from all over the country and got the chance to brainstorm ideas on issues such as student engagement. 

“It was an amazing conference that I would have probably never have heard about or never went to,” she said. As someone who’s as passionate about learning as she is teaching, these moments added immense value to Boburchock’s Wilson experience.

Take Your Teaching Career New Places No Matter Where You’re Going

While education professionals often enroll in Wilson’s online Master of Education program to prepare for new higher-level roles, Boburchock had a much more fundamental goal. She simply wanted to learn more about serving her students.

“I’m not going to lie, I was a little older getting my MEd. Most people who go for their master’s are still going to work another 20, 30, 40 years. I’ll probably work another 15 years,” she reflected. “But I just love learning. I love an extra challenge.”

In fact, one of Boburchock’s children is pursuing a Master of Educational Technology (MET) at Wilson. Boburchock has already been eyeing their schedule for additional classes she might take. So far, she’s considering classes on 3D printing and virtual reality in educational environments.

“Wilson doesn’t close the door on you,” she said. “I feel like whenever I want to take classes again, I can just reach out.”

To find out how Wilson’s MEd program can help you meet your own professional and personal goals, request more information today.

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