EDT 443/543

Summer I 2000

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Rationale: As future teachers, most of whom will be teaching in the state of Ohio, you will be expected to use and teach with the resources of SchoolNet and SchoolNet Plus. In fact, the state has recently formulated a SchoolNet Professional Development Matrix and is pushing to include the identified behaviors therein as a prerequisite for relicensure. The research is clear about technology and learning: technology in and of itself does NOT significantly improve students’ learning. Rather, the critical variable is how the teacher uses technology to enhance students’ learning. Consequently, you must be given multiple opportunities to develop these skills during your undergraduate and/or graduate experience here at Miami.

The learning experiences contained in this course are designed to give you some initial opportunities to teach with technology. Essentially, the content will be introduced and learned in authentic teaching situations in which you will be required to use constructivist teaching approaches and technology to peer teach. By doing so, you will not only begin to learn how to use productivity tools but also how to use them as powerful learning tools in K-12 contexts. This approach is also consistent with findings from the literature that pertain to teaching with technology in K-12 environments (e.g., ACOT, 1995; OTA, 1995).

Moreover, this methodology will hopefully address the problem of diverse skill levels that you bring to this course. Since the emphasis is on the teaching and learning process rather than on learning technology per se, and since few of you, if any, have much experience in lesson planning or teaching, you can use your respective technology skills in a wide variety of ways as you begin to develop your pedagogical skills.

Content & Scoring:

Record Keeping Database Component (25 points)
Unit of Practice (UOP) Component (70 points)
Teaching Component (51 points)
Electronic Gradebook (Evaluation) Component (20 points)
Grades From Team Assignments (20 points)
Group Participation Peer Evaluation (20 points)
Avid Cinema Project (25 points)
Course Schedule: We will meet M-F, 10:30am-1:10pm. Attendance is mandatory.

Teaching Project: The teaching project will require you to form teams, assume the role of teacher, assign your peers (who assume the role of your students) interdisciplinary and authentic projects or problems, and require them to use AppleWorks and multimedia production tools to publish their completed projects or solutions to the assigned problems. Moreover, as teachers, you will be asked to create and use a student record-keeping database in ways that inservice teachers might use them.

Network Technologies: Networking and file sharing play a critical role in this course because with the exception of electronic gradebook reports and any “teacher-” generated instructional material, the intention is to create a paperless curriculum. You will turn in your Units of Practice and student-generated projects via the file server. In addition, you will increasingly find needed resources for this course on Dr. Maney's web page at:

http://www2.eap.muohio.edu/EDT443/

It is strongly recommended that you visit this web page on a regular basis and have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your machines at home so that you can read the Portable Document Files (PDFs) contained on the web page from there.

On-line Mentoring: You will be asked to develop electronic mentorships, via the Apple Learning Interchange, with appropriate inservice teachers who are integrating technologies into their respective curricula. By using the Teacher Education Forum on ALI, you will have a chance to tap an international audience and experience first hand the ability of the Internet to connect you with other professionals. Not only will this expose you to the power of network connectivity (SchoolNet), OTA research (1995) also suggests that this collaboration is vital to any preservice teacher education program as it relates to developing teaching with technology skills.


Teaching Project

(231 Points)

The Big Picture

In interdisciplinary or intergrade teams of 4-6 people, use AppleWorks to develop a student record keeping database that serves as a productivity tool and Units of Practice that combined form a Teaching Project. The teaching project (i.e., your team’s combined Units of Practice) should incorporate constructivist learning principles, i.e., should be student-centered, in which you assign your students authentic, interdisciplinary problems to solve or projects to complete, and develop knowledge and skills your students will need to help them pass their respective proficiency tests. Your team will then have students use multimedia production tools and AppleWorks to produce and publish a multimedia solution to their assigned problem or project. Student publishing to the web is also an option.


Database Component (25 Points)

Your individual database (record-keeping/productivity tool) should contain:

  1. at least 20 fields and include relevant information about your students (this class) that will cut down on paper work, make routine classroom management easier, and facilitate parental communications (20 Points).

  2. at least 3 different layouts, one of which should be for mailing labels which you create by using the AppleWorks' Mailing Labels Assistant and another should be for exporting student records to MicroGrade electronic grade book. All layouts should be in one database. (5 Points).

HINT: consider all possible classroom management functions for which you might use a database, e.g., book inventory, emergency information, etc.

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Unit of Practice Component (70 Points)

Each team member is responsible for creating a Unit of Practice for his/her team’s teaching project (30 points). For example, if there are six people on your team, there would be six Units of Practice that compose your team’s teaching project. Your team must decide which UOP(s) to teach from its teaching project.

