The Knowledge Network for Innovations in Learning and Teaching (KNILT)

Knowledge Network for Innovations in Learning and Teaching

There is a growing demand for schools to produce a citizenry with 21st century capabilities. Among these 21st century capabilities, the ability of collaborative problem solving and knowledge creation is paramount. In response to this demand, dozens of innovative learning programs have emerged, with a shared focus on engaging students as active agents of knowledge construction instead of only consumers of knowledge. Some examples include: Teaching for Understanding (Perkins & Blythe, 1994), Project-Based Science (Krajcik & Blumenfeld, 2006), Knowledge Building/Knowledge Forum (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1999), Knowledge Integration and WISE (Linn et al., 2003), etc. Technology provides strong support in the implementations of these programs.

The "Knowledge Network for Innovations in Learning and Teaching (KNILT)" project is an important part of the ETAP 623 course: Systematic Design of Instruction. Our goal is to use our knowledge of instructional design to produce a suite of professional development resources, represented as a Wiki site, that can help teachers of different levels to understand new learning approaches and environments grounded in recent research on learning and technology. Drawing on the open nature of wiki, we have a long-term goal to open these resources to broad teachers and involve them as both users and contributors. They can learn from these research-based resources and further contribute their ideas, questions, classroom design cases, experimentations, and reflections on the barriers and advances, so that they can become an important part of the innovation processes. Deep, sustainable learning innovation relies on the bottom-up innovativeness of school teachers. We may name such a role as "grassroot innovators".

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About Us

The Knowledge Network for Innovations in Learning and Teaching (KNILT) is collectively initiated and developed by members of the ETAP 623 (Systematic Design of Instruction) class at School of Education, University at Albany - SUNY. As a community, we are deeply interested in transforming and improving schools through the design and application of innovative learning environments. Click here to know more About Us.

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Important Announcements!!!!!

• HI EVERYONE. I HAVE REVIEWED THE TOPICS YOU HAVE PROPOSED AND LEFT MY COMMENTS IN THE DISCUSSION SPACE. IN ADDITION TO READING MY COMMENTS ON YOUR PAGE (go to your page, click "discussion" on the top), YOU MAY READ MY COMMENTS ON OTHERS' PAGES AS WELL.

Many of you are still thinking about your topics and I'll feedback later. Please drop me an email when you've posted your topics.

Please remember that each of the courses you're designing should help teachers (instructors) understand a new learning and teaching approach/technology and use it in their classrooms (or online). We need to make these courses simple enough so that it can be created with our limited resources and time; informative and interesting enough to help teachers re-think about important educational issues and learn something useful, so as to have an impact on their thinking and practice. We need to narrow down our focus, have enough depth, and use specific examples. --Jianwei, 2/27

• I have added several useful links under the Community portal section (see left), so that we can navigate more easily. --Jianwei 2/28

• Please check "Current events" on your left for things we need to do each week. To be able to write learning objectives for your course, you need to have a good understanding of your topic. Please remember that you're designing a course on a topic, not to do a research on it. You should find the right resources and good reviews on that topic as soon as possible, so that you can understand that topic easily and concentrate on how to design a course on it. --Jianwei 3/6

• I've written comments on the learning objectives of the following colleagues, in the discussion space. Please read theirs and think about yours. I'm sorry I don't have the capacity to comment all of your's, and will "compensate" in later weeks. Anne: Facilitating Effective Online Discourse; Valerie's Portfolio Page; Tammy's Portfolio Page; Diane Hamilton's Portfolio Page; How to develop authentic skills in vocational education for MRDD Students --Jianwei 3/10

• Please click the "watch" button on the top of your own portfolio page (and your course pages) so that you'll be informed when I or other colleagues leave comments in your discussion area. --Jianwei 3/18

Guidelines for the Project Work (NEW!)

In order to facilitate teachers’ learning, these Wiki-based mini-courses need to integrate proper instructional design components (e.g., instructional objectives, instructional sequencing, instructional strategies, media use, self-assessment and reflection, etc.), following the design processes and principles highlighted in this course. During this project, you need to create and update a portfolio wiki-page to record your design thinking. Throughout this process, you will have chances to share your design with the whole class and get feedback.

The Design Project will be evaluated based on these criteria: Evaluation criteria

Index of Courses

For existing courses, see: http://wiki.albany.edu/etap623 Go to ETAP 623

For some examples of possible topics, see Example topics.

Please add your name and course title below, with a link to your course's front page. Create this front page if you haven't done it yet. See Facilitating Effective Online Discourse as an example.

• Michelle Duncan--Using the internet for inquiry-based learning Creating a Webquest
• Anne Canale Stalnecker, Facilitating Effective Online Discourse
• Abigail Moskovits, Effective Questioning in the Classroom
• Julia Kelley, ARCS model of Motivation Design
• Tammy Clark, Using Schema Theory to Teach History
• Valerie Anwari, Creating Authentic Assessments
• Diane Hamilton, Developing Phonemic Awareness in Kindergarten Children
• Elizabeth Branca: Interactive and Collaborative Learning Environments
• bob raguette: Problem Based Curriculum Development - A Case Study[[1]]
• Susan McKinstray: Web-based inquiry Learning with Webquests