A professor and a graduate student from the Faculty of Education received an award of excellence for an online graduate course that they designed and developed.
The EDU 5199 Synthesis Seminar, created by Colla MacDonald and Terrie Lynn Thompson with a grant from the University, was one of five winning entries in WebCT’s fifth annual Exemplary Course Project for Excellence. Nearly one hundred submissions were reviewed for the international competition.
WebCT is the world’s leading provider of integrated e-learning systems for higher education. More than 2,200 colleges and universities worldwide use its products.
As the tenth and final course taken in the Master in Education program, the winning seminar’s content is primarily driven and created by learners. “Learners reflect on their professional development throughout the program and demonstrate that they can apply new learning by drawing upon what they’ve learned in their previous nine courses and writing a research paper on a topic that relates to issues they face in their workplace,” MacDonald said.
The course is taken entirely online with the exception of an optional orientation class.
MacDonald and post-doctoral fellow, Emma Stodel, have developed another online research methods course for the Master in Education program that they intend to submit for the 2005 WebCT competition. They are working on a third course for the Bachelor of Education program.