Your individual Unit of Practice (see reference manual or the Apple Learning Interchange (ALI) for an example) should be interdisciplinary, interdependent with the other Units of Practice in your team's teaching project, and use a problem-based learning (PBL) and/or a project-based learning approach. Use ALI to create and revise your individual Units of Practice (this is mandatory). You can then copy and paste (or drag and drop) the text into a AppleWorks word processing document and format it; do NOT try to format text when you are creating or revising your Unit of Practice on ALI. Furthermore, you are required to develop and submit a Unit of Practice to the Miami-Partners In Learning Interchange. In addition to the required fields of the UOP, your final Unit of Practice document (using AppleWorks) should include the following:

NOTE: If your content area does not have proficiency outcomes, e.g., music, you will be expected to find related standards as established by your respective professional organizations and include them in lieu of state proficiency outcomes.
Your Unit of Practice document should be no longer than two pages and should contain the following formatting:

  1. On separate single-spaced lines, your name, section letters, names of other team members, and Unit of Practice name (1 point).

  2. A footer that contains a Plain Text page number in 10 point font located in the center of the footer (1 point).

  3. A standard paragraph that you create, i.e., half-inch first line indentation created WITHOUT USING THE TAB KEY, left justified, and double spaced, used in proper context (2 points).

  4. A hanging paragraph style from AppleWorks' built-in stylesheets, used in proper context (2 points). You will have to determine which styles represent hanging paragraphs.

  5. Optional use of columns and/or graphics if appropriate and/or needed.

When completed, each team member will put his/her Unit of Practice in a folder with his/her name on it and drop it in the corresponding team's folder nested inside the Drop UOP DOCS folder on the EDT4-543 file server. Accompanying handouts and documents, classroom management database, and spreadsheet should be dropped in the corresponding team's UOP Peripherals folder nested inside the Drop to Katie folder on the file server. This is a paperless assignment and hard copies will NOT be accepted for evaluation. This means that you need to understand how to save and name your word processing documents!

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Teaching Component Structure (51 Points)

  1. Each interdisciplinary or intergrade team will alternately assume the role of teachers and be given approximately 120 minutes during class to:
    (a) present your students with an authentic problem to solve or project to complete;

    (b) assign related activities to help them solve the problem or complete the project;

    (c) provide any instruction related to content-specific knowledge and skills that your students will need to solve the problem or complete the project;

    (d) provide any instruction related to using HyperStudio, AppleWorks, and multimedia tools that your students will need to complete their particular assignments and produce their multimedia solution to the assigned problem or project (i.e., teach needed HyperStudio, AppleWorks, and multimedia tools skills on a need-to-know basis and within the context of the lesson);

    (e) allow your students time to collect data they need to solve the problem or complete their project (you are encouraged to assign homework); and

    (f) allow your students time to produce their final presentations using HyperStudio.

    Presentations should be made per teachers' requests and student presentations should be incorporated into the given 120 minutes of instructional time. In addition to HyperStudio, students may use any other available resources to make their final presentations.

    You should take these time constraints into account when planning and thinking about possible problems and related assignments for your students.

    NOTE: We may have to make some adjustments here, depending on how things are progressing (or not progressing).

  2. Assignments should have students use HyperStudio and EACH of the available multimedia tools and resources to solve the problem or complete the project you've assigned them. At minimum, student-generated presentations should:

    a. incorporate, along with text, all the different multimedia tools learned in class (scanned pictures/graphics, Web pictures or graphics, and digital pictures)

    b. use HyperStudio as the medium for presenting their solutions to the assigned problems (20 points)

    NOTE 1: Team members wishing to receive extra credit may also use HyperStudio to develop a minimum 5 card stack that serves as a tutorial residing on a computer workstation. Team members who choose this option will have to decide how students will use their tutorial/instructional stacks within the context of the lesson and information contained in each stack should be incorporated into students' publication of their solution to the assigned problem or project (10 extra credit points).

    NOTE 2: You MUST use the digital camera as a data collection tool. Simply taking pictures of student teams will NOT fulfill this requirement!! Hence, you might want to consider assigning a field-based problem or project that requires your students to explore some aspect of Oxford and/or Miami (e.g., how to solve the parking problem). When doing so, make sure your students are properly supervised.

  3. When teaching, your team must also use AppleWorks' Slide Show and appropriate multimedia tools as a teaching or learning tool. For example, your team can use Slide Show to present information to your students or have your students use Slide Show to publish some assigned aspect of the problem or project. Each team should decide how Slide Show will be used, but it must be used during instruction.

