Before I began my research and design, I spent some time analyzing my audience (i.e., my peers) further. My audience was made up students who were predominantly in the ILT III Corporate Cohort. I have spent the last two years observing and getting to know these individuals. Based on my observations, I knew that the audience consisted of predominantly female, ages 24-45, graduate students with a strong technological background and an interest/background in instructional design. While two students in the audience were K12 teachers, to the best of my knowledge the rest of the audience knew very little about Teacher Preparation programs and the bureaucracy surrounding them. Therefore, this seemed like a relevant topic to cover in class. For convenience, the presentation would take place in the CU Denver computer lab. While this isn't an ideal learning environment, the audience was familiar with these settings; and there were computers and an overhead projector at my disposal.

My next step was to do some in-depth research. The following are some questions that guided my research: Why were there so few online teacher preparation programs? What is entailed in offering an online teacher preparation program? What does the current literature say on the matter?

I found out that there is actually very little written about online teacher preparation programs and the articles I did find tended to focus on professional development as opposed to initial teacher preparation courses. After researching the schools that do offer courses or programs in Teacher Preparation, a few things became clear. For one, there seemed to be three types of schools. The first is a school that offers just a handful of Teacher Preparation courses online (e.g., B.Y.U. or Regis). These courses are designed for students enrolled in the regular programs at the institutions who are simply seeking an alternative format for a few courses. A second type of program is one which offered most, if not all, courses online but that is developed to meet the needs of only instate residents (e.g., St. Joseph's College of Maine). Some of these programs even have a residency requirement. A third type of program is one that offers an entire program online but offers licensure only in one state (e.g., University of Phoenix and Rio Salado); both of these programs offer links to other states on their website but warns that a student must check with his/her state department of education to see what would be needed to be licensed in that state.

Another trend I noticed was a complete disregard for state or national standards and national accreditation.

States differ somewhat on their standards, as do national organizations. For instance, NCATE’s standards are a bit different than the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC). Further, national standards tend to be general and vague whereas individual states break down standards into elements. For instance, Colorado has eight standards that are broken down into 45 specific standard elements.

The moral of the story is that it appears that institutions avoid creating online teacher preparation programs due to the bureaucracy.

With all of this in mind, the following were my three objectives to cover in a 60 minute presentation:

• Develop an understanding of Teacher Prep. programs and the bureaucracy surrounding them
• Develop an understanding of the pros and cons related to current Teacher Prep. Programs
• Recognize the strengths and weaknesses of online Teacher Prep. Programs.

Instructional Strategies  

Despite missing a few of my audience members with strong teacher education backgrounds, the presentation went smooth. The audience seemed interested and active in the discussions. In fact, I had to bring us back on task a few times simply due to time restraints. This topic (i.e., online teacher preparation programs) really would need at least a full 2.5-hour class if not two weeks to cover the material adequately. For example, we did not even touch the specifics of “No Child Left Behind” and issues surrounding what defines a “highly quality teacher”. While I did not perform a traditional assessment or summative evaluation, I did use a self-assessment strategy I have seen others use effectively. That is, I passed a quiz that I let everyone complete before we discussed the answers together. Overall the learners were able to answer all of the questions and participated in the discussion.

It's always difficult to truly assess the value of an instructional event without hard data. However, based on observation and feedback from the audience, I believe the presentation (i.e., the learning activity) was a success and that the learners felt that it was a relevant topic that was adequately covered in the time allotted.

My next steps are to map out the different national standards and regional state standards to illustrate overlap and disagreement; I then plan to research the national standards and accreditation further. Finally, as mentioned earlier, I would simplify things further—make it more learner-centered by requiring some pre-reading and activities which would enable and facilitate better discussions.