The Teacher Education
Programs on six UC campuses seek funding
to expand the use of teaching and
learning technologies to meet UC's
responsibility to educate K-12 teachers
for California schools by sharing
technology tools that have been developed
independently by faculty on the various
campuses.
Overview of the
Request
All teacher education programs in
the UC are faced with both the same
demands from the UC President's Office
to increase graduation numbers and
the same requirements for credentialling
imposed by the California Commission
on Teacher Credentialing. Each Program,
independently, has explored the possibilities
offered by instructional technologies
for improving the quality, effectiveness
and efficiency of their teacher preparation.
A UC system-wide meeting of teacher
educators on February 22 at UCSB (funded
by TLtC) identified seven tools that
were being developed and put into
use by one or another of the campuses
and that would be useful if made available
to the other campuses in the system.
Each tool is intended to meet a pressing
pedagogical issue that was found to
be common across the system's teacher
education programs. Each currently
is in use on its originating campus
but also is in some stage of further
development. Beyond this development,
additional work of various types would
be needed to enable successful exporting
of these tools from their originating
campuses. This proposal seeks funding
to support that work.
Background
There is no issue more important to
California's future than improving
its public schools. The quality of
these schools, which depends directly
on the quality of the teachers working
in them, is being reduced to disastrous
levels by the mushrooming shortage
of qualified teachers in the state.
To staff classrooms last year, schools
needed to hire, on an emergency basis,
over 40,000 "teachers" (14%
of the work force) who did not have
even the minimum qualifications of
a credential. Most were without any
experience teaching and, in many cases,
there was not even minimum assurance
that they possessed basic academic
skills. Unfortunately, the problem
is getting worse each year.1
In his "New
Partnership Agreement" UC President
Atkinson has pledged to the state
legislature that the University of
California will do its part to counter
this looming disaster in California's
schools.2 Specifically, to meet teacher
demand and improve the quality of
teacher preparation, the President
promised to increase "...the
number of students enrolled in teacher
credential programs from approximately
1,000 in 1998-99 to 2,500 by 2002-03,
with a focus on increasing the number
of first-time and new type credentials
in math and science. This would more
than double the number of teachers
prepared by UC in 1998-99."
Our Difficult
Instructional Problem. The teacher
education programs in the UC system
are thus faced with a most difficult
instructional problem. The adequate
preparation of new teachers is an
intensive and time-consuming endeavor
and we are being asked by UCOP to
double our productivity almost immediately.
It is clear that the implementation
of new instructional technologies
holds great potential for UC for meeting
President Atkinson's commitment to
the legislature and the people of
California's problem.
Nature of the
Collaboration
The Dean and/or Director of Teacher
Education on each participating campus
has designated one to three people
to be that campus' contact with this
project. Each campus will decide if
it wants to participate in the dissemination
process for each of the four tools
that will be the targets of work for
this first year (see Table 1.) A "workteam"
will be formed for each tool, composed
of the originating author(s) of the
tool and key people from the campuses
desiring to receive the tool. Each
of the four workgroups will work independently.
They will propose specific tasks,
seek funds to pursue those tasks and
report progress to a Project Coordinating
Committee composed of the Project
Director and three campus representatives
elected by the entire group. Individual
campuses will take responsibility
for a few project-wide administrative
functions: Fiscal Administration -
UC Santa Barbara; Technology-mediated
Collaboration - UC Davis; Evaluation
- UC Riverside and UC Irvine.
Choice of Technology
The variety of technological tools
currently in use across the system
were shared at a meeting attended
by 21 people from seven UC campuses
on February 22, 2002. (This meeting
was the central activity of a Feasibility/Planning
Project funded by TLtC.) Discussions
about the utility of each tool to
meet the needs of the other campuses
in the system led to the identification
of seven as being appropriate candidates
for system-wide dissemination. Each
of these innovative tools is described
below.
