Hello and Welcome!

My name is Sandy Lathem, and I will be your instructor for this course. This course is especially important to me because I believe that technology can help students learn better if it is used selectively and with a great deal of thought and planning. Technology enables us as educators to extend and individualize learning to meet the needs of our diverse and complex students. It's not an easy task to address everyone's learning needs all the time. But, technology is a tool that can help us meet this challenge and never before have we had such powerful tools at our disposal.

As its name suggests, this course explores the intersection of learning theory research, standards-based, instructional design strategies, and educational technologies. The title implies a purposeful approach to curriculum and instruction, based on research and what we know to be best practice in curriculum development and technology integration.

The goal of this course is to improve student learning through intentional curriculum design based on what we know about how people learn. Technology is clearly an agent to help us do that -- and it will be our task to discover how to use technology in the most efficient and effective ways possible to help all of our students learn.

What follows is a brief description of the course to give you an idea of its structure, topics, and requirements. I hope you find it interesting and decide to enroll. If you have any questions and would like to talk about the course with me, please don't hesitate to contact me.

I hope you enjoy this course, and I look forward to meeting and talking with you online

Email: slathem@uvm.edu

Phone: 802-310-0374

About This Course ...

Learning Theory, Instructional Design & Technology is a three-credit, graduate level course that aligns with Vermont's Educational Technology Specialist endorsement and the National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS-T).

Two overarching questions have guided my design of this course. They are: How can we apply learning theory research with educational technology to improve student learning environments and opportunities? How can we increase student understanding of content knowledge with purposeful instructional design practices that integrate educational technology?

Over the 6 weeks that the course runs, we will learn, read, and research different works that will help us answer these questions and guide us in our future application of technology in classroom instruction. The course is divided into two modules to help us organize and prioritize our thinking about learning and technology. Here's a rundown of the course modules:

Module One -- Learning and Technology

During the first few weeks, we will read and research a number of theories connected to student learning. We will concentrate most of our efforts on theories of constructivism, multiple intelligences, and recent findings about human learning and "what works" in classroom instruction. You will read articles and books and will explore a CD-Rom mini-course on How People Learn, developed by John Bransford and others at Vanderbilt University. We will also read and share our thoughts about authors who oppose the integration of technology in education. In this module, we will also expose new technologies and 21st century skills that enable us to socially construct new knowledge. We'll explore web 2.0 tools such as wikis, blogs, social bookmarking, podcasts, and other new tools. From our experiences, readings and discussions, we will begin to formulate our personal beliefs about how technology can and should be used to improve student learning in the 21st century classroom. Each one of you will begin to develop a multimedia presentation that summarizes your beliefs about learning and teaching with technology.

Module Two -- Designing Instruction for Understanding

The second module focuses on curriculum design and assessment using a concept called "backward design," developed by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe. This strategy of curriculum development is called "Understanding by Design" (or UbD for short). The goal of UbD is to create purposeful instructional activities that foster deeper understanding, and not simply coverage or memorization, of content. During this module, we'll develop units of study that incorporate technology in classroom activities that meet state and national educational technology standards. In this process, we will integrate Vermont's technology standards as well as the National Educational Technology Standards for Students and Teachers. We will utilize Vermont Grade Expectations for Information Technology in assessments we create with our unit.

Here's an example of a concept map that illustrates the essential questions and goals of the course using the UbD format:

click on image to see full size

Technology to Improve Teaching and Learning

By the end of the course, it is my hope that each of us will have come closer to answering these essential questions about how we can use technology to help student learn more, better, and with greater understanding.

Course Requirements Your voice, participation, activities and performance products help me evaluate how well you understand and apply the materials and concepts presented through this course. I will be looking for evidence that reveals and demonstrates this understanding. As part of the UbD process, I have asked myself: What evidence will show that students understand? As a result, I have listed two primary performance tasks along with several other types of evidence and self-reflection activities, as listed below: A Presentation on Learning and Technology The first task is to create a multimedia presentation that conveys a statement about learning and technology. As educators, I believe it's important to take time to reflect about what experiences and thoughts guide our actions. This task will allow students to organize their thoughts about learning, draw on personal experiences as teachers and learners, consolidate thoughts about the readings and activities encountered in the course, and review the discourse with classmates.   Students will select their choice for presentation - this could be a PowerPoint presentation, a web site, a digital movie, a Wiki, a podcast, or some combination of the above. Standards-based Unit of Study Each student will create a standards-based unit using the UbD process. Students will be asked to complete this task in stages -- corresponding to the UdD process. In this process, students will build concept maps and write drafts of their units in a word processing program, using some templates provided by the instructor.   Students will have ample time to write and rewrite unit to receive feedback from the instructor and others in the class. Active Participation and Thoughtful Discourse The success of an online course relies heavily on each person's active participation.   Each student will be expected to post his/her thoughts about activities and class readings each week. In addition, students will be expected to respond to the postings of others, to ask in-depth questions, and to help all of us probe deeper. I believe that we can help each other learn -- that we are not alone in our efforts and that learning is a community process. At times, I will ask students to work in small groups or to post and facilitate discussion questions. I will also ask you to review the work of others in the class and provide thoughtful and constructive feedback. Self-Reflection Throughout the course, students will have opportunities to write self-reflections about their own learning styles and some of the experiences they have had which have shaped their way of knowing and learning. I will also ask students at times to let me know their thoughts about the lessons, readings, and activities offered through this course.

For more information, please contact me at: slathem@uvm.edu, 802-310-0374.

Last Revised: 11/03/2009