Jim Dorward Sarah Giersch Kaye Howe Rena Janke Mimi Recker Andy Walker NSF Awards: NSDL ;TPC Using Online Science & Math Resources in Classrooms

The National Science Digital Library (NSDL) is the nation’s free online library for education and research in Science, Technology, Engineering, & Mathematics Instructional Architect is an NSDL service that allows teachers to easily package online resources from a variety of sources for their students.

Instructional Architect ( Teacher created projects4,062 Online resources gathered 16,922 Project visits 219,022 Registered users 2,452 Since 2004

DLgtS Project Overview 2006 Develop STEM content, pedagogy curriculum for F2F workshops Develop organizational, technical structure to support teachers at a distance Conduct in-service teacher workshops, support distributed in-service teacher community of practice Coordinate instrument development with Project TestDrive 2007 Adapt workshop curriculum, deliver to pre-service teachers Adapt curriculum for delivery in alternate formats - online, CD-ROM Develop quality rubric and review resources (partial) Extend workshop delivery to Project TestDrive audiences Incorporate pre-service teachers into community of practice support network 2008 Contribute pre- / in-service teacher-created content to NSDL Continue to deliver workshops, grow communities of practice Conduct evaluation activities throughout

Theoretical Framework For Teaching As Design Improvisation: teachers use links to resources, but contribute or reference personal content (e.g., explicit lesson goals, activity outline, assessments, student instructions) Offload: teachers provide links to resources with little teacher-created content Adaptation: midpoint Adapted from Brown & Edelson (2006):

Professional/Content Development Model (Workshops) Goal 1: Increase use of digital libraries and related tools. Goal 2: Increase design capacity

Sustained Workshop Model PhasePD Goals and ActivitiesData Collected Workshop 1 (4 hours) Learn about the NSDL and IA Learn search techniques Engage in modified PBL  Participants identify authentic instructional need (Putnam & Borko, 2000)  Design project to address need Pre-survey Observations Between workshop activities Continue modified PBL Activities  Implement project  Review peers’ projects (Hoffman & Thompson, 2000)  Write reflection paper noting barriers and successes discussions and follow-up Reflection papers Webmetrics Workshop 2 (4 hours) Increase design capacity with online resource Finish modified PBL activities  Present, discuss projects and implementation stories  Present, discuss pedagogical and design strategies (Pianfetti, 2001) Group interviews Observations Post-survey

“Modified” PBL Authentic problems –Participant selected (in-service) –Facilitator selected (pre-service) –Technical skills up front Learner centered Teachers as Facilitators –Technical skills content provided Small group interaction –Groups a bit too small (n=2-3) –No “collaborative independent” study (all reflection oriented)

Methods & Analysis I Context: –Two workshops, Utah and New York. 16 in-service teachers; complete data for 13 –35 projects, viewed at least 10 times –Projects: Viewed mean of 78.4 times Referenced mean of 7.4 online resources Hypothesis: –Large grain leads to offloads –Small grain leads to improvisation

Relationship: Granularity & Design Intra-class correlations –Project Design =.88 –Resource Granularity =.84 Resource Granularity Project Design Strategy OffloadAdaptImprovise Small867 Medium13716 Large760

Methods & Analysis II 17 of 35 projects: Offloads –Linked to range of granularity resources 8 of 35 projects: Improvisations –No use of large grain resources –Teacher-added content: worksheets, explanations, instructional strategies X 2 (4, N=70), 9.055, p =.06; (d =.77) Hypothesis Confirmed* Attitudes –Importance of online resources for the quality of education (d =.30) –Online resources make the teacher’s job easier (d =.20)

Next Steps Analysis of data for 2 nd implementation involving classroom observations –(look at differences between design vs implementation). –Examination of Reciprocal Mentoring dyads in the wild (pre-service teachers mentoring on technology; in-service teachers mentoring on pedagogy). Proposed investigations of “viral workshop” examples (three instances)

Developing a Review Rubric for Online Resources Outcome: Contribute reviewed teacher- designed learning activities from IA to NSDL Methodology –Literature review: computer science, library and information science, education (learning objects) and digital libraries –Survey of Review Committee: 2 master teachers (K12 level), 2 STEM content specialists, 2 administrators, and 1 anthropologist with a background in digital libraries and online communities –Focus groups with in-service teachers –Examining the role of online resource granularity (size) in support of the hypothesis that granularity is directly related to how online learning resources are used and/or reused (see Brown & Edelson above)

Goals for Review Rubric IA Goals: –Provide further functionality to IA users in their search, discovery and (re)use of existing IA projects –Provide a level of vetting for existing and new projects that has not been done to date –Identify a collection of IA resources that can be contributed to NSDL, along with contextual metadata that supports the discovery and (re)use of this collection –Capitalize on social networking technology to enhance the reviews and to encourage interaction around IA projects –Contribute to the career development of in-/pre-service educators NSDL Goals: –Provide a collection of resources with the appropriate information to help users made decision about resources during the search and discovery process.

Summary of Review Elements

Want to Conduct a DLgtS Workshop with Your Users? Contact: Mimi Recker: Andy Walker: Sarah Giersch: Rena Janke: