Category Archives: LDT – GSE – Stanford

Beyond Bits and Atoms – Graph Learner Final Project

Graph Learner is ready… we show cased it at the BBA Expo… se the presentation below

And so it the report!

Curriculum Construction – Final Presentation

After some planning:

We created and presented our work:

Final paper due next Wednesday, along with our Process Log and the individual Reading Reflection 3! Uff…

Teacher PD – Week 10 – Class Notes

Group Presentation

National Writing Project
Writing assignment
- Prompt
  - What do you think about prior to developing a writing assignment?
- Response (5 minutes to do it)
  - First thing I would do is create a learning objective for the assignment and a rubric for assessing it. I would share this with the students and ask if they understand the assessment and prompt for any suggestions or things they might want to change. I would then show some examples of quality work and have them assess them using the rubric. Lastly I will ask them to list 3 topics they might want to write about. Finally, I would show them some techniques of how to structure their writing in terms of content and flow of ideas.
- Share with peer
  - Interesting: teacher would do an initial draft then work with the students to polish it up

2nd half

National Academy of Sciences Expert Committee Reports (nap.edu)
The New Teacher Training Program (tntp.org)
National Education Policy Center (nepc.colorado.edu)

Hilda’s tips on oTPD

Christopher Dede
Teaching channel – https://www.teachingchannel.org/
Teach tube – https://www.teachertube.com/
Teachscape – https://www.teachscape.com
TERC – https://www.terc.edu

Teacher PD – Week 10 – Reading Notes

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2015). Science Teachers Learning: Enhancing Opportunities, Creating Supportive Contexts. Committee on Strengthening Science Education through a Teacher Learning Continuum. Board on Science Education and Teacher Advisory Council, Division of Behavioral and Social Science and Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. [Read Summary, Chapters 6 & 9; also recommended: Chapter 8]

“A Nation at Risk” – book
- Warned of the risks of neglecting improvements in the quality of teaching in public schools
- Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) was a response to the book
Teachers are the ones who will deliver these new standards
Conclusions
- Will require teachers to alter the way they teach
- Teachers do not have adequate CK
- Teacher PD is selected and opted-in by individual teachers
- Teachers need better preparation
  - Differentiation
  - CK
  - PCK
- PD programs features
  - Analysis of own practice and student work
  - Content focused
  - Alignment with district policies and practices
  - Duration
- Online PD is effective
- Learning occurs within and outside of school
  - PD
  - Learning communities
  - Coaching
  - etc…
- Schools need to be supportive of PD
- PD must be contextualized
- Administration’s support is central to advance learning
- Teacher leaders – support and train new
- Closing the gap – must attend to teacher’s different learning needs
- US lacks a coherent and well-articulated system for PD
Recommendations for Practice and Policy
- Understand what are the current teacher learning opportunities
- Support teacher PD within own context
- PD outside of school and embedded in the work day
- Use research-based PD
  - Clear learning goals for teachers
  - Content specific
  - Student specific
  - Link to classroom instruction analysis
  - Interact with peers
  - Analyze data on student’s learning
  - Opportunities for collaboration
- Develop internal capacity & partner with external expertise
- Revise policies to encourage teacher learning opportunities
- Explore new formats and media for teacher learning
Chapter 6 – Professional Development Programs
- Definition
  - Purposefully designed to support particular kinds of teacher change
  - Include a focused, multi day session for teachers that takes place outside of the teacher’s classroom or school
  - May include follow-up opportunities over the school year
  - Have a finite duration (although they can take place over a period of 2 to 3 years)
- Several PD opportunities in catalogue (over 1000 in 1 year)
  - Disjointed and incoherent
- Core features of research-based PD
  - Focus on content
    - Subject matter content
    - How students learn that content
  - Active learning
    - Observing expert teachers
    - Reviewing student work
    - Leading discussions
  - Coherence with learning activities
    - Aligned with other learning opportunities
    - Aligned with school, district, and state policies
- Structural features of research-based PD
  - Form of the activity
  - Collective participation of teachers from the same school, grade, or subject
  - Duration of the activity
    - Total number of hours
    - Span of time
- Summary
  - PD can lead to sustainable changes in teacher’s knowledge and beliefs and their instruction
  - Little research that links directly to student outcomes – but seems to work
  - More to add to the consensus model
    - Content learning is intertwined with pedagogical activities such as analysis of practice. (Heller et al., 2012; Roth et al., 2011).
    - Analysis of student learning – artifacts of practice: student work and lesson videos (Greenleaf et al., 2011; Heller et al., 2012; Roth et al., 2011)
    - Focus on teaching strategies (Greenleaf et al., 2011; Johnson and Fargo, 2010; Penuel et al., 2011; Roth et al., 2011).
    - Reflect on and grapple with challenges to their current practice (Greenleaf et al., 2011; Johnson and Fargo, 2010; Penuel et al., 2011; Roth et al., 2011).
    - Scaffolded by knowledgeable professional development leaders (Greenleaf et al., 2011; Heller et al., 2012; Penuel et al., 2011; Roth et al., 2011).
    - Analytical tools support collaborative, focused, and deep analysis of science teaching, student learning, and science content (Greenleaf et al., 2011; Roth et al., 2011).
  - Must have better designed PD research
    - Research Design
      - “Few studies used strong research designs incorporating pre-post measures of both sets of outcomes shown in Figure 6-1 (teachers’ knowledge and instruction and students’ learning) and a control or comparison group.”
    - Research Scope and missing data
      - No studies look at schools organization and context
      - No studies look at role and expertise of PD providers and facilitators
  - Online Programs
    - Explosion of PD programs offered in this media
    - Still little research on it – early stages
    - Most programs use social constructivist approach
      - Problem-based learning
      - Inquiry-based learning
      - Mentoring
      - Communities of Practice
    - Most research is Qualitative – need more Quantitative?
    - Still need expert guidance and facilitation – open discussion forum is not enough (same as face-to-face efforts)
    - Teachers are more reflective online than on face-to-face
    - Technocentricity – online is not enough – has to be well designed in the first place
- Conclusions
  - Evidence is still not very robust
  - Few studies employ control or comparison groups
  - Most studies look at 1 study, in 1 location, with few volunteer teachers

