David Klick's Practicum Learning Contract

Personal Goal

My department has a number of courses which we want to put online soon. It was recently decided that the most important course for us to get online next was CIS 123 (Management Information Systems). This course covers business processes as they relate to information systems. It also covers the use of typical office software applications and their integration. It is my goal to have this course prepared to go online in Spring 2005. Due to scheduling constraints, I am aiming to have the majority of the work done by the end of August.

There are a number of constraints on the design of this course which I must abide by:

  • it must be the equivalent of the current traditionally taught course
  • the course description must match the current course
  • this course must use the textbooks chosen for the current course
  • the course must be taught online using WebCT
  • the learning objectives may not vary much from the current course

There are a number of items which have to be researched before I even begin to construct this course:

  • what additional constraints and policies does my school place upon online courses
  • what schedule does my school impose upon construction of an online course
  • what materials are already available through the publisher
  • what are the text books like

My goal for this practicum is to quickly research any external issues which may place additional constraints on the design of this course. I plan to create a design document for the course, and then construct a syllabus and schedule. I will evaluate the materials used in the existing face-to-face course and the materials available through the publisher for use in an online course. Although I do not plan on completing all the details of the online CIS 123 course during the practicum, I do plan on at least completing one learning unit of the course (equivalent to one week of class). This learning unit will have specific learning outcomes, assigned readings (online or otherwise), may have online course notes, some type of assessment activity, and a detailed grading rubric.

I will also design and facilitate a discussion exercise and participate in many others. That should help in creating better discussion activities in the course I am developing.

One other important goal I have is to implement the learning unit that I complete on an active WebCT server so that I have experience using WebCT from the instructor viewpoint. That will assure me that I should have no technical problems implementing the remainder of the course.

Learning Resources

I plan to use the following resources to achieve my goals:

  • Kishwaukee College guidelines and policies for online courses (posted somewhere on the school's intranet)
  • existing CIS 123 course syllabus (available online on school's web site)
  • existing CIS 123 course schedule (available online on school's web site)
  • other course materials for existing CIS 123 course (must request from instructors)
  • textbooks for existing course (on order)
  • instructor materials for textbooks (available online from publisher)
  • prepared online course materials for textbooks (available online from publisher)
  • web accessibility guidelines (http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/)
  • feedback from other CIS instructors at Kish
  • feedback from peers and instructor in practicum course
  • WebCT documentation (http://www.webct.com/)
  • an instructor account on an active WebCT server (hopefully available through my school)

Timeline

The schedule is a little unclear to me. I see from section 3 of the practicum learning contract description that we are to specify three review periods. On the practicum schedule page, however, I only see two dates listed (Week 4, Day 3 and Week 8, Day 2). I have decided to add this learning contract to the schedule and add an additional deadline date for the project at Week 6. I have not put the discussion facilitation on the schedule yet since I do not yet have a date for that.

Week 1: first draft of learning contract
Week 2: final draft of learning contract
Week 4: analysis of Kishwaukee's online course policies and guidelines
analysis of prepared online course materials from publisher
analysis of existing face-to-face course material
design document
syllabus
general sixteen week schedule
rough draft of one learning unit/module
Week 6: updated materials from week 4 based on feedback
first working draft of one learning unit/module, including:
  • learning outcomes
  • references to online resources
  • assigned readings from the text
  • exercise(s)/assessment(s) with grading rubrics
Week 8: updated materials from previous weeks reflecting feedback
a partial implementation of the course on a WebCT server, including:
  • syllabus
  • schedule
  • one completed learning unit/module

Results

By the end of the course, I will have completed the following:

  • a design document for the online version of CIS 123
  • one fully developed learning unit/module
  • a partial prototype on WebCT for the course I am developing
  • a written reflection documenting some of the decisions I have made and concepts I have learned while pursuing this course

Evaluation

I have tried to create an evaluation rubric which totals up to the 20 points listed as the total value of the practicum project for this course.

Design document organization
  2 document is well organized
1 document has some organizational problems
0 design document is poorly organized or non-existent
Design document correctness
  2 document contains few spelling and/or grammar errors
1 document contains a number of spelling and/or grammar errors
0 document contains many spelling and/or grammar errors
Project timeliness
  2 project documents have been completed on time
1 project documents have mostly been completed on time
0 project documents have often missed deadlines
Course and instructor information
  1 course and instructor information is easy to find
0 course and instructor information is not easy to find
Course navigation
  2 there are few (if any) broken links
1 there are some broken links
0 there are many broken links
Course syllabus - learning objectives
  1 learning objectives are clearly stated and easy to find
0 learning objectives are poorly stated and/or hard to find
Course syllabus - grading rubric
  1 the course grading rubric is clear and specific
0 the course grading rubric is not clear and/or not specific
Course schedule
  2 schedule clearly lays out what will be covered
1 schedule is confusing in some spots
0 schedule does not clearly lay out topics to be covered
Learning unit - learning objectives
  2 the learning objectives are clear and realistic
1 the learning objectives are not completely clear and/or somewhat unrealistic
0 the learning objectives are not clear and/or are unrealistic
Learning unit - reading assignments
  2 the reading assignments are appropriate
1 the reading assignments are somewhat appropriate
0 the reading assignments are not appropriate
Learning unit - assessment exercises
  2 the assessment exercises are relevant and clearly described
1 the assessment exercises are relevant, but the descriptions are somewhat unclear
0 the assessment exercises are not relevant and/or not clearly described
Learning unit - grading rubric
  1 the grading rubric is clear
0 the grading rubric is confusing or does not exist