Principles of a TRAILS Course

TRAILS course principles are closely allied to methodologies of constructivist learning and project-based learning. TRAILS courses aim to provide learners with authentic challenges and the opportunity to produce work that can be used in real classrooms.

Design Process

Iterative. Design and development of TRAILS products is an iterative cycle that of specification of educational and other outcomes, creation of testable prototypes, collection of feedback, and revision.

Communicative. University students should learn to communicate their ideas (intended outcomes) explicitly to others. Students should reflect on feedback and communicate their analysis.

Group Oriented. Groups of university students work together on projects. TRAILS provides resources for teachers and students to help groups interact effectively in accomplishing their tasks.

Multidisciplinary. Project development involves interaction between the disciplines of education and information technology. This may take the form of multidisciplinary project teams, or more homogenous teams who consult with or observe those outside their discipline.

Cumulative. University instructors should contribute back to the TRAILS resource network by evolving instructional materials and contributing to case libraries. Exemplary projects should be packaged and contributed as seeds for future courses.

EdSoft Products

K-12 Education Focused. TRAILS student projects benefit K-12 students, teachers, or parents.

Complex. Projects are non-trivial, open-ended design problems. University instructors should give students the latitude to discover the knowledge and resources they need. TRAILS provides central resources and guidance on where to find answers.

Complete. An effective TRAILS "curriculet" consists of a constellation of parts — software, activities, connections to standards, and assessment materials. Even if students cannot produce all of these parts during a single TRAILS course, they should be able to characterize the complete bundle.

Testable. University students should generate products in such a form that K-12 users can offer feedback. Iteration of products should show increasing "fitness" for use in authentic K-12 educational environments.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0205625. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.