Title: Courseware Description Language Program
Performer(s):
Jacqueline Haynes
Intelligent Automation, Inc.
2 Research Place, Suite 202
Rockville, MD 20850
Gary Resnick
Westat, Inc.
Rockville, MD
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Cluster: SNAIR
Contact Information:
Phone: 301-590-9414
Fax: 301-590-9414
email: jhaynes@i-a-i.com
Phone: 301-294-3846
Fax: 301-294-3928
email: resnicg1@westat.com
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1. Instructional Focus:
Content areas/topics: Independent of content or grade level.
Process skills: Self-directed learning.
2. Target Population: Teachers K-12; adult education; training.
3. Summary Description: The Courseware Description Language Program (CDLP) is a software tool to support automation of lesson planning for individual students or groups. It will allow a teacher to browse a set of on-line resources and identify those that best meet the instructional needs of an individual or group of students, including students with disabilities. The resources can be entire programs (such as the Wind Unit, a part of OLLA), other on-line resources, reinforcement activities, skill builders, pictures, or multimedia resources. The CDLP enables (1) rapid description and classification of resources; (2) user-driven search for optimal resources; and (3) individualization of resource selection for each student.
Important properties of the on-line resource, such as its content, instructional method, student skill or background requirements, and technical requirements for its use are also described and classified. The CDLP will enable teachers to assemble a variety of resources into a single lesson, so that each student may be given an individualized version of an on-line lesson, based on a student's abilities, preferences, and prior experiences. These customized lessons will especially help to support the performance of students with disabilities or other special needs such as limited English proficiency (LEP). This support will be particularly valuable in mainstream classroom settings where students will benefit from having been provided resources appropriate for their reading level, prior knowledge, Individualized Educational Program IEP goals, and learning preferences.
4. Training and Staff Development:
- Teacher prerequisite skills/knowledge needed: Requires knowledge of the format and structure of the curriculum they teach; teachers must have the ability to enter information into a computer-based form; teachers must be able to use Netscape-like interface to navigate hyper-documents.
- Student prerequisite skills needed: Students must have the ability to use Netscape-like interface to navigate hyper-documents.
- Training needed/provided: A demonstration set of materials on a lesson/topic of the teacherŐs choice, showing how the CDLP provides individualized lessons for each student will be provided; staff development on how to integrate on-line resources with existing curriculum, as well as specific instruction on the use of the CDL to describe resources, and how to use existing descriptions will be supplied.
- Technical support needed/provided: Support and training on-site, and on-line support will be maintained throughout the period of use.
5. Technological/Resources Needed: CAETI-provided infrastructure (computers, Internet access, Netscape, Microsoft Office); on-line resource collection related to curriculum.
6. Intended Outcomes:
Students: Students' experiences in using computer-based instructional resources (content-related, skill-related, or both) will be more successful, timely, appropriate and individualized. More students, including those with special needs, will be able to participate fully in classroom activities.
Teachers: Teachers will provide more individualized instruction for their students with less preparation time required, using a greater number of Internet resources.
7. Instructional Time Required: Use over a 6-month period will permit a good formative evaluation period. The CDLP would be used intermittently by teachers over this period of time, in three phases as described below.
8. Role of the Pilot Teacher(s): Develop and experimentally use CDLP-based lessons developed in conjunction with this project in three phases: 1) use for lesson planning with prepared/provided materials, 2) use to identify and integrate additional resources, and 3) student use for "individualized browsing".
9. Example(s) of the Use of this Product (Scenario): A teacher decides to teach a unit on the Solar System, lasting for approximately 3 weeks. The class is heterogeneous, including several students with learning disabilities LD who are mainstreamed, and several who are highly capable in science. One student is particularly interested in astronomy, and has already brought his own telescope into the class on several occasions. The teacher particularly likes doing "hands-on" activities in science, and typically has students working individually or in small groups. He has a library of materials on the Solar System from previous years that have been digitized and now reside on his web site.
He has already entered descriptions of his students into a "Student Descriptor" database, using the CDLP template for student descriptors (such as instructional reading level, English language proficiency, favorite subject, previous course(s) taken). He has a template for many types of students that he can select from and modify to create a personal description of each student in the class. He calls up the "Student Descriptor" on his computer to add notations to the descriptions for several students indicating that they have a high interest in this topic, or significant prior knowledge in the subject area.
He now calls up the "Curriculum Descriptor" tool. Using a simple CDLP template, for each of the resources on the Solar System included on his web site, he selects descriptors about its characteristics (such as text-graphics ratio; amount of time required; reading level, prior knowledge required). This tool attaches a CDL description to each item. He may continue the search for Solar System resources beyond his own web site, using the Curriculum Descriptor to attach CDL descriptions to them as well.
The teacher now sets his browser for a particular student profile, for either an individual student, or for a "composite" of students representing a smaller group within the class. He then browses the full set of resources, and at each hypertext link, will find a variety of resources (rather than a single one) prioritized with what the computer considers the best option first. He selects the option preferred for the student or group. He then saves this "view" of the hypertext document, and this is what the student or group uses (i.e., a hypertext document that has been customized).
Alternatively, a student can browse the same space on Solar System resources, using his/her own description, and either select the first (computer-selected) option for each hyper-link, or can view the descriptions of the other links and select one or more of them. In this way, the student does his/her own "user preference" browsing through the curricular materials relevant to the Solar System unit that are WWW-based.