    In addition, each TEAM must have its students use a spreadsheet (in appropriate learning contexts) that uses at least 2 different calculation functions and which will produce data that students can use to help them solve assigned problems or complete assigned projects. When displaying data, students must also use the Chart features. Spreadsheets used to calculate numbers as an end product, i.e., data are not used to help solve larger problems, or which are used by students in place of manually computing answers, especially at the elementary level, will be considered to be used incorrectly and points will NOT be awarded to team members!! Teams must decide which teachers will use a spreadsheet in their lessons and if they will provide students with spreadsheet templates or require their students to build their own spreadsheets. Consider the rule of scaffolding when making this decision (10 points).

    NOTE: Teachers who do NOT use a spreadsheet in their lessons will be expected to turn in a functional spreadsheet that they develop as a productivity tool (teachers must decide how a spreadsheet can best help them be more productive). In other words, each team member must turn in a spreadsheet that uses at least 2 different calculation functions and the chart feature, either as a learning OR as a productivity tool.

  4. You may produce hard copies of any handouts, instructional materials, and/or assignments to give to your students. When appropriate, you should require your students to use AppleWorks’ word processing component to complete any written assignments you give them. However, these completed assignments must be paperless and students should submit them to the Projects Folder on the file server so that you can grade and return their assignments.

    NOTE: Any other student or teacher projects that need to be transferred from one machine to another, but which are too large to fit on a floppy disk, can be uploaded to the Projects Folder on the file server and then downloaded to the appropriate machine.

  5. When teaching, your UOP(s) should incorporate Gagné’s Nine Events of Instruction as closely as possible (see the on-line PDF checklist). This will be the primary criterion on which your instruction is evaluated. You will also be evaluated based on whether (and how) you use the web and the assigned multimedia tools. (21 points)

  6. Everyone in class will eventually assume the roles of both teacher and student. When not teaching, you will assume the role of students and be expected to complete the assignment per the teaching team’s instructions. Since there are five different teaching teams (see last page), this means that as students, you will all be making four different presentations that offer solutions to the respective problems assigned to you. Your presentations will be graded by both your teachers and me.

  7. As teachers, you should be prepared to evaluate your students’ assignments and give them a printout of their final grades and attendance (see below).

  8. Everyone will be expected to provide feedback on each other’s lessons and teaching as well as this entire process. This will be done primarily through debriefing that immediately follows each team’s instruction.

  9. Be prepared to be flexible in this schedule as we may have to adjust times depending on how quickly or slowly everyone gets the hang of this.

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Electronic Gradebook Component(20 Points)

Use the Micrograde electronic gradebook to record grades and attendance and to print out a student summary for your students. Specifically, each team member will be responsible for at least one other team within the class (depending on class numbers and team sizes). Accordingly, each team member will print the following reports using Micrograde:

  1. a Student Summary for EACH student for which you are responsible that includes all categories and respective assignments from your teaching project, whether or not you have grades for them, plus the following: (4 points)

    • student name

    • a visible note that pertains to information about your students, e.g., whether they have paid for their ZIT cards (BTW, have YOU?)

    • overall grades

    • at least two different comments that you have generated and that are appropriate to the student’s grade

    • a report header that includes YOUR NAME as the class instructor, the date, and your TEAM NUMBER (e.g., Dr. Maney, Team 8, mm/dd/yy)

    • attendance for your assigned students on the day you teach

  2. an Overall Class Grades report that includes a header, omits students’ names but not their ID#s, and is sorted in descending order by their grades to date. Please include and submit to your GA a separate additional reportthat lists students alphabetically and that contains their names and total point counts (4 points).

  3. an Attendance Grid for a two week attendance period that includes the days you taught, has at least 3 additional defined attendance codes besides “present,” and includes the following: (4 points)

    • at least one holiday during the two week period

    • the names of all your students

    • actual attendance data for all your students

    • an Attendance Code Legend

    • a Non-School Day Legend

  4. a Class Standards report that prints categories but not attendance information (4 points).

  5. Statistics for the overall grades of your students (2 points).

  6. a seating chart with seat alignment snapped to grid (2 points).

NOTE: Each of these reports should be limited to one page and appear on separate pages, i.e., 7 pages total for the 7 reports. However, you will only give your students the Student Summary. You will turn in to your GA a copy of any one Student summary along the other six reports.

You are responsible for grading your assignments (see below next) and your team should collectively grade the students’ final presentations. When you grade your students’ work, there will be the natural temptation to take it easy on them so that when they become teachers, they will go easy on you. Since I will also be using your evaluation criteria and reviewing your students’ assignments and projects, I will have the opportunity to see whether you are engaging in grade inflation. If I believe this to be the case, it will cost your team 20 points from this component. In other words, you need to have specific grading criteria and follow them when evaluating your students’ projects. If you have correctly written your instructional objectives, this should not be a problem!

