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5753SyllabusS06

| Instructor | Course Overview | Assignments | Grading | Schedule | Other |

EDTC 5753: Educational Technology Strategies

Instructor

John H. Curry, Ph.D.
257 Willard Hall
Stillwater, OK 74078
405.744.8042

john.curry@okstate.edu

Dr. Curry's Spring 2006 office hours: Tuesday & Thursday 2:00 to 4:00 pm and by appointment

If you need to contact Dr. Curry, you should call him on the above number. If you are unable to reach him in his office, you should then e-mail him. Whenever you e-mail him about anything having to do with this course, you should always use the same subject line: EDTC5753-S06. Dr. Curry extensively uses e-mail rules, and any incoming message with the stated subject line will automatically be filed in a course folder; it will then receive priority status. Any e-mail sent with a subject line different than the one listed will be ignored and will not be answered. Please allow two working days for a response. And remember, not every message is high priority.

Course Overview

The course catalog describes EDTC 5753 as follows:

Seriously, who writes this stuff? What it should say is that this course is all about instructional design. In other words, we try and answer the question "How do we design instruction to be more effective?" To help us answer this question, we will refer to four different textbooks:

• Required: Morrison, G.R., Ross, S.M., and Kemp, J.E. (2004). Designing effective instruction. 4^th edition. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
• Optional: Rothwell, W.J., and Kazanas, H.C. (1998). Mastering the instructional design process: A systemic approach. 2^nd edition. San Fransico: Josey-Bass/Pfeiffer.
• Optional: Piskurich, G.M. (2000). Rapid instructional design: Learning ID fast and right. San Fransico: Josey-Bass/Pfeiffer.
• Optional: Lee, W.W. and Owens, D.L. (2000). Multimedia-based instructional design: Computer-based training, web-based training, distance broadcast training. San Fransico: Josey-Bass/Pfeiffer.

In addition to these texts, students in this class will be required to locate current research articles on instructional design topics (more on that in the assignments section.

In short, this class will serve as an introduction to the instructional design process. It should be equally applicable if students have long-term plans to become a school technology coordinator, a corporate trainer, an instructional designer, or simply a teacher with better-designed materials.

Assignments

The assignments for this course are divided into two types: required and optional. To successfully complete this course a student must sucessfully complete all the required assignments. If a student wishes to take the opportunity to raise his or her grade in the course, the optional assignments should be completed. For more information on how this works, see the grading section of this syllabus.

Required Assignments

Students in this course will be required to complete the following assignments:

• Blog: A blog must be kept by all students. Regular posts (at least twice weeklly) should be made weekly. Students should respond to readings, reflect on questions they have about the content, and blog any relevant sites pertaining to the course content (which links should also be added to the Relevant Links page). Each student's blog should be linked off his or her individual course page. If students don't already have a blog, free blog sites include:
  • blogger.com
  • bloglines.com
  • livejournal.com

• Research Article Precis: Each student is required to find four (4) current research articles dealing with an instructional design issue. Each precis should be posted to the student's individual course page. A complete reference (in APA format) for each article must be given, and the precis should be no longer than 100 words. These precis are not intended to be a travelogue-type summary of the article, rather, in 100 words the article and its findings should be summarized and the implications explained. The precis should be free of grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors, should be written clearly, and be organized. See Dr. Curry's example here.

• Course Design Documents: Students in this course will completly design an instructional unit or training course. Students are encouraged to find a course or instructional opportunity that is real-world, relevant, and easily-accessible. The deliverables for this assignment include:
  • Needs assessment
  • Learner analysis
  • Course objectives
  • Course outline
  • At least one of the lessons in the course should be completely developed. It should include:
    • Lesson outline
    • Lesson objectives
    • All lesson content (in the appropriate format for the particular instructional situation)
    • Lesson assessment
  • Formative evaluation report
    • The completed lesson must be formatively evaluated with at least five (5) users

Optional Assignments

Students in this course who wish to enhance their grade must successfully complete all the following assignments:

• Biography Report: A 500 word biography on a person influential and relevant to the field of instructional technology. Subject must be approved by Dr. Curry.

• Design Theory Report: A 750 word report (summary) of an instructional design theory. Subject must be approved by Dr. Curry.

• Design Model Report: A 750 word report (summary) of an instructional design model. Subject must be approved by Dr. Curry.

Grades

As this is a graduate level course, it is my belief that grades are somewhat arbitrary at this point. By that I mean, it seems silly to me for you, as graduate students, to be working towards some sort of point value to ease your ego and earn you that "A". It is my belief that if you are in graduate school, you should be here to master the content, not to get some grade. For this reason, grades in this class will be assigned on a competency basis. In other words, you will not earn a grade for any assignment, rather you will continue to work on every assignment until I deem it as done to a reasonable level of competency.

If all the required assignments (as listed above in assignments) are completed to a competency level, then the student earns a "B" for the course. However, if a student wishes to work towards an "A" in the course, they must opt to complete the grade enhancement assignments. To successfully complete the grade enhancements, all of the optional assignments (as listed above in assignments) must be completed to a competency level as well. Students wishing to complete the grade enhancement assignments and work towards an "A" in the course must declare so in writing (via e-mail) by March 2, 2006.

Course Schedule

Other Information

Students with Disabilities

In compliance with applicable disability law, qualified students with a disability may be entitled to "reasonable accommodation." It is the student's responsibility to disclose to the teacher any special need she/he may have before the end of the first week of class.

Course Syllabus and Schedule Revisions

The instructor reserves the right to modify the syllabus or course schedule as he deems necessary.