EDIT 6788 Capstone

The purpose of this course is to bring together a student's graduate experience, culminating in a project; which demonstrates the individual's mastery of conceptual, content, and pedagogical skills in the field of instructional technology. In other words, students will demonstrate the integration of theory and practice related to content knowledge, consulting, instructional practices, and design strategies. Students will give a public demonstration of their culminating project at the end of the semester through an exhibit that includes a professional presentation supported with artifacts from their academic and professional experience. The exhibit will be supported by an academic paper that includes a literature review and full APA 6th formatting. The culminating project could consist of such things as an action research project, an exhibition, and/or a professional portfolio highlighting works in media, e-learning, distance learning, and design-based projects. Students will be assessed individually in their paper and exhibit.

Credits

3

Student Learning Outcomes

SCHOOL OF EDUCATION OUTCOMES (See School of Education Syllabus A – IV)

COURSE OUTCOMES:

College programs easily become merely a sequence of courses to be checked off, perhaps finished with written exams (comps) or a major paper (thesis).  Few programs provide participants with an incentive or structure for assimilating the learning, insights, discoveries, and continuing questions derived from the courses and experiences of their programs.  The overarching purpose of the capstone exhibition is to provide precisely that kind of incentive and structure.

Pedagogically, an exhibition suits the secondary education M.A.T. program’s constructivist orientation.  Each student’s program is different, and since every participant is constructing his/her own understandings about learning and teaching, each deserves the opportunity to manifest the completeness and elegance of that understanding.  Custom-designing an exhibition provides for a variety of learning styles and a richness of experience beyond what written exams can manifest.

Each candidate will be able to develop…

1. a fully developed personal pedagogy. Evidenced by…The personal pedagogy paper meets CCLOs 1, 2, 8, 9, SECMLOs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, and INTASC standards 1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 10.
2. a demonstration of knowledge of theories and issues related to pedagogy. Evidenced by…relevant citations in the annotated bibliography, paper and/or presentation. The demonstration meets CCLOs 1, 4, 5, 6, 8, SECMLOs 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, and INTASC standards 1, 2, 3, 6.
3. Evidence of knowledge of the individual’s subject matter field. Evidenced by…Teaching demonstration of content during presentation. Evidence of subject matter knowledge meets CCLOs 2, and INTASC standards, 4, 5.
4. Evidence of applications of pedagogy and subject matter knowledge to classroom instruction. Evidenced by…Presentation reflections on the above. Evidence of applications meets CCLOs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, SECMLOs 1, 2, 5, and INTASC standards 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
5. (Perhaps most importantly, we hope to see manifestations of the) habits of mind that characterize a continuously developing professional educator. Evidenced by…The willingness to edit, re- invent or work through the complex task of writing and presenting at capstone.  “The first write/solution is not always the best paper/solution” Manifestation of habits of mind meets CCLOs 1, 8, 9, SECMLOs 1, 3, 5, 7, and INTASC standard 9.

The purpose of this course is to provide a learning environment for students to synthesize their graduate experience, culminating in a multi media exhibition which demonstrates the individual’s (a) knowledge of theories related to various aspects of pedagogy, and (b) knowledge of the content field, as well as (c) skill in applying that knowledge to schools and classrooms that meets the diverse needs of students.

We elected to require a capstone exhibition for our program as the most appropriate way to achieve the following:

1. As a given from the beginning of each person’s program, we intend the exhibition to encourage participants to continuously thread together the various elements of their respective programs, rather than simply complete a sequence of separate courses.
2. In that an exhibition accommodates a variety of learning styles and talents, it provides a model of a type of assessment based on the concept that each participant is unique in constructing her/his own understandings about learning, school, and teaching.
3. Designing and presenting an exhibition gives students direct experience with exhibitions, a type of performance assessment that is increasingly used in schools and colleges.
4. An exhibition provides experience in making scholarly presentations to audiences of professionals.
5. Finally, exhibitions provide revealing assessments of the program and of our faculty’s work.

 * MA SEC ED and Ed Studies Candidates: The TEAKS based portfolio is due at the end of the capstone course.  Please see the “portfolio” section of this syllabi for more information.