University of Michigan Media Union Building Instructional Communities: Next Steps for Distributed Education Barbara J. O’Keefe University of Michigan Media Union http://www.ummu.umich.edu May 18, 2000

A Model for Faculty Development Provide faculty with tools that help them improve their current practice…. And then provide them with tools to help them reorganize their approach to teaching and learning In short, support a developmental trajectory for faculty

Tools to support current practice UM CourseTools http://www.coursetools.ummu.umich.edu Web course construction kit UM Lessons Clipboard 2000

Where do faculty want to go? Development of digital content libraries to support curricula Discipline centered Content-focused Inquiry learning Organization of instructional communities to aid in content development

Illustrative Examples Global Change Curriculum Teamworks Curriculum Electronic Quad Project Animal Diversity Web The Inquiry Page U of Arizona Southwest Project Others

Global Change Curriculum Two semester course on global change at University of Michigan Web site to support the class http://www.sprl.umich.edu/GCL/index.html Resources Films, lessons, assignments Available for use by other instructors Team teaching by UM faculty

Teamworks Curriculum Cooperative project to support engineering education at UIUC Development of a website by students and faculty Resources Lectures, readings, activities Available for use by others

The Electronic Quad Project Developed by a cross-institutional faculty community (organizational communication) Shared curriculum developed in a set of web sites Resources Lectures, lessons, activities, assignments, readings Team teaching using collaboration technology

Animal Diversity Web Developed by Phil Myers and others at the UM Zoology Museum Database of information about mammals, birds, others http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/index.html Resources Films, interactive video, audio, images, text, lessons Student participation in site construction

The Inquiry Page Developed by Chip Bruce and Deborah Dillon to support a community of practice Database of lessons for inquiry learning http://w3.ed.uiuc.edu/projects/inquiry/index.lasso Resources Lessons, links to standards Teachers can draw on or contribute to the database

The Southwest Project University of Arizona faculty have developed a digital library of information about the American Southwest Collection of databases http://dizzy.library.arizona.edu/swp/ Resources Images, maps, documents, geographic data, interactive visualizations

The Southwest Project (cont.) Use across the curriculum Integration of cultural data into GIS database Model of Santa Rita range Interactive visualization and public art Web exhibits on history of Tucson K-12 web exhibit project for teaching history Tree ring teaching module and argumentative writing classes

Southwest Project (cont.) Sustainability Broad participation Institutionalization Extensibility Read about it: The University of Arizona Southwest Project: A Study of Shifting Learning Roles by Robert MacArthur: http://outreach.missouri.edu/netc98/manuscripts/macarthur.html

Other examples NEEDS Exchanges in Chemistry Education Educational Objects Economy

How will universities support such work? Infrastructure issues Design Support Organizational issues Leadership and initiative Boundaries and faculty workload

Will other organizations support learning interchanges? National Science Foundation Educause, NLII, and IMS http://www.educause.edu Apple Learning Interchange http://ali.apple.com Other possible enterprises