Student Assessment Workshops for Secondary and Tertiary Education
The Project has offered Course and Student Assessment courses since the year 2000. Prof. Zoila Barreiro, a Project Specialist with an MS in Education and 25 years of experience in teaching, has provided these workshops, including construction and use of Rubrics, culture and language aspects of education to "minority" student populations and other related topics, in the following institutions:
* Universidad de Chapultepec, Ciudad de Mexico (2000) * Universidad Veracruzana, Xalapa, Veracruz (2000) * Universidad Veracruzana, Xalapa, Veracruz (2003) * Universidad Catolica de Santo Domingo, Rep. Dom. (2004) * Escuelas Secundarias, Quito, Ecuador (2006) * EXPOL, Guayaquil, Ecuador (2008)
Interested organizations in organizing such courses should get in contact with Prof. Barreiro through the JLM Project.
Course Administration Workshop Description,
The ever-growing number of technologies that educators can include in their teaching arsenal creates a new problem: how to survive the infusion of curriculum technology. Our programs have offered workshops precisely on how to administer a course while technology is being infused. This is a very important issue since, if not administered correctly, the effort of technology infusion will backfire on the faculty who undertakes it. Burned by such negative experience, faculty will renege from further technology infusion effort.
This will then become a negative example for other faculty. If, on the contrary, classroom administration tools fostering technology infusion success are provided, these examples will encourage others to follow suit. Class administration techniques to support new technology infusion is what these workshops have provided, with the added ingredient that I shared my actual classroom preparations, computer files and material, as practical examples and living proof (not just theor wetical ussion) that well administered technology infusion can be actually implemented.
The workshops (five days, two days or one day) consist of one day on theoretical principles and the rest of the time, of practical work. The practical component of the workshops includes using computer software (Minitab and GPSS) in curriculum preparation and presentation, followed by implementation and discussion.
Finding Workshop Program Resources
A timely US Department of State Grant has allowed the Juarez Project to launch this new Service: faculty development to provincial and less endowed higher education institutions that cannot easily obtain such services elsewhere. Some faculty would not consider such types of institutions in their working plans. In addition, their lack of Spanish and the lack of English language ability among many Mexican faculty would signinficantly reduce their contribution. For the Lincoln-Juarez-Marti Project, the above two negative factors are non-issues. We are totally bilingual and are willing and able to reach such provincial institutions.
The Project has been very fortunate to work with the best teaching and research institutions in Mexico (e.g. ITAM, ITESM, Anahuac, UDLA, UNAM, CIMAT, IMTA). This says something about the quality and seriousness of its offerings. But it has also been very fortunate to share its experiences with smaller, less endowed private and public provincial institutions (UAT-Tampico, Universidad Hispanoamericana, Chapultepec, U. de Guadalajara, U. Veracruzana, etc.). We have no problem working with either group of universities.
So far, the Programs has worked in the following way:
We pair in each trip at least one large institution with one smaller one. The larger one supports our travel expenses and, once in Mexico, we can also teach a shorter workshop in the smaller one, thus covering our air travel expenses. This solves a common problem: that smaller, less endowed institutions often are not able to offer the foreign instructor an adequate stipend. Hence, they often just stop short from making foreign faculty an offer at all.
Since the Project does not charge a stipend for its workshops, this problem disappears. The receiving Institutions provide a contribution that goes toward paying air transportation. This also resolves the second problem: that faculty and Institution may feel that this amount of money being too small, may be interpreted as a sign of low quality of work or of poor value. Such issue has, in the past, inhibited many Institutions from making an offer (that is too low for services rendered) and foreign faculty from accepting them (for it may reflect poorly on their work).
When the air transportation is covered (the prime objective is making the program self sustaining, in order to keep it running) then the Mexican institution contribution may also be used toward paying for travel expenses for one of their own faculty, to attend the CIT Conference, the following year.
There are three elements that this Project has to coordinate in order to continue functioning: (1) time availability, (2) family concerns and (3) institution availability. We need free time (from our regular activities) to develop these workshops. So far, such times has come from IITRI vacation policy (my employer). Instructors have taken such time on their own.
Then, there are family concerns. It is hard to separate from family. The first workshops were taught during the regular school year. Spouses and family, had to stay alone at home. This adds to the burden of the Instructor, who is already commiting time and effort. Hence, the Project will look for opportunities where family can accompany the Instructors as well as contribute on their own (often spouses are also professionals and instructors and have expertise of interest in their own areas of work).
Finally, workshop timing should be such that Mexican institution faculty is not on vacation, exam, nor on any other period when they cannot attend such workshop. In most cases, this precludes the months of July and January -even though it differs by institution.
Scheduling workshop times that conjugate these three key interests, poses a challenging but important project management problem that must be met for this effort to permanently succeed, as we would all like. However large these challenges result, the bottom line is that the Juarez-Lincoln-Marti Project has launched this new faculty development program. And that it is here to stay and to succeed. There are several other Institutions, at this time, in our waiting list, where future workshops will be taught. As our time permits, we will serve them too, in a not distant future.
