Vignettes: Their design and purpose

The vignettes that follow are descriptions of online lessons from mathematics teacher educators that follow a backwards design plus (Dean, 2019) model suggested to be used when unpacking an online lesson. Backwards design is organized with the learning objectives for a lesson first, followed by determining assessments targeting the lesson objectives, and finishing with planning the learning experiences/instruction. With the “plus” feature Dean (2019) highlights:

“when making decisions about assessments and instructional tasks, the instructor must take into account whether the assessment evidences and learning episodes will be face-to-face, online, or some combination of the two. The instructional context must be considered when designing instruction. This context influences how assessment methods, whether performance based or more traditional, are interpreted, implemented, and enacted by the students.”

In addition to lesson detail reflecting the backward design plus model, the vignette authors provide the screens/slides that the students see during the actual online lesson. This is to give the reader an idea of what the lesson “looks like” when presented to the students. There are also arrows on the page that if clicked will provide the reader with further commentary from the vignette author that highlights their thinking behind the development of the online lesson. The commentary also notes which mathematics teaching practices (NCTM, 2014), standards for preparing teachers of mathematics (AMTE, 2017), and Quality Matters standards for online teaching (QM, 2018) the author believes are addressed in the online lesson.

The purpose of the vignettes is to help novice and experienced instructors of online mathematics teacher education courses think more deeply about developing lessons that are meaningful and engaging for their students. It takes time to craft these lessons, and the process engages mathematics teacher educators in rethinking and improving their teaching practice.

Vignettes Available

• Algebraic and Geometric Thinking (Stephen Pape, Johns Hopkins University)

• Bridging Online and Face-to-Face Instruction (Chrystal Dean, Appalachian State University)

References

Association for Mathematics Teacher Educators (AMTE). (2017). Standards for Preparing Teachers of Mathematics. AMTE.

Dean, C. (2019, November). Backward Design Plus: Taking the Learning Context into Consideration. In E-Learn: World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education (pp. 1345-1348). Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE).

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). (2014). Principles to actions: Ensuring mathematical success for all. NCTM, Reston, VA.

Standards from the Quality Matters Higher Education Rubric, 6th Edition. (Quality Matters. (2018). Retrieved from

• https://www.qualitymatters.org/qa-resources/rubric-standards

• ttps://www.qualitymatters.org/sites/default/files/PDFs/StandardsfromtheQMHigherEducationRubric.pdf