Chapter 9 – Conclusions, Recommendations, and Directions for Research
- Need better designed PD
- Need better policies and practices in schools
- Need support from Administrators
- Recommendations for Research
  - Create system to collect data on
    - Current workforce
      - Qualifications
      - Experience
      - Preparation
    - General trends and consensus of best-practices
    - PD opportunities
  - Improve research methods
    - Include more quantitative data
    - Use control or comparison groups
  - More research on
    - Professional learning communities
    - Mentoring
    - Coaching
    - Online Learning
    - Teacher Networks
    - Teacher evaluation
    - School Organization
    - School Context
    - Principal and Leaders influence in PD
  - Formal Recommendations
    - 1: Focus Research on Linking Professional Learning to Changes in Instructional Practice and Student Learning
    - 2: Invest in Improving Measures of Science Instruction and Science Learning
    - 3: Design and Implement Research That Examines a Variety of Approaches to Supporting Science Teachers’ Learning
    - 4: Commit to Focusing on Meeting the Needs of Diverse Science Learners Across All Research on Professional Development
    - 5: Focus Research on Exploring the Potential Role of Technology
    - 6: Design and Implement Research Focused on the Learning Needs of Teacher Leaders and Professional Development Providers

The New Teaching Project (2015). The Mirage: Confronting the hard truth about our quest for teacher development. New York: TNTP. [Read through the Recommendations; no need to read appendices.]

Findings (“In short, we bombard teachers with help, but most of it is not helpful—to teachers as professionals or to schools seeking better instruction.)
- Districts are making a massive investment in teacher improvement—far larger than most people realize.
- Despite these efforts, most teachers do not appear to improve substantially from year to year—even though many have not yet mastered critical skills
- Even when teachers do improve, we were unable to link their growth to any particular development strategy.
- School systems are not helping teachers understand how to improve—or even that they have room to improve at all.
Recommendations
- REDEFINE what it means to help teachers improve
  - Define “development” clearly, as observable, measurable progress toward an ambitious standard for teaching and student learning.
  - Give teachers a clear, deep understanding of their own performance and progress.
  - Encourage improvement with meaningful rewards and consequences.
- REEVALUATE existing professional learning supports and programs
  - Inventory current development efforts.
  - Start evaluating the effectiveness of all development activities against the new definition of “development.”
  - Explore and test alternative approaches to development.
  - Reallocate funding for particular activities based on their impact.
- REINVENT how we support effective teaching at scale
  - Balance investments in development with investments in recruitment, compensation and smart retention.
  - Reconstruct the teacher’s job.
  - Redesign schools to extend the reach of great teachers.
  - Reimagine how we train and certify teachers for the job.

Hill, H.C. (2015). Review of The Mirage: Confronting the hard truth about our quest for teacher development. Boulder, CO. National Education Policy Center.

“… public districts invest heavily in teacher professional development, what is offered is often a poor fit to teacher needs and ultimately ineffective as a means to improving teacher evaluation scores.”
“… mis-match between the behaviors rewarded by teacher evaluation and the professional development features…”

Story 2: Fired, Hired, and Inspired by Kathleen Aldred

The story of “Mr.Z”, a ‘late-hire’ who missed the PD and involvement with the the New Teacher Institute
Rowdy students would not respond to his instructions
Previously a chef – received no teacher training
“Do now” strategy to quiet students down – shook hands of all incoming students
Teacher evaluation went bad
Fired
Re-hired by a more ‘progressive’ school

LDT Seminar – Week 9 – Class Notes

Discussed our projects in our regular groups.

My report:

Got an internship next quarter at Stanford’s Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning (VPTL)!! Going to work on the course on creating a course using OpenEdX as the platform! Perfectly aligned with my Master’s Project!
Survey for teachers – fell behind on this one – have to update the questions based on Karin’s feedback and send it out.
Challenges ahead: technical implementation of solution

Then we went to the Cactus Garden to do some group activities… fun : )

Beyond Bits and Atoms – Final Project Notes

Our “Graph Learner” has been getting very positive results and the app development has been coming along nicely.

TO DO

Name sliders
Name axis
Bold x & y when slider is moving
Create levels changer
- y=m*x
  - Control X and Y
- y=m*x+c
  - Adjust c
  - Adjust m
  - Control X and Y
- y=x^2
  - Auto X
  - Control X and Y
- y=sin(x)
  - Auto X
  - Control X and Y
- y=a*sin(x)
  - Auto X
  - Control X and Y
- y=a*sin(b*x)
  - Auto X
  - Control X and Y
- y=a*sin(b*x+c)
  - Auto X
  - Control X and Y
- y=a*sin(b*x+c)+d
  - Auto X
  - Control X and Y

DONE

Axis markings
Labels for x & y values
Home screen with the mode
- y = x
- y = x + b
- y = m * x + b
Baseline turn on or off
Grid lines
Clear drawing button
Auto speed
Draw the trace
Auto x & y
m & b sliders (only in 3rd mode)
sin/cos wave
Table with values
Color code table
Create levels changer
- Demo y=x
  - Auto Y
  - Auto X
  - Control X and Y

LDT Seminar – Master's Project First Draft

Learning Experience Designer (LXD)
Lucas Longo
v.1, Feb 27, 2016

“In spite of the proliferation of online learning, creating online courses can still evoke a good deal of frustration, negativity, and wariness in those who need to create them.” – Vai, M. & Sosulski, K. (2015)

ABSTRACT

The trend towards online learning environments is irreversible and an increasing number of higher educational institutions are going in that direction. It is a labor intensive task for professors who must transition from a traditional classroom or lecture hall model to an online environment. Aside from the learning curve into any e-learning authoring tool or learning management systems (LMS) such as Moodle, OpenEdX, Coursera, and Udemy, new content must be created and organized: pdfs, images, videos, links, and animations to list a few. The challenge is to make it easier for professors or subject matter experts (the user) who, for the most part, do not have formal pedagogical training or multimedia content creation skills to publish their courses adopting research-based best-practices.

Learning Experience Designer (LXD) embeds curriculum construction techniques, tips, guides, and content within the usually blank template you are presented with. It utilizes research-based heuristics to suggest course formats, pedagogical strategies, learner activities, assessments and challenges. During the process of creating a course, LXD will prompt the user for information as well as analyze the content created in real-time to suggest what the next steps could be. Instead of taking a “course on how to create a course on platform X”, LXD integrates this course into the content publishing tool making it a seamless, more pleasing, and easier experience for the user.

