I learned a lot
about myself as a teacher and as a student when writing
Principles and Practices of Effective Teaching. This was the final exam assignment
given by Dr. Michael Paulsen for EDCI 6758, College Teaching (Fall 1998). At ten
pages, it is a little long, but I feel this paper servers as a window for my committee
members to see my teacher-self. I was fortunate that while taking Dr. Paulsen’s class,
I was teaching a (my first) college level class. Documented here is the relationship
between what we studied in Dr. Paulsen’s class and my experiences teaching my
own class -- theory into practice.
Also, in the Fall of 1998 I completed a small-scale research project for Dr. Hae-
Seong Park (EDFR 6730). This report also servers as my pre-dissertation research
project. Attitudes and Use of ALNs in a University Setting: Gender Differences and
Similarities is a non-experimental research study designed to make an inference
about the attitudes and use of ALNs in a university setting. Asynchronous Learning
Networks (ALNs) are learning venues that emphasize non-concurrent
communications such as eMail, the Web, lists servers, and others. Although the
sample size was a little small to produce statistically significant results, the findings
were plausible and offered me a chance to demonstrate my ability to independently
conduct research and to report results.
My Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning Theoryis the final paper included
here. Written for Dr. Charles Gifford in the Spring of 1999. This paper’s intent is to
ground a research interest in current theory(s) with the goals of developing a
researchable question, and if appropriate, to pose new theory. I will leave it up to my
committee to decide what if any of these goals I may have touched. One comment
about this paper that I already received is that “I’ve taken too many education
classes!”Lets hope I’ve taken enough.
As a supplement to this portfolio, I included here my (all too brief) Vita. And,
the syllabus I developed and used in the class I taught (mentioned above) during the
Fall of 1998 (EDCI 4993, Computers in Education). Since I was the instructor for this
class and its curriculum designer, I felt it important to include this document in my
portfolio. The syllabus itself was a living document ... it changed every week and my
students were discouraged from ever printing a copy. The syllabus was part of a web
site I developed to use with this class. So, a web page is a living document, it is
either changing itself, or it is linked to other pages that are changing. Printing a web
page is an exercise in futility. Much of the content referenced in the syllabus is
contained in other web pages that are not included here. If you are interested, the
original web site is still available using URL:
This web page is linked to all the prior versions of the syllabus, one for each week of
class, and to many other pages including a class roster, samples of students’ work
Thank you again for this opportunity to document my progress here at UNO.
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