NOTE: Since this is an online course, you will have to give extra diligence to carefully reading all instructions.

Call me at 816-271-4332 if you need to talk with me about the course. This is Janice's number and she can always find me.

Although you can email me at my university account (porr@missouriwestern.edu), I check my personal account on into the evening--feel free to use it also (porr@stjoelive.com).

Introduction: This first course of the Masters in Applied Science in Assessment has three primary objectives:

1.  to ease you into the practice of deconstructing challenging texts (figuring out what the hard reading means). Reading professional text is an understood skill that one acquires in advanced degrees and is mostly a matter of applying oneself and not giving up until understanding comes.

2.  to get you thinking about the big idea of CHANGE. We'll do this by looking in a limited way at the change that technology has brought to teaching, learning, and society in general. We'll also draw upon The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn to engage the big idea of a paradigm, how a paradigm gets established, and how one might go about challenging a ruling paradigm.

3.  to equip you with a powerful technology tool (PBWorks) t

o help you easily and quickly create and edit your own web pages to serve as launching platforms for multimedia curricula and to facilitate collaboration. You can draw upon these skills in your current teaching position and throughout the coursework of the Masters degree.

This is an online course. However, I plan on working with you to provide face-to-face help at least one time per week if you find you need help (entirely optional). Since you will each be added to this site as a writer, you can go to the following collaboration page and help me figure out the best time to be available to you on campus.

Don't overlook the collaboration page.

Week One projects and assignments are below. I'll add the next week's work each Sunday.

Week One

Check out the "Links" in the Sidebar and spend some time reviewing many of them--no assignment, just fun!

Week Two

Week Three

Week Four

If you need help, I can be available on Wednesday at 4:30 but will only stay if at least one of you has called back to Janice at 271-4332 to let her know to create the appointment.