Online Course for Pre-Service Teachers Case Study

Professor Deborah Dillon, the chair of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction on the Twin Cities campus, and Aaron Doering, a teaching specialist in the department, are developing an online version of EDHD 5007: Technology for Teaching and Learning, a required course for pre-service teachers. The course materials are used by approximately 500-600 students each year.

Instructional Goals

EDHD 5007 is one of the most important elements of the pre-service teacher education program. However, the Department of Curriculum and Instruction has been unable to deliver it to all the students outside of the Twin Cities who wish to take it, such as those on the Crookston campus. Dillon and Doering wanted to enable more students to take the course. Specifically, they hoped to

increase flexibility for the students;
increase resource flexibility for the department;
generate additional revenue for the department;
model instructional technology use for the students;
prepare students for the job hunt process; and
enable students to demonstrate their ability to integrate computer technologies into their teaching.

Technology Strategies

To meet these goals, Dillon and Doering planned to deliver online a variety of instructional modules and learning resources, such as videos, print-based tutorials, discussion and project-sharing tools, and tools the students can use to develop multimedia teaching portfolios.

To create a sense of community among the students, they plan to post online photographs and biographies of the students, a technology skills presurvey, and responses to the survey.

They also are developing modules to help students create technology-enhanced learning activities as class projects. Not only must the students learn how to use the appropriate technology tools, but they also must express how they intend their students to use the tools for classroom assignments. Each module will include:

video clips illustrating the goals of the activity;
video clips demonstrating how to use specific software applications to deliver the activity;
examples of other students' projects;
access to synchronous office hours via the Flash Communications server;
video clips of students usings the technology tools in classes in different disciplines; and
follow-up reports by previous students about whether they actually implemented the activity in a real classroom and if it was successful.

Dillon and Doering also will make these online materials available to students in the face-to-face versions of the course.

Learning Outcomes

The online version of EDHD 5007 will be taught for the first time during spring semester 2004 and then again in the summer and fall. After each semester, Dillon and Doering will collect summative evaluation data and revise the online learning environment accordingly.