Lesson Design
Studio (UCSB). Under a grant from
the US Department of Education, UC
Santa Barbara has developed an approach
to provide beginning credential students
with opportunities to practice, in
controlled settings and with appropriate
feedback, the designing of learning
experiences i.e., lessons and units.
Called a "Simulated Lesson Design
Studio" (SLDS), this tool contains
the necessary resources to allow credential
students to create a lesson or unit
of study for a specified classroom
of pupils. The SLDS features a user
interface built on the metaphor of
a workshop with workbenches, tools
and drawers of materials. "Tools"
are used to create such things as
learning objectives, assessments,
needed materials lists, and lesson
delivery sequences and to assemble
these components into a printable
"lesson/unit plan" file.
Resources, found in "materials
drawers" in the SLDS include
background for the teacher concerning
the lesson's content, California Content
Standards, a selection of available
print materials that might be pertinent
to the lesson, potentially helpful
websites, computer applications, videotape
resources, background information
on pupils in the class for which the
experience is being designed and even
samples of activities that have been
designed by other teachers. Credential
students have to decide which tools
and resources to use, and in what
order. It would never be appropriate
to use them all. There is not "one
best" way to proceed and different
students working in the same workshop
would very likely create discernibly
different products.
Students are assigned,
outside of class time, to enter an
SLDS and create learning experiences.
Meeting in class sessions after such
creative work is finished, the students
can compare their work to their colleagues'.
Since all students will have had access
to the same tools and resources and
will have designed for the same class
of pupils, differences in the resulting
products can be compared and discussed
to explore best planning practices.
As is typical of all good design studio
work, individual students' creative
thinking and understanding of possibilities
can be expanded and refined.
Web Plan (UCSD).
As part of the course requirements
for its undergraduate field practicum,
the teacher education faculty at UCSD
has instituted an online lesson planner
(WebPlan) that students use to plan
and document their work in local schools.
WebPlan is an online lesson-planning
tool that supports interactions between
practicum faculty and students working
in schools. Secure communication between
UCSD faculty and practicum students
is a key component of this tool.
The use of these
online utilities is planned to carry
on throughout the graduate credential
program for those students who seek
a teaching career. Further, these
tools will continue to be used by
graduates in the first few years of
their career as they complete the
induction process and earn the California
Professional Credential. Some additional
development work will be needed to
expand the functionality of WebPlan
to incorporate a performance assessment
rubric, which facilitates the systematic
documentation of undergraduate and
graduate student classroom practice.
RCT CollaborativeTool
(UCD) The RCT is a multidisciplinary
effort to enhance collaboration between
students working together and among
students and faculty who are not co-located
in time and space. RCT is a platform-independent,
multimedia tool that supports synchronous
and/or asynchronous communication.
RCT operates in three modes:
1. Synchronous interaction:
Users can engage in live two-way or
group discussions involving multilingual
text dialogues in any language; attachment
of replayable sound messages or other
files; "whiteboarding" using
shared images (or a blank screen "whiteboard")
brought up by any participant and
annotated in different colors by each;
using a collaborative writing tool
called "textpad" for creating
and editing text documents; or invoking
a Web browser URL session on all screens
with content appropriate to the dialogue.
2. Enhanced messaging:
A user can send a request for assistance,
attach a snapshot of his/her computer
screen or relevant window, and attach
a file containing word, image or voice
material pertinent to the interaction.
The recipient can annotate and return
the message, including annotation
of images, and screen snapshots. A
new "Team" tool permits
seamless links between live and message
modes.
3. A link to "content":
Course materials of any type are stored
anywhere on the Web and accessible
directly through RCT.
The current version (3.0) has been
in use for approximately three years
for teaching language courses, for
virtual office hours, and for some
collaborative research. It has most
recently been adopted for use with
UC Davis' Teacher Education Program
where students have become members
of electronic cohorts. They have electronic
access to both faculty and peers outside
of the regular class schedule and
opportunities to explore a variety
of teaching resources and methods
in their student teaching.
e-Portfolio(UCR
and UCSD) Two campuses have developed
sets of electronic tools useful to
credential students as they compile
portfolios that assemble and present
their work for evaluation. UCR has
collaborated with their local, county-based
beginning teacher induction program
to develop the Electronic Portfolio
for Teacher Professional Development.