As a proof-of-concept, I propose to utilize as a base, an existing LMS and add onto its interface a virtual student / coach that interacts with the user throughout the course creation process. It will start off by asking the user what the course goals and learning objectives are. It will also provide examples, analogies, and recommended steps to develop them. It might recommend assessment points after the user created a certain number of content modules. It will also suggest content for further reading, links to the learning communities or social networks for extended feedback. The idea is to emulate an expert teacher, posing as a student, who is asking guiding questions and providing insights throughout the process of planning the course, creating the content, organizing the learning progression, and creating a learning community with the students.

CHALLENGE

Needs

In 2009 I started a mobile app development school in Brazil targeting developers and designers who needed to acquire these new hot skills. For the first year or so I taught the iPhone app development course while looking for more teachers to meet the large demand. Pedagogically, I was going on instincts, using a very hands-on approach: explain the concept, model it, and have the students do it themselves. I presented the content through guiding slides and shared my screen when demonstrating. There was no assessment activities except for walking around the classroom making sure everyone was able to copy the modeled activity. The students seemed to enjoy it and it was straightforward enough to explain to new teachers.

The challenge came when I decided I to start selling the courses online. A ‘real’ curriculum had to be designed and new written and video content had to be created. This task proved to be daunting for me and the developers who had no guidelines as to what works or not. The developer-now-teachers were slow to produce the material, and it was usually of poor quality: slides with too many details, missing or confusing explanations of key concepts, badly sequenced, amongst other quality issues. How could I give them guidance as to what quality material looks like? Where do I start? How much video versus written material should I use? How will students ask questions? How will we manage all these students? What are the best practices? All questions that could be resolved by a well designed software that would scaffold the process of creating the curriculum and course content.

Most LMSs offer a “course on how to create a course” yet only provide a blank template with you hit the “new course” button. The need is to have an in-line guide of the steps needed to plan, create, and manage the course. LDX should be adaptable to the user’s interactions and level of expertise as to what questions, scaffolds and suggestions it makes. A user would be exposed to more frequent interventions at the start of the process. The interventions would gradually become less intrusive, yet always available.

LEARNING

Benefits:

LDX will make the user more proficient in the art of sharing their knowledge, stimulating them to repeat the process, and create new and better courses. Users will benefit from theory grounded strategies that promote effective learning in online environments. The virtual student will lead the process by posing provocative questions and requesting content, assessment, and reflection activities to be inserted into the course progression.

The main learning outcome will be that online teaching requires a different set of approaches, content, media, interactive experiences, and assessment methods to be effective. The virtual student will serve as an instructor and coach for the user during the process. Teaching and learning will occur during the process of creating a course.

To demonstrate the effectiveness of LDX I propose to survey the users pre- and post-utilization of the tool with questions that will inform me of the following characteristics of the user:

Pre-utilization:

Previous knowledge/experience with pedagogy
Previous knowledge/experience with online teaching
Perception of online course effectiveness
Personal beliefs on the challenges of creating an online course
Confidence level for creating an online course

Post-utilization:

New pedagogical content acquired
New online teaching content acquired
Perception of online course effectiveness
Personal beliefs on the challenges of creating an online course
Confidence level for creating an online course

During the utilization of the tool I intend to collect the following data:

Webcam video recording
Screen video recording w/ mouse tracks and clicks
User will be asked to think-aloud throughout the process

I also intend to test LDX with users who have already created online courses and interview them to get the following:

Perception of how much LDX actually helped them in the process
What would they do different now if they were to redo their existing courses
Input and feedback on what worked, what didn’t work, and suggestions

The results will be interpreted using the grounded theory qualitative research method. Theories of how to improve the tool will emerge from the evidence coding and proposition creation. The conclusion will address issues such as the viability of the concept, effectiveness, and suggestions for future improvement.

Approach for Learning:

The approach to learning that informs my design is a combination of the Protégé Effect, Understanding by Design, and TPACK.

