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How Things Work:
Program Organization
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The Program at a Glance: Welcome to
The Online Academy for Teachers. The Academy is a sequence
of 10 courses. Five of the courses are 1 hour graduate
credit courses; five of the courses are 2 hour graduate credit
courses. Each course begins with a challenge to be completed
at the end of the course. The Challenge is followed by
a checklist that allows you to set completion goals and dates
in conjunction with your online mentor and to keep track of your
progress. After the challenge and the checklist, each course
is divided into a set of modules. Most 1 hour graduate
credit courses have 5 modules, and most 2 hour graduate credit
courses have 10 modules. There are, however, exceptions
to that general guideline. Each module takes you to a set
of lessons/activities to complete. As your work your way
through the challenge, checklist, module, and lesson/activity
pages, you are continually interacting with your online mentor. The
diagram below shows how the program is structured from program
to course to challenge to checklist to modules and lessons/activities. Click
on a component of the course to read about it or just scroll
down to read about all of the components.
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Program Page: When you signed into the web site for
The Online Academy for Teachers, you connected to the page in
the image to the right. This graphically shows the 10 courses
that comprise the online academy. For those who would like
to teach in The Online Academy, a virtual high school, must complete
the first seven courses or 9 graduate credit hours. Completing
all 10 courses or 15 graduate credit hours results in the award
of a George Mason University, Graduate School of Education University
Certificate. Clicking on each individual course will take you
to the course page. Your online mentor will provide
you with the login and password. A program
overview and course descriptions are
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The Course Page: The
graphic on the right shows what a course page looks like. Although
it is a bit difficult to read the text, you can see the layout
of each course page. First, there will always be the topbar
and the mouseover navigation menus (1). Next,
there will be an image of a computer, color coded for each course. On
the base of the computer, there are links to the course syllabus,
required texts, and a link home to the program page (2). In
the center of the computer screen are a set of links to the course
challenge, the course checklist, and all of the course modules (3).
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Navigation Toolbars: Every
page in The Online Academy for Teachers except the opening program
page has a number of navigational options. The one option
that you can always count on is the "Jump To" and "Tools" bar
in the top right hand corner. It normally looks like this:  . When
you move your cursor over the words "Jump To," a drop
down menu will open. This menu allows you to navigate to
all of the modules in a course or to the module home page or course
page. When you move your cursor over the word "Tools," a
second drop down menu will open. This provides you links
to all the tools and resources you will need to complete courses
in The Online Academy for Teachers. You can access your email,
Digichat, and a range of software tutorials from this menu. There
is also a link to Mentor Resources. That link is password
protected and provides guides and files that your online mentor
might need.
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The Challenge
Page: Every course begins with a challenge. This
is an authentic problem - one you might actually encounter as
a virtual teacher - that sets the stage for learning. The
Challenge associated with the graphic on the left begins:
Some day you are going to learn to restrain
yourself. Last week when you were at the welcoming
reception for the new superintendent, you happened
to mention your interest in virtual learning for K-12
students. . . . After all, you told the
newly arrived superintendent, virtual learning is the
wave of the future. You never suspected that you would
be called on your enthusiasm. . . .
In addition to an authentic problem, each challenge includes
learning objectives for the course, a summary of lessons/activities
to be completed, and criteria for knowing that you have
succeeded.
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| The Checklist
Page: Every course has a checklist. The checklist
asks you to think about the lessons/activities you will be completing
and to set target dates for their completion. It is a way
to help you manage the workload, your time, and your progress
through the course. The target dates you set on the checklists
are shared with your mentor. Sometimes your mentor will
suggest modifications. When you and your mentor are agreed,
your mentor will also use your target dates to help you keep
on track.
The checklist
represents one strategy used in The Online Academy for Teachers
to help you with self-regulation. You
will learn a lot more about helping other virtual learners
with self-regulation in Course 5.
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The Module Page: Every
course is divided into modules. The modules are listed on
the course page so that you can see at a
glance the main topics of each course. When you click on
the link from the course page to a module page, it will look much
like the graphic on the left. The modules are designed to
be completed in five weeks for a 1 graduate hour course and 10
weeks for a 2 graduate hour course. To help you keep on schedule
the course page refers to Weeks 1 through 5 instead of Module 1
through 5.
The
module page provides you with a list and links to all the
lessons/activities that need to be completed to
finish the module. On this page, you might find reading
assignments in your course book, links to additional readings
or resources on the Internet, and links to lesson pages
that challenge you with
a variety of synthesizing activities.
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Lesson/Activity
Pages: The image on the right shows an
lesson/acitivity page. It is only an example, however, since
it is difficult to describe lesson/activity pages
because
they vary
so widely.
As you progress
through
the courses, you will discover that
these
pages provide
basic information and links to resources. They then generally
present you with a challenge or assignment that asks you to
summarize,
synthesize, apply, and/or reflect on information from the readings.
Often, they also provide a link to a downloadable file
(red arrow on image) that provides a framework
for presenting your ideas.
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