Sarah Giersch, Rena Janke, Mimi Recker

mimi.recker@usu.edu

IA BakeOff

Overview• Overview of the Instructional Architect

(ia.usu.edu)

• Designing an IA project with teachers

• Impact

The National Science Digital Library (NSDL) is the nation’s free online library for education and research in Science, Technology, Engineering, & Mathematics

http://nsdl.org/

Instructional Architect is an NSDL service that allows teachers to easily package online resources from a variety of sources for their students.

http://ia.usu.edu/

Sample IA Project

A sample Instructional Architect project that incorporates the Weather Maker online resource.

IA Use Context• Pre/In service teachers, school library media

specialists, teacher educators (N > 600)• Engage ‘teachers as designers’ with online

resources• Especially low-tech users • The ‘last mile’

Instructional Architect: Usage data

Project visits 219,022

Online resources gathered 16,922

Teacher created projects 4,062

Registered users 2,452

Since 2004

Design Philosophy• KISS

• Don’t reinvent wheel

• 2 distinct categories of users: teachers and students

• Support sharing

• Not curriculum design (‘last mile’)

• Target low-tech teachers

A Demo

Toward Evaluating Impact

Data Sources Findings

Knowledge Pre/post surveys, online discussions

Significant impact of workshop

Attitudes Pre/post surveys, reflection papers

High effect sizes (d > .3), especially among low ‘aptitude’

Behaviors Webmetrics (GA, IA project analysis)

10% uptake; relationship between design strategy and granularity

Student impact

Reflection papers, webmetrics, student interviews

Much greater use of student access point

Closing Thoughts

• Interesting pre and in-service teacher mentoring emerges

• Supports teacher collaborations in unintended ways

• Various publication modes popular• Differing impact depending on teacher prior

comfort with technology• Unplanned ‘viral marketing’

URLs• Instructional Architect

– ia.usu.edu

• PD materials– dlconnect.usu.edu– >> Click on ‘Researchers’