The Protege Effect posits that students make a greater effort to learn in the benefit of someone else rather than for themselves, and thus end up learning more in the process of teaching someone else (Chase, Chin, Oppezzo, & Schwartz, 2009). This effect will be elicited through the virtual student who will prompt the user to teach him by asking leading questions, making suggestions, and warning the user about excessive use of one style of teaching as well as the lack of content, reflection opportunities, or detailing of previous knowledge. The virtual student closes the gap between the content ideation and the actual student’s experience. Through immediate feedback, the virtual student will elicit the user to think deeply about content choices and aid in the process of deciding the learning progression that must be in place.

Understanding by Design is a methodology (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005) that anchors the curriculum construction process on the end learning goals and evidences of learning. The virtual student’s interactions will guide the user through these steps which provide a structure and sequence that ultimately produces a more cohesive and effective learning experience. By starting with what the student will end up with in terms of knowledge, skills, or understandings, the user will be focused on a clear end goal thus producing better directed content.

Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) is a framework that builds on Lee Shulman’s construct of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) to include technology knowledge (Koehler & Mishra, 2009). LDX aims to act precisely within this space insofar as it integrates the complex interaction among three bodies of knowledge: content, pedagogy, and technology. LDX “produces the types of flexible knowledge needed to successfully integrate technology use into teaching.” (Koehler & Mishra, 2009)

DESIGN OF THE LEARNING EXPERIENCE

Existing solutions (“competition”):

LXD is a construct that, for the purposes of this project, will build upon an existing LMS avoiding the enormous task of creating from scratch an entire system to handle content and course organization. It will also build upon the existing “course on creating a course”, which is in effect the main competition of the platform. Users might rather go through such a course and then plan out and publish their own course, without any intrusion from the virtual student. With this in mind, the goal of LDX is to test if such an integration or synchronicity of learning and doing is effective.

Most LMSs offer, within their course creation templates, simple text fields or spaces to fill out the learning objective for each section or lesson for example. LDX takes it a step further by providing leading questions and best practices for each step of the process. It also introduces adaptive feedback based on the content already published on the platform. LDX proposes to analyze the content, media types, and sequence of activities in order to suggest what the user might do next.

Looking at Udemy for example, I’ve found several areas/content that aim at helping the user through the process, yet they are always clearly external to to content publication area. These external areas provide further readings, suggestions, and helpful tips yet they are static in nature.

Automatic Messages
- Welcome Message
- Congratulations Message
Course Goals
Intended Audience
Course Requirements
Instructional Level
Course Summary

Approach for Design:

LDX will be a web-based tool which will overlay the existing LMS with the virtual student along with texts, images, and video triggered by analyzing the steps and content being published in the course. Let’s say that the user has published a 30 minute video – LDX might suggest that the video should be shorter. If the user publishes 50 pages of text with no images, LDX might suggest that images illustrate concepts more powerfully that text alone. LDX might prompt the user to insert a knowledge-check or reflection activity once the user has published 5 pieces of content. The idea is to provoke the user to think about how the learner will be processing the content towards learning.

The key features of LDX are:

Virtual Student
- 3D character that talks to the user
- Guides the user through the process of creating the content
- Asks questions about the content and format of the course as it is created
Course Publication Tool
- Existing LMS’s features
Curated Content
- Access to similar courses to get examples
- Ability to link to external material for student’s reference

EVIDENCE OF SUCCESS

I propose to assess the effectiveness of my solution by testing LDX with users with online teaching experience and users with no experience. The goals are to judge if such features improve the experience of creating the course and if the resulting course positively affects the learning outcomes. For practical purposes, I will narrow the content area to a beginner’s programming course at the undergraduate level since it is a subject matter I am familiar with and have access to potential users of the system.

APPENDIX A: TIME

Milestones and deliverables

When do you need to do what, in order to finish on time? Example:

Winter quarter	Observe target learners Develop ideas Write proposal
March 20, 2015	Proposal draft submitted to advisor
Date	Participants for user testing and learning assessment arranged
Date	Low-res learning assessments complete
Date	Low-res prototype studies complete
Date	Round 2 learning assessments complete
Date	Round 2 prototype design complete
Date	Final user testing and learning assessment complete
July 20, 20165	Project logo and video submitted
July 2931, 20165	EXPO presentation, demo
August 46, 20165	Draft report submitted
August 113, 20165	Signed Master’s Project Form submitted

APPENDIX B: MONEY

Item	Approximate Cost
Virtual student – design	$ 300
Virtual student – development	$ 3000
Total:	$3300

APPENDIX C: PEOPLE

Supporters

Candace Thille – online teaching platform pedagogy
Grace Lyo – VPTL – Associate Director of Instructional design
Pedro Cunha – graphic design
Eduardo Cremon – software architecture & development
Karin Forssell & Paulo Blikstein – feedback & support

APPENDIX D: SCHEDULE

Month	Day	Item
February	26	Define survey questions and send them out
March	4	Define problem and target audience
March	11	Collect Research
March	18	Hot to measure success
March	25
April	1	Feature list
April	8	Feature list
April	15	Wireframes
April	22	Define technologies
April	29	Database
May	6	APIs
May	13	User Interface
May	20	User Interface
May	27	User Interface
June	3	Final Adjustments
June	10
June	17
June	24	User Testing
July	1	User Testing
July	8	Analyze User Testing Data & Feedback
July	15	Final Adjustments
July	22	Final Adjustments
July	29	V1 LDT Expo

APPENDIX D: REFERENCES

Keywords

Hybrid Online Learning
Instructional Design
Train the Trainer
Professional Development
TPCK & TPACK

Research / Citations

Essentials of Online Course Design https://www.routledge.com/products/9781138780163

Towards Best Practices in Online Learning and Teaching in Higher Education http://jolt.merlot.org/vol6no2/keengwe_0610.htm

EXPLORING FOUR DIMENSIONS OF ONLINE INSTRUCTOR ROLES: A PROGRAM LEVEL CASE STUDY https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB4QFjAAahUKEwjQ4te54tfIAhUL1GMKHcGSCxA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonlinelearningconsortium.org%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fv9n4_liu_1.pdf&usg=AFQjCNHtnYf76HkFI-YrIcLhxBWoNPXhRw&sig2=RQVCKYoBJvqv-Gtu8oyCdw

(MY) THREE PRINCIPLES OF EFFECTIVE ONLINE PEDAGOGY http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ909855.pdf

Source Effects in Online Education http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/thies/las15-source-effects.pdf

The Five stage Model http://www.gillysalmon.com/five-stage-model.html

From face-to-face teaching to online teaching: Pedagogical transitions http://www.ascilite.org/conferences/hobart11/downloads/papers/Redmond-full.pdf

From On-Ground to Online: Moving Senior Faculty to the Distance Learning Classroom http://er.educause.edu/articles/2017/6/from-onground-to-online-moving-senior-faculty-to-the-distance-learning-classroom

Why some distance education programs fail while others succeed in a global environment http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1096751609000281

Case Study: Challenges and Issues in Teaching Fully Online Mechanical Engineering Courses http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-06764-3_74

TPCK and SAMR – Models for Enhancing Technology Integration (2008) http://www.msad54.org/sahs/TechInteg/mlti/SAMR.pdf

SAMR and TPCK in Action http://www.hippasus.com/rrpweblog/archives/2017/08/28/SAMR_TPCK_In_Action.pdf

SAMR: Beyond the Basics http://www.hippasus.com/rrpweblog/archives/2017/08/26/SAMRBeyondTheBasics.pdf

From the Classroom to the Keyboard: How Seven Teachers Created Their Online Teacher Identities http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/download/1814/3253

A structure equation model among factors of teachers’ technology integration practice and their TPCK http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131515000949

Examining Technopedagogical Knowledge Competencies of Teachers in Terms of Some Variables http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042815006990/pdf?md5=1d1ccf6d1fb7088d7fda105f66d677c6&pid=1-s2.0-S1877042815006990-main.pdf

The Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge-practical (TPACK-Practical) model: Examination of its validity in the Turkish culture via structural equation modeling http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131515001189

Using TPCK as a scaffold to self-assess the novice online teaching experience http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01587919.2015.1019964#aHR0cDovL3d3dy50YW5kZm9ubGluZS5jb20vZG9pL3BkZi8xMC4xMDgwLzAxNTg3OTE5LjIwMTUuMTAxOTk2NEBAQDA=

