Online Course: Teaching and Learning in the 21st Century

Course Design

Online Course (Blackboard)

To access the online course:

1. Follow this link (http://ncvista.blackboard.com)

2. Click "UNC-Wilmington"

3. Click "Login"

4. Login:

Username - ian_guest

Password - uncw12

5. Click "MIT 515 Course Shells - Spring 2007 - MIT 515 Ian Jones"

Annotation

Context and Conditions

“Teaching and Learning in the 21st Century” was completed in Spring 2007, as an online course fulfilling requirements for MIT 515: Web Teaching: Design and Development. It was designed and constructed under the direction of Dr. Jennifer Summerville. The course was designed as an 8-week online professional development initiative for teachers in Pender County Schools. This course was designed to create awareness and provide information about the State of North Carolina’s newly designed strategic plan for schools entitled “Future-Ready Students for the 21st Century.”

Scope

This course was designed as a component of a plan for systemic change using Hall and Hord’s Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM) to create awareness and increase knowledge of the planned change so that learners (teachers) would begin to think about the new plan as it relates to their classroom. In designing the course, a needs, contextual and learner analysis was conducted, although it was not published and a course goal was established. Module and performance objectives are listed in the course syllabus. An extensive literature review was conducted to determine readings and media that would most appropriately provide learners with a basis for discussion and activities. Since the State Strategic Plan was derived from a variety of resources, all media was placed in a library where learners could choose readings for each module that were most applicable to them, therefore collaboratively leading each other through the resources. The course is largely discussion-based with a focus on documents that served as the foundation of the plan and activities that immerse learners in an environment where they utilize tools that may be found in a 21st Century environment (this component was developed further in the MIT 531 assessment project “21st Century School Online Course Assessment).” As the development process progressed, I created a form and conducted a formative evaluation on the course using learners with a variety of technology skills. From the feedback, revisions were made and a final product was submitted. The course was designed to be implemented in Fall 2007, but due to my leave of absence and the failure of the system to install a learning management system, the course is awaiting implementation within the next year. District officials have approved the course and hope to release it to over 600 teachers in their professional development program in 2008.

Role

For this project, I served as the sole designer and developer. I analyzed the system, designed course objectives and strategies, selected course media and included course procedural documents. I also built the course using the Blackboard Vista Learning Management System.

Reflection

In designing this course, I was not expected to provide a detailed front-end analysis and, therefore, did not construct an actual analysis document; so, much of the design rationale is based on information that I cannot provide. I did, however, design a clear and usable course that was formatively evaluated by learners with a spectrum of comfort with online courses and technology in general. Overall, I was pleased with the product that was created, as were system officials.