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 improve science 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 WebCTBlackboard PrometheusTappedIn ThinQVuePoint IVCStraight 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 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 for entire Science Module revisits real- world scenario presented in intro with twist Assessment Quiz 1 5 th E “Evaluate ” Pedagogical Content Knowledge by grade band Learning Object first key idea Each Learning Object (LO) with quiz addresses 5Es ID 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

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

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