Features of computer education
Courseware is a term that combines the words ‘course’ with ‘software’. Its meaning originally was used to describe additional educational material intended as kits for teachers or trainers or as tutorials for students, usually packaged for use with a computer. The term’s meaning and usage has expanded and can refer to the entire course and any additional material when used in reference an online or ‘computer formatted’ classroom. Many companies are using the term to describe the entire “package” consisting of one ‘class’ or ‘course’ bundled together with the various lessons, tests, and other material needed. The courseware itself can be in different formats, some are only available online such as html pages, while others can be downloaded in pdf files or other types of document files. Many forms of e-learning are now being blended with term courseware. Most leading educational companies solicit or include courseware with their training packages. A further category of educational software is software designed for use in school classrooms. Typically such software may be projected onto a large whiteboard at the front of the class and/or run simultaneously on a network of desktop computers in a classroom. Branding has been less strong in this category than in those categories orientated towards home users. Software titles are often very specialised and produced by a wide variety of manufacturers, including many established educational book publishers. Collaboration with the public schools will offer students field experiences purposefully designed to help establish coherence and connect theory and methods to classroom practice. Students will spend an entire academic year with the same teacher in a local and diverse middle or high school. Students will gradually build proficiency in teaching, adding responsibilities and skills throughout the program, and be prepared to assume full-time student teaching in the spring semester of their cohort year. The Lincoln Public Schools District will be one partner in this effort and the main location to place the pre-service teachers each year in high-need schools. Inquiry infuses all aspects of this graduate program. During their second science methods course, students will have integrated field experiences in the fall internship that focus on pedagogical inquiry. During their spring internship, students will apply these theoretical perspectives in practice on their own. At this time students will focus on issues of practice and develop research-based inquiries from their student-teaching experiences. In the spring semester, students will focus on the development of an inquiry project in the context of TEAC 801, a foundational course in curriculum inquiry within the TLTE MA program designed specifically for science. Students will revisit their experiences from the methods courses and internship experience in the fall and develop a classroom research project centered on a problem of practice related to science teaching and learning. Data for this systematic inquiry project will be collected during the spring student teaching experience. The analysis will evolve into each student’s summative work for their master’s degree, completed in the summer of their cohort year in the Masters Seminar. Students will proceed through the program as a group of highly motivated individuals in a supportive community of learning. Furthermore, this community will facilitate the integration of coursework and practical experiences and support cohesiveness. A Master Science Teacher at UNL will support, mentor and coach the cohort as they matriculate through the program into their first years of teaching. The focus will be on the process of integrating into the culture of their education community, developing and refining one’s skills as a teacher, becoming a life-long learner of science, and acting as a reflective practitioner with the knowledge and skills to meet the needs of a diverse student population
Processing your request, Please wait....