This e-portfolio tool suite was designed
to provide a system that allows teachers
to centrally store portfolio related
materials and access these documents
through a web-based application. The
system allows participating teachers
to upload individual documents, create
reflections based on those documents,
logically organize and relate their
documents to the state-mandated California
Standards for the Teaching Profession,
and share work with their supervisors,
support providers and fellow teachers.
From the project's inception, the
developers of the system were asked
to keep in mind the continuum of teachers'
development through pre-service, induction,
tenure, and National Board Certification.
As a result, the technical infrastructure
of the system has been deliberately
kept flexible, allowing multiple programs
with different aims to use the same
basic system while tailoring the process
and interface for teachers in different
programs and at different levels of
professional development.
The Teacher Education
Program at UCSD has also developed
a web-accessible ePortfolio and evaluation
system that enables students to produce
a reflective portfolio documenting
their classroom practice. This system
provides a seamless assessment tool
beginning with credential students'
undergraduate practicum work, continuing
throughout the graduate M.Ed./Preliminary
Credential program and into the initial
years of teaching as they complete
their California Professional Credential.
ePortfolio is being developed to help
implement the new multiple and single
subject credential standards recently
approved by the California Commission
on Teacher Credentialing, and is one
of the assessment tools that will
be evaluated by the UC system-wide
effort to design a Teacher Performance
Assessment instrument to document
the quality of UC credential graduates.
There are three
interrelated areas of development
that are currently underway for ePortfolio.
The structure of ePortfolio needs
to be updated to reflect the new California
credential standards. It is also necessary
to incorporate a utility that will
allow students to include videotaped
lessons and reflective analysis in
ePortfolios. Finally, the development
of an evaluation rubric is needed
that will systemize assessment of
student pre-professional development
by university supervisors and cooperating
classroom teachers.
C L I/Videocases
(UCI). To assist students in making
the connection between theory and
classroom practice, the Teacher Education
Program at UCI has developed a method
for engaging students in the analysis
of videocases of classroom teaching
and learning. Videocases, which are
taken from different grade levels
and subjects, are linked electronically
to structured writing prompts that
provide a rich context for linking
theory and practice by engaging student
observers in critical reflection about
different aspects of the instruction
viewed in a video segment. The entire
system is delivered online. It has
been successfully implemented as a
"lab" activity in an educational
theory course for education minors
and prospective credential program
candidates.
Caselink (UCSB).
The Caselink projects take advantage
of the utility of interactive multimedia
(IM), web-based modules linked with
a problem-based learning pedagogy.
Teams of credential students interact
with one another through a computer-mediated
series of activities presented in
IM web format. Their task is to generate
"best-possible" solutions
to complex problems typically faced
by educators. In an effort to preserve
craft knowledge and practitioners'
views of problems and solutions, the
students are able to examine audio
and video records of interviews as
well as review the more typical print-based
information as they collaborate to
generate and test solutions. The modules
are situated on the Internet and/or
compact disc, to be used by educational
practitioners regardless of professional
role.
GradeBook (UCSB).
State credentialling laws present
credential students with a bewildering
array of requirements, competencies
and proficiencies that they must complete
before certification as teachers.
The Teacher Education Program at UCSB
has developed an electronic "Grade
Book" on which its faculty can
post each student's progress through
the various components of the credential
program. Students can access their
own records via a web interface and
thus keep track of what has been accomplished
and what is needed.
