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Indiana Partnership for Statewide Education Course Development Grant Proposal
Web-based Delivery of AED 100, Initial Experiences in Education
Vincennes University

Narrative

1-2 Need to be addressed - Learners to be served

Many people in the state are presently employed in an educational setting, but have limited credentials and/or degrees, and are prevented from pursuing those credentials/degrees because the required coursework is offered only during working hours at institutions that are often far removed from their place of employment. Such people include teachers’ aides, librarians, day care workers, some pre-school teachers, and some substitute teachers. Teachers employed at Head Start are now required to have at least an associate’s degree by the year 2003. There is considerable movement at the state level toward professionalization of day care workers as well. A convenient, well-articulated program in Early Childhood Education, delivered via the World Wide Web, would help accelerate improvement in the quality of day care workers, pre-school teachers, children’s librarians, substitute teachers, and teachers’ aides.

3. Rationale for choice of course and technology to be used.

AED 100, Initial Experiences in Education, as the name implies, is a course directed to students who are considering a career in education. It is a fairly generic course for education majors, required in one form or another at almost every four-year institution. ( ISU/ELED 100, USI/EDUC 198, Purdue/EDCI 204) In this course, students explore the many facets of teaching, and begin their professional portfolio. A “field experience” is almost always required. This field experience can be the educational setting in which the persons listed above are already employed.

A web-based delivery system would facilitate the following learning activities:

4. Institution’s capacity and commitment to the course-development project.

Vincennes University has had full internet access for several years, and its internal computer network has been in existence for an even longer period. Management Information Services employs a full-time staff of eleven, and the library employs full time personnel dedicated to assisting staff in the creation of courses such is the one being proposed here, using a program called Course Info. The Education Department already has its own web site hosted by the campus server. The person proposing this course created the pages on this site, and teaches a course called Intro. to Classroom Computing. Additionally, he has attended two training sessions covering the integration of Visual Basic, Microsoft Access, and HTML.

5. Quality of the instructional design and delivery plan.

Using Course Info, a web page containing links to the syllabus, forms, on-going discussion threads, and weekly topics and assignments would be loaded on the university’s web server.

After registering for the course using the normal registration process, students would be issued an ID for the course. Students would then make initial contact with the instructor via forms posted on the course web site. Forms would request information regarding the student’s personal profile, place of employment, reason for taking the course, e-mail address, career goals, supervising teacher, etc. Much of this information would be used by the instructor to facilitate or confirm the student’s field placement.

Forms would be posted in the Adobe Acrobat (*.pdf) format -- a format often used because the “reader” is free and downloadable. These forms can be customized for data entry, sent as e-mail attachments, printed as hard copy, and annotated by the user. They are very versatile.

Entire lessons can also be sent in *.pdf -- downloaded from the web site, or directly from the instructor as e-mail attachments. Students can then complete the lessons off-line. The lessons can incorporate standard text documents, PowerPoint presentations, or a combination of both. Large documents can be displayed with a dynamic index on the left window pane.

The annotation feature of Adobe Acrobat can be used to allow students to comment on journals written by other students. Each week, a particular student’s journal can be “featured” on the web site by the instructor. The featured journal would be accompanied by scenes recorded with a multimedia recorder, which would help the other students visualize a context or situation. Students who comment on the journal will receive points for doing so.

Evaluation forms completed to be completed by the supervising teacher can be printed in hard copy from the course web site, completed and signed, and sent to the university instructor via traditional mail or fax.

Tests can be e-mailed to a designated proctor, who can then e-mail the student’s score to the university instructor.

6. Effectiveness of the instructional design for serving the target audience.

The instructional design would require the student to have the following capabilities:

Most of the targeted students have, or will have developed these capabilities through their place of employment. Local libraries can also supply the web access and printing capabilities in most communities. Students who do not know how to navigate the web, send and receive e-mail, establish an e-mail account, and send/receive attachments may have to contact the instructor, who will provide a training session on campus. Most students probably know someone locally who can assist them initially with these tasks.

7. Evidence of a complete course evaluation plan likely to provide broadly useful information.

Due to the large number of reporting forms used in the course, a huge amount of data will be generated each semester by the students taking the course. The instructor can use this data to target geographical areas in the state where such instruction seems to be in demand, and survey the students in these areas to determine what coursework would be most beneficial to them and their colleagues in the future. Popular topics and general concerns can be identified through journal entries and the annotations of students who read and respond to them. The evaluation forms used currently in the course by the field supervisors are used to provide direction to the university instructor for course improvement. The university also does an annual course evaluation on all its courses using a scannable form. Results are sent to each university instructor, with student comments.

8. Potential contribution of the project to other instructional efforts, on and off campus.

On campus, the V.U. administration is very interested in the efforts of instructors to increase our ability to offer coursework via the World Wide Web, and supports those efforts in the ways listed in item #4 above. Additionally, new efforts in this area are frequently showcased in university workshops and recognition is given to the instructors responsible at major university faculty meetings. Lessons learned in the development process are centralized and disseminated by the Office of Academic Computing, under the auspices of the campus library, to other instructors interested in creating web-based courses. This same course is also offered at the Jasper campus. Implementation would allow students at that campus, and the instructor there, access to the same benefits.

9. Evidence of the course’s significance in a statewide context (Track 2)

A great deal of effort has been expended in the coordination and articulation of coursework in this area by the Indiana Professional Development System (IPDS). The person proposing this course is a member of this group. A major objective of this group is to provide a “seamless” professional development system for persons in the state who are employed in day care, pre-school, and Head Start programs. Due to concern for an increase in professionalism in these fields, there is an emphasis on delivery systems that will enable students and practitioners to professionalize without quitting their jobs. This course could be used by all practitioners who are attempting to climb the “career lattice” (a document/professional development plan published by the IPDS) in early childhood education. A high degree of collegiality exists between the members of the IPDS, who share this common concern. New courses and training programs are voluntarily submitted for approval to the Training Approval Panel, a sub-committee of the IPDS, which offers criticism and suggestions for improvement, as well as a stamp of approval for courses meeting their guidelines.

10. Effectiveness of the plan by which the audience will learn of the course and enroll in it.

The IPDS maintains an extensive list of “stakeholders” and a registry of over one hundred institutions, providers, and trainers. As a member of the IPDS, the person proposing this course will secure a mailing list and send brochures regarding this course to these stakeholders. Many contacts can be made face-to-face as well during the annual “gala” hosted by the IPDS. Local support groups of day care providers exist in both Knox and Daviess counties. The support group leaders will be contacted. If possible, a presentation will be made at their monthly meetings.

 

Appendix

C. Steve Penn - Lead Faculty Member

3 yrs. teaching experience Fourth grade Spencer-Owen School Corp.

3 yrs. teaching experience Parochial School System

2 yrs administrative experience Principal N. Knox School Corp.

12 yrs. teaching experience Professor Vincennes University

9 yrs. administrative experience Department Chair Vincennes University

Created a web site for the education department at Vincennes University, and for ResCom Construction Management, Inc

Attended DevCon for Microsoft developers in ‘97 (Orlando) and ‘99 (Chicago)

Currently teaches Introduction to Classroom Computing.

attachments: letter of support Bruce Cannon

Dean, Social Science Division

letter of support Dr. Dale Dowden

Asst. V.P., Curriculum Development


The developer proposes to provide persons currently employed in day care, pre-school, as teachers’ aides, or substitute teachers, an opportunity to take AED 100, Initial Experiences in Education, via the World Wide Web, and receive course credit for current work experience.

Amount requested for development: $14068.99



Last updated: June 21, 2006