Trends and Issues in Various Settings

1. Rapid prototyping provides a working model of an instructional product to aid in the design and development of an innovation or project. I think that a way to use this concept in the classroom would be to provide students with various examples of types of project ideas when assigning class projects. My mom is an 8th grade English teacher, and she likes to save examples of past students' works to show future classes when assigning projects. She shows some of the best examples, as well as some 'not-so-good' examples so that her students can see what an A, B, C, or F project looks like. The students then have a better understanding of what she expects and what they need to do in order to receive a desired grade.

2. I have been having a very difficult time figuring out how to respond to this week's assignment requirements...especially this one about military training since I have absolutely no experience with the military and its needs. After reading Scenario Three: Full Spectrum Training in the textbook, I feel that using DLRCs, Deployable Learning Resource Centers is the best way to fuse technology into military training because it allows for the training technology to travel when and where needed.

3. Guidance System for Transforming Education & Step-Up-To-Excellence

Both of these models facilitate improvements in school performance and seem pretty similar to one another. From the description of this particular requirement for this week's assignment, we are to outline a professional development activity to introduce both models to our colleagues. This seems rather difficult to me because I am thinking in terms of a one-day professional development/training day, and the idea of introducing two different campus/district improvement models in one day seems overwhelming...especially since both models share some similarities... so I would have folks form two groups--a group to work on GSTE and the other to work on SUTE. The groups would work through the steps of their model, forming support teams, leadership teams, identifying missions, planning a strategy, etc. At the end of the activity the two groups would share what they learned about their assigned model, discuss the pros and cons of each model, and possibly make a decision about which model they feel would best meet the needs of their campus/district.

4. Stephen F. Austin State University - Teaching Excellence Center

• different names used for faculty development: professional development, teaching circles, workshops


• division this is under: Teaching Excellence Center


• services offered: workshops, socials and speaker events, individual consultations, teaching tips, etc.


• frequency of offered programs and specifics: Teaching circles meet once a month to discuss and share ideas about teaching and strategies to improve teaching effectiveness. New faculty orientation and professional development occurs at orientation and throughout the year during weekly meetings that focus on camps offices and resources(i.e. advising, disability, faculty senate), training modules covering teaching pedagogy issues (i.e. classroom management, effective content presentation, handling student problems), regular opportunities to interact with faculty from across campus, etc.

Stephen F. Austin State University - Office of Instructional Technology

• different names used for faculty development: workshops


• division this is under: Office of Instructional Technology


• services offered: training in fundamental computing skills, new faculty workshops, Blackboard training, online instructor certification, special applications and methods, and Interactive Television (ITV) series


• frequency of offered programs and specifics: Workshops and programs are offered regularly throughout the year. The workshops include: training in Blackboard for faculty who wish to provide course enhancements or fully web-based courses, courses for online instructor certification, training for special applications and methods, such as Elluminate and Elluminate Publish, creating digital videos, creating web pages in Dreamweaver, and podcasting, and training for faculty wishing to deliver courses using ITV.

Stephen F. Austin State University - Office of Human Resources

• different names used for faculty development: training, development, personal and professional growth, and learning opportunities


• division this is under: Human Resources


• services offered: student employee training--Advancing Students As Professionals (ASAP) and QPR training (Questioning, Persuading, and Referring)


• frequency of offered programs and specifics: ASAP training is offered every Tuesday and Friday for an hour to address topics such as phone etiquette, customer service, professionalism, ethics, and confidentiality. QPR training is offered numerous times throughout each semester and is focused on addressing and identifying the needs and troubling issues of students and becoming aware of the signs of suicidal thinking and how to respond in these situations.