INTIME Annual Report
University of Northern Iowa
November, 2001 Executive Summary
Brief Description of the Project
The University of Northern Iowa (UNI) is the lead institution for the three-year INTIME (Integrating New Technologies into the Methods of Education) Project. The INTIME project improves learning and teaching in the PreK-16 environment through the illustration of exemplary teaching in online video vignettes featuring real teachers with real students in real PreK-12 classrooms effectively integrating various forms of instructional technology, along with components of quality education, in a variety of content areas. Collaborating universities are Eastern Michigan, Emporia State, Longwood College and Southeast Missouri State. Key personnel including project director, coordinator, and evaluator, have remained the same throughout the project.
The online videos are analyzed, edited, encoded, transcribed, synchronized, and are streamed from a server at the UNI. They are made available free online to all educators. They are also available in CD and DVD formats, where necessary to provide improved quality of service. In addition, the videos are accompanied by lesson plans, sets of probing questions for viewers, a discussion forum, and a "Build a Case Study" feature, which enables educators to easily and efficiently make use of the resources as case studies for their students.
Each lesson is analyzed and edited into nine different versions of the video that allow the user to view the lessons through different "lenses" with narrative connecting the video to the theoretical framework used to analyze the videos. The narration describes how the teacher is demonstrating one of the seven elements (or "lenses") from the Technology as Facilitator of Quality Education Model (TFQE). Elements of quality education from UNI's TFQE Model include 1)exemplary technology, 2)democracy in the classroom, 3)rich content, 4)information processing, 5)effective principles of learning 6)teacher knowledge and 7)teacher behaviors. In addition to these seven, each lesson also includes a video of the teacher interview and an activity overview. The edited videos of approximately 5-10 minutes in length are searchable at the project website by grade level, content area, and elements from the quality education model, which have been identified in the videos by the teachers and project personnel.
Major Findings/Successes/Concerns
Responses to the INTIME resources have been overwhelmingly positive. Since the website's inception in the spring of 2000, the site has received over 3 million hits (See Appendix 8) . INTIME has rich content in the videos. Currently there are 288 video vignettes featuring 32 lessons and will eventually be over 540 video vignettes featuring over 60 lessons. Each appears on a video page formatted to show the video, the transcription, and the lesson plan. [Figure 1].
The vignettes are highly useful for case analysis and reflection because they feature real teachers and real students in real classrooms. The advantage of INTIME is that it has the TFQE Model, a rich theoretical framework, that serves to pull together sound research and current theories in education, which is then illustrated by practical video vignettes used for pre-service teacher training.
Sixteen university faculty participated during the spring 2001 semester in the pilot phase of course revision to incorporate the INTIME website resources including the TFQE Model and the video vignettes. Additionally, university faculty, preservice teachers, and inservice teachers are able to engage in critical dialogue about the videos on the INTIME online discussion forum. During the Spring 2001 semester, we found that most faculty did not make use of the online discussion forums either to discuss their plans with other INTIME faculty or to facilitate their students' analysis of INTIME videos and resources. However after encouragement, several faculty made effective use of the online discussion forum in the Fall 2001 semester. Currently, twenty-seven faculty are participating in piloting their course revisions to incorporate INTIME project resources. This is the largest group of faculty that will implement their revised courses. The results of this group will be reported in the next reporting period. In the spring 2002 semester, 15 additional faculty will be implementing their INTIMEcourse revisions.
Feedback was obtained from faculty at the University of Northern Iowa about case studies and probing questions during the Summer, 2001. The addition of the case studies and probing questions in response to the feedback is a major success because it makes it possible to use the resources in a quick and practical way, enabling users to efficiently find the best video examples for teaching or analyzing a particular topic. Many of the participating faculty have students watch and critique the videos. We are pleased that faculty are able to use many of the videos as examples of quality teaching. There was some concern at our faculty training workshop that not all videos may be examples of quality teaching and are subject to differences of opinion. We have resolved this issue by designing a case study format for videos on our website and adding probing questions for video analysis.
The biggest barrier to their use of INTIME resources was that not as many lessons were ready for use online as we had originally planned. The rate for preparing video for streaming on the web is slower than anticipated and the amount of video that the project will produce for streaming has more than tripled in order to meet needs expressed by faculty who are using the video. Approximately 16 of the 25 lessons planned were online at the beginning of the Spring, 2001, semester. At the outset of the project, we determined that we would need more and longer videos than originally planned in order to show the richness of each activity. Because it would have taken too long to talk about all of the aspects of quality teaching in the TFQE Model within one video, we decided to create multiple video vignettes of each lesson. Each vignette is edited down to a 5-10 minute clip from the 2-12 hours of original footage. Having multiple versions allows the users to experience each lesson through the various lenses of the TFQE Model. In addition, it allows us to use more footage of the lesson, which the faculty who are piloting INTIMEindicated was important for case analysis. The faculty requested longer clips of video that could be used for case analysis in addition to the clips that are analyzed and have narrations tying them to the TFQE Model.
In addition, the process of taping, analyzing, editing, encoding, transcribing, synchronizing, preparing the lesson plan, and streaming the video was more time-intensive than anticipated, which increased in proportion to the increased length of each video vignette. We have learned a number of strategies for capturing high quality video and audio in classroom situations that are not staged or scripted. We have learned what equipment works best for these purposes and how to provide tips to the teachers to help them plan for the videotaping. We have also learned how to analyze the video, select portions to illustrate aspects of teaching, and edit this video. These strategies have led to improved ability to capture evidence of improved student learning through excellent teaching.
Preliminary evaluation efforts of the INTIME project show that INTIME affects the improvement of student learning. For example, data show that the INTIME project has had a positive impact on the college students whose methods professors used project materials in their classes. For instance, at one of the participating universities, 67% of the students who took the UNI Pre-service Teacher Technology Competency rubric during the first semester of implementation of INTIME resources (Spring, 2001) showed a positive change in their level of technology competency based on individual/itemized score differences between the pre- and post-test. A thorough analysis of the positive change points out the fact that most of these students improved their technology competencies from a novice level prior to their exposure to the INTIME project and its materials to an apprentice level at the end of the semester during which the project resources were used in the course.