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Education
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Nine states to develop E-learning for Educators
Sep 21, 2006
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by Nancy Caronia
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The U.S. Department of Education Ready To Teach program has implemented E-Learning for Educators, a five-year, $22 million initiative to provide professional online development programs for K-12 educators in nine states. While E-Learning for Educators focuses on students' needs with an emphasis on high-poverty, low-achieving schools, each state education agency forms a coalition with associate public broadcast stations, creating a unique opportunity for both groups to not only broaden teachers' content knowledge and promote best teaching practices, but also to augment teaching strategies without creating a teacher's absence from the classroom.
The first nine state departments of education and associate public broadcast stations to receive grants through the program are Alabama and Alabama Public Television (APT is the fiscal agent and primary grant recipient for Ready to Teach); New Hampshire and New Hampshire Public Television; Delaware and WHYY; Mississippi and Mississippi Public Broadcasting; Missouri and KETC; Pennsylvania and WLVT; South Carolina and ETV; Kentucky and Kentucky Educational Television; and West Virginia and West Virginia Public Broadcasting.
The five-year program is expected to create not only collaboration within state borders, but also an e-learning professional development model that will be able to be replicated in other states. The Education Development Center will supply help along the way by providing training programs for e-learning instructors and developers, consulting on e-learning program planning and implementation, and e-learning course development services.
Separate But Similar
"The project is not organized for states to work together in delivery of the courses," noted Stanley J. Freeda, OPEN NH project coordinator, New Hampshire Department of Education. "However, each state participates in monthly online meetings, as well as an annual face-to-face meeting. Ideas and information are shared between the cooperating states, but each state runs its own online professional development course program. There may be opportunities for collaboration in the training course for course developers, as participants from several states may be in the same training class."
According to Dr. Wayne Hartschuh, executive director, Delaware Center for Educational Technology, the nine states met in February at a Leadership Academy in South Carolina where each state laid out its two-year plan for the project. "We worked as an individual team, but all nine states were there and we did share what we were developing," he recalled. "Additionally, the monthly conference calls are part of a research component to develop language arts and math courses that will be offered to all nine states."
In Delaware, the Delaware Center for Educational Technology, the Delaware Department of Education, and WHYY are partnering to create its Web-based eLearning Delaware project. According to Hartschuh, eLearning Delaware is providing skills and development professional model clusters that offer at least 90 hours of professional development training -- the equivalent of two graduate level courses.
The clusters, courses provided by EDC, are bundled together along common themes and each final project includes a classroom implementation piece that assures educators will be able to use what they've learned. At the successful completion of a cluster, educators receive a two percent, five-year pay raise.
"Projecting into the future, if things go as planned, we have 96 slots open and signed up for now in the next round of courses," said Susan M. Poglinco, Ph.D., executive director, Children's Service, WHYY. "We should have about 264 educators taking all three courses in a cluster, making a total of 792 seats in courses, exceeding our goal of 500 in the first year of implementation."
While eLearning Delaware is not charging any of its teachers, New Hampshire's E-Learning for Educator's initiative, OPEN NH, will charge educators a nominal fee of $100 for its seven-week courses (graduate credits will be extra). While the project is run through the NH Department of Education, decisions are made under the advisement of a state leadership team including representatives from the DOE, NHPTV, Plymouth State University, and the Local Education Support Center Network, according to Freeda.
"The DOE organizes and coordinates the program. NHPTV handles the publicity for the project and assists in creation of video content for new online courses. PSU offers graduate credit for the courses we deliver, and the LESCN hosts the orientation, markets the project, and assists with course registrations," Freeda explained. "The leadership team meets about every two months in order to manage the direction and coordination of the project."
Interest Exceeding Expectations
OPEN NH will offer three sessions of between eight and 10 courses per year. EDC is providing facilitator training; NH educators facilitate all OPEN NH courses.
"We have the potential to enroll 250 educators each term, so about 750 New Hampshire educators can participate annually. The E-Learning for Educators grant is a five-year grant, during which time we hope to become self sustaining," Freeda added. "Interest in OPEN NH is high, and we anticipate that online delivery of quality professional development will become the preferred choice for New Hampshire educators."
Delaware is also experiencing a strong surge of interest. "Our first cluster was in June. I was hoping to have 80 people sign up, but it maxed out at 96," Hartschuh noted. "We had such a large waiting list that we opened another cluster at the end of August for an additional 72 educators. We haven't even advertised the Technology Implementation in the Classroom cluster and we already have 50 people interested -- and it's going to be capped at 75."
All of the associate public broadcast stations, including NHPTV and WHYY, are involved in the public relations and marketing ends of the project. However, as Poglinco explained, "WHYY will be the producer of any classroom footage of exemplary instruction that we need to capture or the creation of any video pieces for the eLearning Delaware team."
Additionally, according to Freeda, NHPTV will be involved in creating videos to be used in the courses developed for NH through the OPEN NH project and "will provide training on video production to interested teachers in New Hampshire, in order to help with the creation of quality video, which can be used for purposes of instruction."
While the educators seem to be the prime beneficiaries of the initiative, the goal is to better educate the student population. "The OPEN NH project, and the entire e-Learning for Educators initiative, has the potential to benefit students throughout the participating states in a very real and meaningful way," said Freeda. "Our courses are designed to promote and model reflection and metacognitive processes in the delivery of content.
"When students are given opportunities to reflect and participate in the processes that create their own learning and achievement, we often see higher success rates and deeper understanding of content material. Our quality professional development will help teachers develop new strategies for engaging their students, helping them achieve more, and creating richer opportunities for academic and emotional growth."
MORE INFO
Alabama Department of Education alsde.edu
Education Development Center edc.org
eLearning Delaware dcet.k12.de.us/elearning
NHPTV nhptv.org
OPEN NH nheon.org/opennh
Ready to Teach ed.gov/programs/readyteach
WHYY whyy.org
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