What Is Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge? http://www.editlib.org/p/29544/

The role of TPACK in physics classroom: case studies of preservice physics teachers http://ac.els-cdn.com/S187704281201779X/1-s2.0-S187704281201779X-main.pdf?_tid=cf1faf84-81bf-11e5-8938-00000aacb35f&acdnat=1446509831_08753d5dcf76ed3f790bd4382aae1e31

Handbook of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK) for Educators https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=lEbJAwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=tPCK&ots=-p0TWk4RCI&sig=FElDYqBq7xyKcFWehvVRZ91LrNE#v=onepage&q&f=false

When using technology isn’t enough: A comparison of high school civics teachers׳ TPCK in one-to-one laptop environments http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0885985X14000229

Teacher Education Programs and Online Learning Tools: Innovations in Teacher http://www.igi-global.com/gateway/book/63882

A Blended-learning Pedagogical Model for Teaching and Learning EFL Successfully Through an Online Interactive Multimedia Environment https://journals.equinoxpub.com/index.php/CALICO/article/view/23157/19162

The Effectiveness of Online and Blended Learning: A Meta-Analysis of the Empirical Literature https://www.sri.com/sites/default/files/publications/effectiveness_of_online_and_blended_learning.pdf

How to Do More with Less: Lessons from Online Learning http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ982835.pdf

Build It But Will They Teach?: Strategies for Increasing Faculty Participation & Retention in Online & Blended Education http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/summer172/betts_heaston172.html

The design and development of an e-guide for a blended mode of delivery in a teacher preparation module http://reference.sabinet.co.za/webx/access/electronic_journals/progress/progress_v36_n2_a6.pdf

Lessons from the virtual classroom : the realities of online teaching [2013] https://searchworks.stanford.edu/?q=836557457

Essentials for Blended Learning: A Standards-Based Guide http://www.lybrary.com/essentials-for-blended-learning-a-standardsbased-guide-p-412451.html

Design and development process for blended learning courses http://www.inderscienceonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1504/IJIL.2013.052900

Pearl Jacobs, The challenges of online courses for the instructor http://www.aabri.com/manuscripts/131555.pdf

Developing an Online Course: Challenges and Enablers https://www.academia.edu/7511220/Developing_an_Online_Course_Challenges_and_Enablers

Considerations in Online Course Design http://ideaedu.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/idea_paper_52.pdf

Curriculum Construction – Week 9 – Reading Notes

Jacob, B. (November 2001). Implementing Standards: The California Mathematics Textbook Debacle, Phi Delta Kappan, pp. 264-272.

Math Textbooks
- “I examine California’s recent ‘standards-aligned” mathematics textbook adoption process, which provides a lens to scrutinize the impact of high-stakes policies on classroom practice”
Background on California
- Standards by content areas
- Revised every 7 years
- K-8 only, High schools chose their own
1996-1997 Math Adoption

Woodward, A., & Elliot, D. (1990). Textbooks: Consensus and Controversy. In Textbooks and Schooling In the United States, 89th Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 146-161.

Stakeholders are resistant to change in education
Publishers have to adapt content to political ideologies
Cost effective to have a national, neutral, and bland textbook as opposed to local books

Teacher PD – Week 9 – Reading Response Assigment

Teacher PD – Reading Response
2016, Winter, Week 9
Lucas Longo

Prompt

What insights about the nature and design of online PD programs and the research on online PD did you gain by reading the set of articles by Fishman & colleagues and Moon & colleagues? What is the value of this type of “conversation” among scholars in a journal?

Response

I was pleasantly surprised initially with the results, even if conservative, that showed no “significant differences” between the online PD and the face-to-face modalities (Fishman et al, 2014). High dropout rates in MOOCS for example, might suggest that the same would occur with online PD. The population in ‘regular’ online courses are wildly different than that in online PD, yet there was a suspicion that teachers might not engage as deeply with the content as they would in face-to-face PD. The readings presented the several affordances of the online model but made clear that. I do believe that face-to-face is essential but it can be scaled down in favor of online content delivery and even community building. Further research as to what content should go online and what works best in face-to-face.

