CCTE - Delivering A Highly Efficient and Sustainable Online Teacher Training Program

Organization: California Council on Teacher Education (CCTE)

Website: https://www.ccte.org/

Product Used: CN LMS Suite

User Size: 200 program managers and over 7,000 learners

About CCTE

California Council on Teacher Education (CCTE) is one of the leading and most comprehensive organizations dedicated to educator preparation in the state of California. With a proud representation of nearly every teacher preparation program in the region, CCTE serves as a vital hub for individuals invested in the continuous development of education. As the California affiliate of esteemed organizations such as the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) and the Association of Teacher Educators (ATE), CCTE stands at the forefront of educational innovation and progress. In addition to their core affiliations, CCTE collaborates closely with associated organizations like the Association of Independent California Colleges & Universities, the California Alliance for Inclusive Schooling, and the Southern California Professional Development Schools, among others.

Through their collective expertise, dedication, and partnerships, CCTE strives to foster teacher development, growth opportunities, and impactful learning experiences. Their members include deans, higher education faculty, TK-12 teachers and teacher associations, induction leaders, CTC affiliates, graduate students, field coordinators, policy advocates, district administrators, county office of education representatives, and educational consultants, all united by a shared commitment to enhancing education at every level.

The Journey to Become a CN Licensee

CCTE began using the CN Classic LMS in 2018. They started with the free version of the platform to deliver an eight-hour, asynchronous PD training to mentor teachers through their Intersegmental Project. This PD course was designed to help mentor teachers meet the requirements of new standards for educator preparation. Learners were able to carry the eight hours they completed into other teacher preparation programs they were a part of.

Over the years, as the Intersegmental Project PD course was leveraged more by institutions in California and nationwide, a set of new needs emerged:

  • CCTE admin to be able to effortlessly duplicate the template course for each participating institution, and manage all of these courses.
  • Participating institutions to be able to adapt the content and enroll as many learners as needed.
  • A digital certificate to be automatically issued upon course completion.
  • CCTE users to receive targeted support from the CN helpdesk.

To address these needs, CCTE decided to become a CN licensee at the beginning of 2020. The CN technical team quickly and successfully migrated all their existing courses into the CCTE’s CN Channel (i.e., institution admin portal). The CN team also provided tailored training and implementation consultation to CCTE leaders, offering practical suggestions on how to efficiently manage a large number of courses and users. The CN pedagogy expert also introduced the upcoming Pathway LMS, which was specifically designed for self-paced online learning. The conversation ignited ideas of redesigning the curriculum around the new LMS framework to streamline and enhance learners’ experience.

Following the rolling out of the Pathway LMS in the summer of 2020, CCTE launched its enhanced Intersegmental Project course in the new LMS format. The course consists of three modules: coaching adult learners, content-specific pedagogy, and instructional practices. Each module covers trending topics such as technology integration, Universal Design for Learning, and social-emotional learning. Interactive discussions and real-world application assignments were integrated to prompt learners to reflect on and share their understanding. The CN Pathway LMS structure has helped CCTE learners easily track their progress and upon completing the entire course, they earn a digital certificate, which is proof of their participation in the teacher preparation program.

Outcomes

As of today, CCTE has distributed its mentor teacher PD via CN to 250 participating institutions and over 7,000 learners. These participating institutions were able to efficiently manage their course site and learners, access learning analytics, and make necessary adaptations. Many distributed courses achieved high completion rates for the entire course or for individual modules.

CCTE users and staff rarely need assistance from the CN team, but when they do, they consistently receive swift and high-quality assistance. CCTE has rated the responsiveness and helpfulness of the CN customer support as a 5 out of a five-star scale. Christine Lam, who serves as the CN admin at CCTE commented, “The support has been wonderful and has always gone above and beyond to help me and the learners to understand not only what the issue was but also to provide a solution for the issue”. She shared a specific experience:

A few months ago I was trying to disable courses from previous years. I had to go into each course to disable the course. After talking to the CN team, a few days later, they let me know that the disabling of courses was available in the admin portal for course management. This made the task of disabling hundreds of previous courses much easier.

When it comes to the return on investment, CCTE is pleased with the cost-effectiveness of the CN platform. They shared that since CCTE is run mostly by volunteers, and teachers are giving their time to complete the courses, the affordability of the platform has been instrumental in allowing CCTE to offer its courses to many institutions throughout California.

The support has been wonderful and has always gone above and beyond to help me and the learners to understand not only what the issue was but also to provide a solution for the issue

Christine Lam

This is a smaller profile picture next to Christine’s quote.

CCTE: A Model for Other Organizations

CCTE represents the use case of an organization offering online professional development training to large numbers of learners from various participating institutions. In this model, the curriculum provider (like CCTE) obtains a CN LMS license to manage the duplication and distribution of their courses. Whereas each participating institution obtains autonomy and controls to manage its own course site and learners.

Besides the course and management model, what other learning organizations could learn from CCTE is their diligent selection and application of technology features: First, using the Pathway LMS to help asynchronous learners track their progress; second, recognizing learners’ accomplishments with automated certificates or badges; third, using built-in reflection, application activities, and feedback polls to engage learners and drive learning outcomes.

CCTE recommends the CN LMS to other organizations because of the wide range of technology features and the excellent support it offers. The partnership between CN and CCTE has enabled continuous improvements of the learning platform, which in turn, has propelled the mission of CCTE as a leading educator preparation organization.

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