Universities, colleges and other types of learning institutions often pursue projects that initially start as non-credit bearing activities until they grow into accepted pedagogical practices and can become courses, or components of courses, or part of the college culture. These initiatives are how educational institutions transform. These are often the kinds of initiatives that make news, and often affect real change, even if that change is not readily apparent at the onset of the project. In each case, it takes multiple players to make institutional change into institutional reality.
For example, one such design is the reading program started by Alejandro Gac-Artigas featured recently on PBS here. This is instructional design, (by the way, it’s a design case, albeit a rather superficial one) teachers implemented a cooperative summer reading program with parents, a design genre that has been implemented dozens of times before (McCarthey 2000). Innovative or not, this type of attention on an in-school but out of class activity is important for gaining support and buy-in from those whose cooperation is needed to make initiatives succeed. What’s not mentioned in the video segment, but is vitally important, is the cooperative support from others at the institution. If you look closely at the PBS video segment, there are a number of indicators that this intervention is not a single-source project. The sessions happen during summer break; thus administration played a part in getting summer funding to keep doors open. There are multiple teachers teaching this curriculum, thus some other teacher volunteered to help with the teaching. There is non-junk food on the tables to keep parents and kids revved up during the activity; cafeteria staff also had a role. Before I talk about A&M Texarkana’s CATPALs, I will mention two other transformative projects that enlisted many players to transform teaching and learning at institutions where I saw this same type of in-school but out of class intervention transform the institution, in ways large and small.
Kanda University’s Self-Access Learning Centre: In 1998-99, Lucy Cooker wanted to create a space for learners that was less antiseptic, more inviting, and supportive of the motivated learner to really excel though self-paced learning. She talks about in this video. Notice she focuses on institutional support in her talk about the centre, which has now boomed to serving hundreds of learners daily from just a small 2-classroom project. Dozens of instructors supported the SALC during its fledgling years, though not all believed in the idea that a self-motivated learner could do what she was proposing. The SALC now employs several learning advisors and has transformed Kanda University from a school where learning was lock-step, to an institution that can support literally limitless language learning— in fact, several languages if a learner is so motivated. It truly transformed Kanda University in Chiba, Japan.
Indiana University’s Anti-plagiarism Test: in the early 2000’s, a number of teachers and teaching assistants at Indiana University endeavored to create a sustainable pedagogical response to help combat plagiarism. (Key members were: Theodore Frick, Elizabeth Boling, Andrew Barrett, Cesur Dagli, Rod Myers, Meltem Albayrak-Karahan, Joseph Defazio, and Noriko Matsumura). The test was supported by assistant instructors and other teachers who assigned the test, students who volunteered their skills in design, programming, or a myriad of other skills, and the university who supported the overhead. The IU anti-plagiarism tutorial (and test) now serves literally millions of students and teachers all over the world every year.
Committee for Annual Thematic Program and Lecture Series (CATPALS) is a whole-campus initiative designed to integrate multidisciplinary learning and community development at Texas A&M University – Texarakana. It has been spear-headed by Michal Perri, an Associate Professor of History. This year the theme is environmental issues and the University will be having lectures and providing reading materials to go along with the lectures. I will attend all the lectures I can. The projects started off with a free book (way to get professors on board!). You can pick up a copy of the book at Elizabeth Patterson’s office in the Student Success Center, UC330.
- Allen, W. (2012) The good food revolution. Gotham Books (254 pages)
Lecture dates will be publicly announced via the TAMUT website: Search CATPALS @ http:tamut.edu
Here is my challenge: Any student who is taking any course I am teaching can gain a 5% increase on their final grade by creating instruction to go with any lecture material covered in CATPALS. It can be an online quiz, a tutorial, a video (vlog, etc…), or any other form of mediated instruction, but the experience must be accessible remotely in order to get credit. We can host your developed material on our student work webpage. I will share the media with the CATPALS committee. This is a great opportunity to put what you learn in Instructional technology to good use, become a part of the Texas A&M larger community of learners, and create a portfolio item which just could be that missing link that takes you from being a job applicant to an employed instructional designer.
References:
McCarthey, S. J. (2000). Home–school connections: A review of the literature. The Journal of Educational Research, 93(3), 145-153.
craig dennis howard 
Really thrilled to read your piece that puts A&M-Texarkana’s annual theme and common reader in a larger pedagogical context. I think what the faculty are doing at the university is hugely important and very exciting!
Emily Cutrer