The Fishman et al 2013 piece focused on the “experimental comparison of PD delivered in two different media.” (Fishman et al, 2014). It showed that both methods of delivery work, and it “was welcomed by many as a sign that it is “safe” to employ online PD.” (Fishman et al, 2014). This research finding hopefully stimulates the market and researchers to further develop this modality to be able to scale both the training of PD facilitators and PD itself in an effective manner. The focus might start to become what subject areas and PD activities are better suited for each medium. For example, we can infer from the results that general SCK and PCK can be effectively delivered online for teachers. Yet if we think about training PD facilitators to support deep discussions around the subject or to press teachers for further inquiry, face-to-face might be more effective.

“The relative merits of online versus face-to-face conversation may vary across activities depending on the type of work planned for the teachers and the nature of sense-making and collaboration required.” (Moon, Passmore, Reiser, & Michaels, 2014, p2)

Moods’ Next Generation Science Exemplar System (NGSX) (Moon et al, 2014) seems to be a promising and solid start in exploring the hybrid modality of PD. Particularly interesting is their model of providing ‘pathways’ that enable facilitators to lead organized study groups. “There is expertise embedded in the system, in the structuring of tasks and discussions and in the ongoing commentary in embedded videos.” (Moon et al, 2014, p174) In other words, it focuses on providing research-based best-practices for leading and conducting face-to-face discussions using online content as a source of information and a scaffold for activities. This is the first I’ve seen such an effective and directed integration of the online and face-to-face methodologies; granted that my knowledge around the subject is limited, yet they strive for utilizing the best of both worlds.

The most interesting aspect of these types of “conversations” among scholars is the richness of information that emerge from it, educating us about the current state of affairs in the field in a summarized and passionate manner. Reading research papers alone you eventually form an opinion about the subject matter. This kind of dialogue between the experts you exposes to what are the controversies, the agreements, what is important or not, what needs to be changed, and what are the current theories and strategies used to tackle the field.

One thing that was not mentioned in these readings was TPCK. My thought is that by simply exposing the teachers to the affordances of the online platforms, they might start to wonder how they might incorporate them into their own practices. Even if not explicitly a subject matter in the PDs we read about, I wonder if it was secondary effect of the teacher’s learning. They might start showing videos of other kids discussing math problems to establish norms and model the behavior. The online content can be used as an aid for teachers who are less proficient in the multiple ways of explaining a certain subject.

Finally, these papers have encouraged me to continue investigating how might we embed PCK scaffolds for instructors within online course authoring tools, beyond the ‘course on creating a course’. The idea is to have a virtual coach and some virtual students that will prompt for information, provide supporting content, and ask questions about the content at the appropriate stages of planning, developing, and submitting the online course. These papers showed that learning how to teach can happen online as well.

References:

Fishman, B., Konstantopoulos, S., Kubitskey, B.W., Vath, R., Park, G., Johnson, H., & Edelson, D.C. (2013). Comparing the impact of online and face-to-face professional development in the context of curriculum implementation. Journal of Teacher Education, 64 (5), 426-438.

Fishman, B., Konstantopoulos, S., Kubitskey, B.W., Vath, R., Park, G., Johnson, H., & Edelson, D.C. (2014). The future of professional development will be designed, not discovered: Response to Moon, Passmore, Reiser, and Michaels, “Beyond comparisons of online versus face-to-face PD.” Journal of Teacher Education, 65 (3), 261-264.

Moon, J., Passmore, C., Reiser, B.J., & Michaels, S. (2014). Beyond comparisons of online versus face-to-face PD: Commentary in response to Fishman et al., “Comparing the impact of online and face-to-face professional development in the context of curriculum implementation.” Journal of Teacher Education, 65 (2), 172-176.

LDT Seminar – Master Project Draft Review with Karin

Had a great meeting with Karin to discuss the first draft of the Master’s Project.

Main takeaways:

Find research that supports the notion that
- Higher Ed is focusing everyday more on online courses
- Instructors find putting courses online a challenge and a ‘large’ task.
- Situated learning is better than parallelized
- They why of the ‘course to create a course’
Virtual student
- Have more than one, allow instructor to give them characteristics
- Have an explicit virtual agent for the coach/expert
TPCK
- Focus more on PCK
Competition
- Facebook Groups
- Hired Instructional Designer
Evidence of Success
- Add what may not work