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Grades From Your Assignments (20 Points)

The work each team gives and grades will be worth 4 points TOTAL for each student (20 points total for each student after all 5 teams have graded their respective assignments). The teaching team will be responsible for assigning point values for their assignments and is responsible for getting graded assignments to the GA as part of the Micrograde component (see above). Teams which fail to turn in grades will take a zero as well as the rest of the class for their particular assignments and Dr. Maney has the final word in regard to how assignments are graded.

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Group and Individual Accountability (20 Points)

This is a team-based project and accordingly, your individual evaluation, in part, will depend on how well your team functions. Team members are expected to help each other perform to his/her highest potential. To ensure that each team member remains accountable to his team and to maximize team cooperation, the following evaluation procedures will be used:

a. Any team member who fails to turn in any assignment or component of the teaching project (the Unit of Practice, database, and/or the Micrograde reports) will result in every team member getting a score of 0 (zero) for that particular component or assignment.

b. All team members will be responsible for evaluating each other’s performance through an evaluation form that will be taken on-line. Peer evaluation inflation (to be determined solely by the instructor) will result in all team members dropping a letter grade.

c. Team members who do not assume their equitable share in teaching (to be determined by the instructor) will cause the entire team to lose some or all the points for teaching.

d. Problems with individual team members that begin to emerge should be IMMEDIATELY brought to the instructor’s attention. However, since you are allowed to select your own teams and will be evaluating each other, transferring to another team is not an option.

You are urged to consider using these criteria to hold your students accountable when they produce and make their presentations. Of course this assumes that your team will be breaking your students into small groups.

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Follow-Up Avid Cinema Project (25 Points)

Use Avid Cinema (or iMovie) to combine multiple video clips from the videotape of your team’s lesson and then digitize a 3-7 minute QuickTime movie that shows how your team used technology to enhance learning; when finished, print your Avid project to videotape (20 points). Bring in a blank video with your name on the label and then use Avid's "Print to Video" option (see the Avid tutorial) to print your project to the videotape. Contact your GA for assistance. Make sure your team turns in an accompanying hardcopy of your storyboard (5 points), clearly identified, as well.

NOTE: When creating your Avid project, remember to use transitions between scenes and to use short, descriptive titles to inform the viewer about what (s)he is watching.

Each team will be assigned a specific computer in McG268 and required to sign up for a specific time to work on this project. Teams will be given 3 hour blocks and are expected to finish their project within this given time. This means that each team member should bring a blank videotape when coming to work on this project. You should have also reviewed your teaching tape and have a good idea about what your storyboard will look like. This entire project needs to be done within 2 days after your team teaches (the sooner the better) and all work should be submitted to your GA. Failure to meet this deadline will result in the loss of 10 points. Team members will NOT receive individual credit for their videotape until your GA has reviewed EACH INDIVIDUAL copy of the tape!! When finished, you should add the videotape to your professional portfolio and take it to interviews for employers to view. Your professor may also ask teams with exceptionally good projects to produce a QuickTime movie of their projects to publish on the web. Teams asked to do this will receive extra credit for this project.

NOTE: Do NOT save projects or files to the file server. When you create your Avid project, use the Save dialog box to navigate to the Temporary Work folder on the computer's hard drive. Once there, save your project inside that folder until it is finished.


Some Final Considerations

  1. Understand that this project is not designed to evaluate your teaching per se. Rather, it is designed to get you to explore the possibilities of using technology to enhance your students’ learning experiences and consider the teaching approaches that best accommodate teaching and learning with technology.

  2. Apple Classroom of Tomorrow (ACOT) research suggests that even experienced teachers suffer beginner’s anxiety when they start to teach with technology so you should probably expect to feel some angst about completing this project. If you do, make sure that you ask for help and guidance and be sure to always work collaboratively. ACOT research also tells us that having a partner is a key variable to adopting technology in the classroom.

  3. To be successful in this course, it is essential that you and your teammates follow the 5Ps of Life (Prior Preparation Prevents Pinhead Performance).

  4. Obviously, the teaching project will require your team to meet regularly outside of class. It is strongly recommended that your team IMMEDIATELY begin to meet daily until you have completed your teaching and learning obligations.

  5. Last, since this is a collaborative experience, you will be asked to share your insights and problems with this approach toward teaching and learning. Your GA and I will be available to help you solve problems and troubleshoot, but we want you to take ownership of the technology and your teaching.

Good teaching, good learning, have FUN, and ENJOY!

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Structure of Peer Teaching

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