Visibility of the program and impact of presentations

Technology facilitator candidates in the Masters of Education in Instructional Technology program will design presentations that address the needs of all learners.

A common embedded portion of each presentation assignment developed by program faculty will require proper use of PowerPoint, including text elements, layout, graphics, and internal/external navigation.   

Technology facilitator candidates must score at least 70% correct on the PowerPoint for Chunking indicators embedded in the CI 565 - Technology and Cognition Learning Strategies and Technology assignment. 

During the 2010-2011 academic year, Cohort IV Instructional Technology graduate candidates were required to develop a presentation utilizing chunking to present information for a content area where candidate’s students experienced trouble understanding a concept.  Candidates were expected to develop a non-linear PowerPoint, allowing the learner to choose the order in which each “chunk” of information is received.  Text elements were to be appropriate in length for the target audience, to the point, and easy-to-read.  Use of italics, bold, indentations, backgrounds, colors, headings, and font point size should enhance readability.  The layout was to be visually pleasing and contribute to the overall message with appropriate use of headings, subheadings and white space.  Graphics were to assist in presenting an overall theme and enhance understanding of concept, ideas and relationships.  Images should employ proper size and resolution, and all images must enhance the content.  All links were to be active and functioning properly. Overall, candidates were successful in developing a presentation utilizing chunking to present information for a content area where candidate’s students experienced trouble understanding a concept.  However, candidates consistently experienced difficulty linking sub-pages to a main slide.  Often the learner had to mouse scroll or use directional arrow keys to move within the PowerPoint, instead of being provided a page link to “click”.  Therefore, the PowerPoints were actually linear, instead of non-linear as required by the assignment objectives.  A few candidates also included linked graphics that were not consistent with the sub-page topic and confused the learner. 

In an effort to increase the ability of Masters of Education in Instructional Technology candidates to design presentations that address the needs of all learners, PowerPoint presentations being completed throughout the Program will be assessed for effective development, including text elements, layout, graphics, and internal/external navigation.  Program faculty will continually remind candidates, through assignment instructions, of the basic rules to effective presentation development and common errors to avoid. 

Program Quality and Effectiveness

Technology facilitator candidates in the Masters of Education in Instructional Technology program will employ American Psychological Association (APA) Style in formal writing, including internal documentation and works cited.

A common embedded portion of each literature review assignment developed by program faculty will require proper use of APA style, including internal documentation and works cited.

Technology facilitator candidates must score at least 70% correct on the APA indicator embedded in the CI 565 - Technology and Cognition Literature Review assignment.

Cohort IV Instructional Technology graduate candidates were required to synthesize research regarding technology/cognition/brain issues in a cohesive review of literature during the 2010-2011 academic year.  Candidates were expected to utilize proper APA style within the literature review, including the citations and bibliography. Seven of twenty-eight Cohort IV Instructional Technology graduate candidates (25%) successfully scored at least 70% correct on the APA Indicator embedded in the CI 565 - Technology and Cognition Literature Review assignment.  The majority of candidates (26/28; 93%) correctly employed internal documentation and alphabetized reference list entries by the last name of the first author of each work.  Most candidates (25/28; 89%) were not successful in properly using APA 6th edition style to cite resources in the works cited.  Specifically, when referring to books, chapters, articles, or Web pages, many candidates failed to capitalize only the first letter of the first word of a title and subtitle, the first word after a colon or a dash in the title, and proper nouns.  Instead, candidates tended to capitalize all words in a title.  Candidates also had a tendency to overlook the hanging indentation for each entry in the reference list.  All lines after the first line of each entry in the reference list should be indented one-half inch from the left margin.  Finally, candidates tended to overlook the fact that APA 6th edition style no longer requires that retrieval dates be listed in the works cited for web resources.

In an effort to increase the percentage of Masters of Education in Instructional Technology candidates who correctly practice proper APA Style in formal writing, written work being completed throughout the Program will be assessed for proper APA style as part of candidates evaluative grades.  Program faculty will continually remind candidates, through assignment instructions, of the basic rules to properly using APA 6th edition style to cite resources in works cited.