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INFORMATION ABOUT ERIC CLEARINGHOUSES
ERICs: Educational Research Information Centers: Son centros de documentacion electronicos del Dpto de Educacion de EE.UU. Tienen gran cantidad de materiales utiles (en ingles) sobre muchos temas educativos (cada centro esta dedicato a un tipo especial de problema educativo). La lista de centros puede accederse a traves del Web Site: Ericks: www.accesseric.org/index.html El Dpto (Secretaria) de Educacion Federal americano tiene un Centro de Estadisticas Educacionales (NCES o National Center for Education Statistics). Este centro tambien tiene gran cantidad de material educativo (en ingles) de utilidad e interes, asi como estadisticas y reportes. Los materiales son accesibles a traves de la Red, con el URL": NCS: nces.ed.gov La Secretaria (o Dpto) de Educacion Federal americano tambien tiene su Pagina en la Red. Esta, tambien tiene mucha informacion de Interes (en ingles) que puede ser accedida a traves de su direccion Internet: DptEd: www.ed.gov Un Ejemplo del material que encontraran en estos centros de documentacion, aparece abajo. ============================================================ _________________________________________________________________ * What is ERIC? * What kinds of materials are in the ERIC database? * Where can I do a search of ERIC? * How do I submit materials to ERIC? * How can I get full text of documents and journal articles found in ERIC? * What other clearinghouses are there? * Where can I take a class or find a college program? * Where can I find information on finding a job? * What certification/license do I need to work in my area of interest? _________________________________________________________________ What is ERIC? The Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) is a national educational information network sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education (http://www.ed.gov/), Office of Education Research and Improvement. Part of the National Library of Education (http://www.ed.gov/NLE/), ERIC was designed to make education-related literature accessible to all. The ERIC system consists of 16 subject-specific Clearinghouses, several adjunct Clearinghouses, and support components http://www.aspensys.com/eric/sites/barak.html. Each Clearinghouse identifies, acquires, selects, and processes documents and journal literature to be added to the ERIC database, the largest, most comprehensive education database in the world. In addition, Clearinghouses produce major publications and a variety of user products. Major publications are monographs on a variety of subjects related to the Clearinghouses' scope areas. User products include ERIC Digests, two-page discussions of a topic based on the literature in the database; bibliographies; newsletters; and other types of publications http://www.aspensys.com/eric/resources/allabout/index.html What kinds of materials are in the ERIC database? ERIC contains research reports, curriculum materials, project descriptions, conference proceedings and presentations, JOURNAL ARTICLES and other hard-to-find education-related materials. Where can I do a search of ERIC? Universities provide access to ERIC through their website or library. You can also do ERIC searches on several locations on the World Wide Web http://www.aspensys.com/eric/searchdb/dbchart.html. How do I submit materials to ERIC? Information about submitting materials to ERIC and a copy of the Reproduction Release form are available on the ERIC/ACVE wensite. http://ericacve.org/submit.htm How can I get full text of documents and journal articles found in ERIC? The ERIC Document Reproduction Service provides full-text copies of ERIC Documents (Eds) in microfiche, paper, and electronic form. (Link) Journal articles are available from several article reprint services. http://edrs.com/ What other clearinghouses are there? A complete list of ERIC Clearinghouses, Adjunct ERIC Clearinghouses, and ERIC support components can be found through the ACCESS ERIC website. http://www.aspensys.com/eric/sites/barak.html#3 Non-ERIC Where can I take a class or find a college program? Public libraries have directories of courses and programs offered in high schools, community colleges, technical schools, and universities. They will also have information about the courses available in your community. Websites that include this information are Peterson's http://www.petersons.com/, the College Board http://www.collegeboard.com/, CollegeNet http://collegenet.com/, and Overview of Vocational Schools, Colleges, and Universities http://www.overview.com/colleges/ Where can I find information on finding a job? Public libraries typically have job/career information centers that include a variety of materials related to the job search. It will include interest inventories, sample resumes, interview tips, and information about available jobs. Websites of interest include the Occupational Outlook Handbook http://stats.bls.gov/ocohome.htm, America's Job Bank http://ajb.dni.us/. There are a number of ERIC/ACVE Digests that also have job-related information including WIRED: The Electronic Job Search and Job Search Skills for the Current Economy. What certification/license do I need to work in my area of interest? The Occupational Outlook Handbook http://stats.bls.gov/ocohome.htm provides information about hundreds of occupations. It includes detailed information about the nature of the work, working conditions, training and other qualifications required, job outlook, and sources of additional information. _________________________________________________________________ ERIC Clearinghouse on Adult, Career, and Vocational Education Center on Education and Training for Employment College of Education The Ohio State University 1900 Kenny Road Columbus OH 43210-1090 614/292-7069; 800/848-4815 ext 2-7069; FAX: 614/292-1260 TTY/TDD: 614/688-8734 ericacve@postbox.acs.ohio-state.edu