Partnerships for Change: Are We Really Better Together than Alone? Kim Obbink, Montana State...

Partnerships for Change: Are We Really Better Together

than Alone?

Kim Obbink, Montana State University - Burns Telecom Center

Gerry Wheeler, National Science Teachers Association

Al Byers, National Science Teachers Association

Ritchie Boyd, Montana State University - Burns Telecom Center

Trends

“Higher education outsourcing and partnerships are increasing.”

- Trend # 20 of Howell, Williams, & Lindsay’s Thirty-two Trends Affecting Distance Education: An Informed Foundation for Strategic Planning,Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, Volume VI, Number III, Fall2003

Kim Obbink, Burns Telecom Ctr

Montana State University:– Traditional Land Grant Institution 

– History of interdisciplinary programs for science teachers:   

• National Teachers Enhancement Network• Masters of Science in Science Education

About the Partnership

Kim Obbink, Burns Telecom Ctr

Montana State University:–Strengths:   

• Offer graduate science courses to over 500 teachers per year   

• Online delivery model    • Science faculty experienced in online teaching/learning    • Masters degree cohort has grown to accepting 50

students per year –Structure:   

• Traditional semester credit instructional model• Traditional faculty teaching model• Traditional scheduling and cost model

About the Partnership

Challenge:  To meet ongoing educational needs and credentialing requirements for science teachers    

Required Change:        – Flexible scheduling        – Reach the non-junkies        – "Just-in-time" learning        – Meet state and national standards        – Create a scalable instructional model        – Support a self-sustaining business plan

About the Partnership

Solution:  Partner with a professional association     

National Science Teachers Association        • Largest association of science teachers in the

world        • National and international visibility        • Understand professional development needs of

membership        • Seeking to add value for their members

About the Partnership

Partner roles

• Defining the need, articulating roles in the partnership (Gerry Wheeler)

• NSTA technology selection processes (Al Byers)

• Prototype design and production processes (Ritchie Boyd)

Gerry Wheeler, NSTA

What’s the problem we’re solving?

and

Why a partnership?

Student science achievement depends on it

Our country needs to improvescience teacher knowledge asap

Current efforts fail …

• to reach the scale of impact that national reform demands

• to address the individual needs of teachers

• to provide the content background teachers need

• to connect to the national and state science standards

• to achieve an attractive cost/benefit ratio for users

Online expertise

Production infrastructure

Faculty expertise

Student workforce

Credit offerings

International reach

Less rules/regulations

National Standards

Comprehensive contacts >> offerings

Professional Society

University

About the Partnership

Professional Society

University

The challenge area

The NSTA Technology Team

Al Byers, NSTA

Criteria for,

and selection of the development

and delivery tools

Selecting the Technology

Initial demonstrations by the usual suspects, a few corporate players and an open source product

WebCT Blackboard

Prometheus TappedIn

ThinQ VuePoint

IVC Straight HTML

Challenge arose with “traditional” delivery paradigm against desired features and attributes we desired:

–Heavily facilitator dependent–Fixed start/stop delivery cycle–Tracking, reporting and prescriptive

remediation limited–Distributed production/review limited–Support limited for open source

Selecting the Technology

LMS versus LCMS

• LMS for serving up online modules, tracking final scores overall module completion

• LCMS to help in the creation, management, and distribution of online modules/assessments & tracking/branching within Science Module

Selecting the Technology

Evolution Learning Management Platform

Evolution Learning Management Platform

• Quick & Easy Content Development• Centralized Content Management• Dynamic Content Delivery• Learner Management & Tracking

Saved/Stored within LCMS

Freely navigate throughout Module (blue area) and btw topics within each LO

Posttest Assessment

forentire

Science Module

revisits real-world scenario presented in

intro with twist

A

ssessm

en

tQ

uiz 15th

E“E

valua

te”

Pedagogical Content

Knowledge by grade band

Learning Object

first key idea

Each Learning Object (LO) with quizaddresses

5EsID model

Learning Object and quiz cycle repeats for every LO in the

science module

Last Learning

Object (PCK)

Science Module

Intro to Science Module

NSTA Institute Portal communicates directly with LCMS database and handles all the

registrar tasks

LO LO LO LO LO LO

Ritchie Boyd, Burns Telecom Ctr

Prototype

Design and Development

Prototype design and development

Overarching goals – 99 44/100% pure content

• Standards-based content

• “Understanding by Design” template

• Prototype team roles and process

• Content driven– Focus on building teacher’s content

knowledge and exposing misconceptions of students (and teachers)

• Standards based– AAAS Atlas of Science literacy

benchmarks– NSES, Various state standards

Prototype design and development

• Instructional Design model– Based on “Understanding by Design”,

Wiggins and McTighe’s reverse engineering model

– Created Instructional Design templates that center on deep understanding of a limited set of unpacked standards

– Assessment is… tricky

Prototype design and development

• Prototype production teams – where– Standards expert - NSTA– Content expert – NSTA, MSU– Instructional designer/web author - BTC– Media designer – BTC, NSTA– Reviewers – content experts, teachers –

NSTA, MSU

Prototype design and development

• Lessons learned– Distributed teams require discipline,

leadership, rules– Exemplary virtual team management "best

practices” need to be employed– Content experts need constraints on

content scope– Templates are not universally embraced

nor scorned, but necessary for scaling

Prototype design and development

• Lessons learned– Templates ensure measure of quality

control, consistency– Development is iterative process improved

one LO at a time.– Target audience (teachers) should be

involved in reviews early– The “Frisbee golf” effect

Prototype design and development

Questions?

For more information:jrboyd@montana.edu

abyers@nsta.org