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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