Project Goals
The overall goals of the project are
to 1) finish building profiles of
instructional technology currently
in use so that other UC users would
have a "menu" of technical
innovations, tools and solutions to
match local needs;2) standardize the
delivery systems used by current instructional
technology tools so that they can
be used across campuses, 3) demonstrate
how the currently separated instructional
technology options fit together into
an integrated array of tools and solutions;
4) refine technical aspects of the
tools so that they can function of
the adopting campuses, 5) prepare
local campus faculty to be able to
use these instructional technology
tools in pedagogically appropriate
ways in their own classrooms, and
6) build theories of technology applications
to teacher education. These goals
are set in the larger process of technological
dissemination depicted in Figure 1
and, in fact, will be accomplished
as part of the activities listed in
the middle component of that figure.
The Project will
utilize four "workteams"
in this first year of funding, each
focused on one of the above technological
tools. The goal of each workteam is
to bring its tool to a condition in
which it can be easily adopted for
use by any interested teacher education
program on the UC campuses. To accomplish
this goal, each workteam will move
through a number of stages of development.
As presented in
Table 1, the amount and type of work
needed to accomplish each stage will
vary with each tool. All tools have
undergone initial development and
formative testing. Most have been
revised based on that testing, though
some additional revision may be necessary.
Each tool may require some level of
further technical adaptation/alteration
to bring it to a condition of usefulness
beyond the technological environment
in which it was developed. The faculty
on each campus that adopts the tool
will require some level of training
in its use. This training may attend
to some technological issues but will
definitely address pedagogical considerations
regarding the tool's use. As the tool
is adopted by a campus, additional
formative testing will be required
to insure that it is working properly
and to identify additional modifications
necessary for its success.
Table
1 Work Required for Each Electronic
Tool
|
Stages
of Development
|
|
Electronic
Tools
|
Initial
Develop-ment and Formative Testing
|
Delivery
Standardization, Component Integration,
Technical Refinement
|
Needed
Resources Identified and Allocated
by Adopting Campus
|
Adaptation
for Adopting Campuses
|
Faculty
Training on Adopting Campuses
|
Formative
Testing on Adopting Campuses
|
Final Modifica-tion for Use
|
|
Tools
on Which Work Will Begin In First
Year of Funding
|
|
Simulated
Design Studios
(UCSB)
|
Already
Completed
|
Link
with WebPlan; Develop performance
assessment
|
Funding
from current Federal Grant for
development of SLDSs with different
content
|
Modify
for locally appro-priate lesson
plan formats
|
Needed
at all adopting campuses
|
Needed
|
Done
by adopting campus
|
|
WebPlan
(UCSD)
|
Already
Completed
|
Add
weekly planner; Develop evaluation
rubric; Link with SLDS & ePortfolio
|
UCSD
TEP funding $5000
|
Modify
for locally appro-priate lesson
plan formats
|
Needed
at all adopting campuses
|
Needed
|
Done
by adopting campus
|
|
RCT
Collabora-tive Tool
(UCD)
|
Already
Completed
|
Complete
new Open Source version
|
Funding
obtained from other sources
|
Some
staff support required
|
Needed
at all adopting campuses
|
Needed
|
Done
by adopting campus
|
|
e-Portfolio
(UCR and UCSD)
|
Already
Completed
|
Develop
perfor-mance assessment; Link
with WebPlan
|
UCSD
TEP funding $10,000
|
Adapt
template for local needs
|
Needed
at all adopting campuses
|
Needed
|
Done
by adopting campus
|
|
Tools
on Which Work Will Begin in Second
Year of Funding
|
|
Videocases
(UCI)
|
Already
Completed
|
Revise
web-based delivery system
|
Funding
from current Federal Grant for
further development
|
Adapt
for use with different student
populations
|
Needed
at all adopting campuses
|
Needed
|
Done
by adopting campus
|
|
Caselink
(UCSB)
|
Already
Completed
|
Develop
modules appropriate for local
use
|
No
additional resources needed
|
Adapt
code to local servers
|
Needed
at all adopting campuses
|
Needed
|
Done
by adopting campus
|
|
GradeBook
(UCSB)
|
Already
Completed
|
Revise
code to be transportable
|
Web-Server
and data base capability
|
Adapt
code to local servers
|
Needed
at all adopting campuses
|
Needed
|
Done
by adopting campus
|
