Education Alumni Support Project (EdASP): Progress Report

Abstract

The Education Alumni Support Project provides online support for UNE graduand beginning teachers. In late November 2004 we were invited to rework the HEIP project application to suit the changed timeframe. The original timeframe can be seen in Appendix 1. Our modified proposal met HEIP requirements. We are grateful to DEST colleagues, especially Mr Paul Pfluger, for swiftly assisting us in getting the formalities of the project cleared. UNE staff also assisted us greatly in the demanding process of establishing the web environment shells and the associated log on requirements for graduands. We quickly determined that the projected trials could not take place (and hence baseline data as originally planned could not be obtained). A key decision was that the project had to be ready for the first day of school in 2005. We successfully achieved that objective. Much of the preparatory work set out prior to Monday 17 January 2005 was concertinaed into the December/January period. In short, major milestones we have achieved to date are: 1. Re-worked the outcomes and budget consistent with the thrust of the project and timeframes allowed; 2. Mailed recent graduates (twice); 3. Created a WebCT environment for primary beginning teacher online mentoring (a major task); 4. Created a WebCT environment for secondary beginning teacher online mentoring (a major task); 5. Created related resource web pages; 6. Gained UNE Human Research Ethics approval; 7. Achieved participation by six additional academics covering different areas for online support (the research participants/facilitators); 8. Went ‘public’ on 17th January 2005, just before schools in NSW began; 9. Guided and facilitated online discussions responding to neophyte teachers’ needs at least weekly or more often if discussion activity demanded; 10. Developed a preliminary literature review to guide conceptualisation and action research of the project; and Education Alumni Support Project Progress Report 3 11. Conducted semi-regular EdASP team meetings to consider the direction and needs of the online discussion and collaborate on project development issues. The remainder of this progress report provides some detail, where appropriate, of the above outcomes together with an indication of early results.