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Capstone project becomes springboard for career after graduation

Sara Schoen sporting Google Glass
Sara Schoen sporting Google Glass

A year and half before graduating with an M.A. in Multicultural College Teaching and Learning from the Department of Postsecondary Teaching and Learning, recent alum, Sara Schoen, received funding from PsTL to attend a Distance Teaching and Learning conference. This 2013 conference solidified her Capstone project concept: to build a professional development course syllabus for new or experienced instructors of online courses using Moodle, the University’s online learning platform.

As the project progressed, her work expanded into designing a full online course ambitiously titled: Supporting Online Learning with Equity Pedagogy and Chickering and Gamson’s 7 Principles of Good Practice for Undergraduate School Teaching. Framed by Arthur Chickering and Zelda Gamson’s 7 Principles and James and Cherry McGee Banks’ multicultural equity pedagogy, the objectives of Schoen’s course are to get faculty more engaged and confident about their online teaching; to increase student retention through explicit equity pedagogical practices; and to increase student success through the blending of the principles and equity pedagogy applied to specific content.

By bridging pedagogical best practices within a multicultural context and integrating them within a distance-learning platform, Schoen’s Capstone project examines ways to apply equity pedagogy across various content disciplines while maximizing technology as an effective teaching tool.

Leveraging former experiences as a high school teacher, corporate learning and development consultant and University training coordinator – a position she held while obtaining her Master’s – Schoen’s Capstone project utilized past experiences while setting the stage for her career following graduation.

The result of her Capstone project helped Schoen secure a position with the University’s Academic Technology Support Services as an instructional designer. “I’ve already used elements of my Capstone project to support faculty with development of online courses,” Schoen says. Her new role includes serving as a consultant and information resource for instructors seeking to effectively transfer course content to online and hybrid learning platforms.

This year Schoen returned to the conference to present her Capstone project in the same environment where it was first formulated. “Last year, I remember thinking ‘there are so many things I need to learn,'” Schoen reflects. “This year I realized I’d come a long way, thanks to the education and support I received from the PsTL program.”

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