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a site that dares to enlighten about pedagogy and theory in education today

"Online professional development (PD) fits today's fast changing K-12 educational environment where demands on teachers and re-certification require teachers to continually learn new and challenging content and pedagogy. Online professional development has the benefit of supporting teachers in their daily practice and connecting them with a network of like-minded professionals so that they can learn and share with each other."

This article focuses on how materials developed for web-based instruction must follow established instructional design principles in order to be effective and viable means of education.

"When instructors adapt their course materials to the online environment, they should be sensitive to the advantages and disadvantages of the Virtual Classroom. Web-based learning is well-suited for communications, collaboration, and information acquisition, but not for reading long text files. It is difficult to read screen after screen of text on a computer. In the Virtual Classroom, text-based lectures should be short and few. With this being the case, where are students going to get the information they need in obtaining the learning objectives?"

"Effective online instruction depends on learning experiences appropriately designed and facilitated by knowledgeable educators. Because learners have different learning styles or a combination of styles, online educators should design activities that address their modes of learning in order to provide significant experiences for each class participant. In designing online courses, this can best be accomplished by utilizing multiple instructional strategies. Teaching models exist which apply to traditional higher education learning environments, and when designing courses for the online environment, these strategies should be adapted to the new environment."

"Instructional strategies determine the approach a teacher may take to achieve learning objectives. Five categories of instructional strategies and explanation of these five categories can be found within this site. Instructional methods are used by teachers to create learning environments and to specify the nature of the activity in which the teacher and learner will be involved during the lesson. While particular methods are often associated with certain strategies, some methods may by found within a variety of strategies. A sampling of instructional methods with accompanying explanations are presented in this website."

An awesome collection of rubrics by Kathy Schrock at Discovery Education.

Now that we are using the Internet in the classroom to support instruction, it is important the area of assessment be addressed. One usable method for teachers is to provide a rubric for student use and for both formative and summative assessment purposes. Another is to provide some type of graphic organizer. Below you will find a collection of assessment rubrics and graphic organizers that may be helpful to you as you design your own. Let me know if you have one you would like to share! A book dealing with both the theoretical and practical design of rubrics is the ASCD publication, Assessing Student Outcomes: Performance Assessment Using the Dimensions of Learning Model.