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Association
of Jesuit Colleges and Universities REQUEST
FOR INTEREST IN PARTICIPATION
As background, the LAAP Project will adopt and apply for online learning a process that organizes assessment design around identifying the evidence needed for decision making in terms of some combination of student competencies, the behaviors or performances required to reveal those competencies, and the tasks needed to elicit those behaviors. The project model will be demonstrated in six online graduate courses in information technology, bioethics and urban planning. The LAAP Project will also support competency-based learning through the development and utilization of three new software tools that will: (1) supplement the widely-used Blackboard online course management system with a new subsystem to support the special assessment processes required by the project's evidence-centered design; (2) record various student events produced by embedded tests and exercises for subsequent analysis by the project's evidence model; and (3) summarize asynchronous student discussions to reduce the time--and hence cost--required for faculty to monitor and score extensive student team collaborations and discussions. This document provides a summary of the Congressional Project activities, and describes two initial academic initiatives that JesuitNET wishes to pursue with interested Jesuit colleges and universities. Administrators and faculty interested in participating in either of these initiatives should, by Friday, March 30, 2001 contact: Richard Vigilante,
Executive Director
The project's work will improve upon current national practice by developing and evaluating the following innovative instructional technologies: First, the project will evaluate enhanced delivery of online education made possible by the new broadband capabilities of the Internet. A recent Yankee Group study predicts that by 2004 16.5 million of America's 100 million households will have broadband (cable modem or digital subscriber line) access to the Internet. The project will explore how digital video technologies may support competency-based learning by "making thinking visible." One example of this is cognitive apprenticeship, a learning model whereby the "master" (the expert teacher) models authentic ways of doing work in a field for the "apprentice" (the novice learner) and then gradually, through guided work, fades back as the apprentice takes on more and more of the critical tasks. Cognitive apprenticeship requires the teacher to make visible to students all of the strategic knowledge that often remains invisible in traditional learning contexts. Second, the project will develop a true education-on-demand capability to deliver online courses. The project will modify the Blackboard 5 course delivery system (used for the LAAP project courses) to continuously track, prompt, and record student progress through their courses. To support on-demand course delivery, software will be developed to monitor and act upon selected student activities at pre-established lapsed-time points. By identifying each student's location in the course sequence, the software will be able to periodically compose students into teams for assigned discussions and projects, thereby preserving the important student collaboration element while allowing students to progress at their own rates. The new on-demand system will also allow students to "test-out" of redundant course material and study more individualized topic sequences appropriate to their backgrounds. Finally, the project will utilize and evaluate an automated essay scoring system to make the grading of student performance in online courses more cost-effective. The time faculty spend on online courses can be considerable and may average 12 hours per week for a standard 14-week course. Automated essay scoring will reduce some of the 25 percent of online faculty time often spent on grading written assignments and examinations. More importantly, the successful utilization of automated scoring will increase the use of essay, as opposed to multiple-choice, assessments where the former provide better measurement of student competencies.
In addition to the LAAP Project's six online courses, the Congressional Project will develop and deliver up to fourteen additional competency-based online courses during the three-year project period. Each course will incorporate as appropriate the innovative online methodologies and technologies to be produced by the LAAP and Congressional projects. JesuitNET would like to ascertain possible Jesuit college and university interests in the following academic program initiatives. 2.1 Online Master's Degree This initiative would involve a number of Jesuit institutions in the collaborative development and delivery of a completely online 30-36 credit master's degree, and a constituent 12-15 credit graduate certificate. The discipline area is entirely open, but it should be an appropriate fit for the competency-based models and technologies described above. JesuitNET would like to have faculty from at least three U.S. Jesuit schools participate in degree development and delivery, with at least one institution offering the online master's degree and graduate certificate. In addition, JesuitNET would welcome faculty participation in this initiative from one or more of the Jesuit colleges and universities outside the U.S. In addition to identifying a program area, potential participants should indicate their perceptions of the market potential for the degree and certificate. While JesuitNET will fund all development costs associated with these credentials, the participating schools will have to cover all delivery costs out of tuition revenues. Completely online programs have the economic advantage of matriculating new students living far beyond the participating campuses, but only to the extent that there is a real market for the programs. As our funding will not support market research, we will be dependent on faculty knowledge and public sources in assessing a particular degree/certificate program's operational viability. 2.2 Multi-Institutional Online Course(s) This initiative would involve one or more Jesuit institutions in collaboration with one or more prestigious nonprofit cultural and educational organizations. The focus would be on utilizing the extensive content resources that a potential partner(s) would bring to an online Jesuit course or course sequence. Most likely partner content would be from the broad humanities, arts and social/physical science disciplines, and would nicely complement the traditional Jesuit liberal arts orientation. The course(s) selected for this initiative would primarily explore the broadband and on-demand delivery capabilities of the Congressional Project. Disciplines and topics with a strong visual element are particularly appropriate. Depending on Jesuit faculty and institution preferences, the resulting course(s) could be offered for undergraduate/graduate credit and/or noncredit to both on-campus students and the general public, including the 1.5 million Jesuit alumni. Recently, a number
of nonprofit institutions began digitizing their resources to capitalize
on the anticipated booming knowledge marketplace that the Internet may
make possible. Columbia University has formed its Fathom project with
a dozen world-renowned universities, museums, libraries and societies
to market their collective knowledge assets. Other interesting Internet
projects include those by the Museum of Modern Art-Tate Gallery and
the Guggenheim Museum. This initiative should take advantage of any
existing associations Jesuit institutions have with cultural and educational
organizations in their cities or elsewhere.
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