1. Who is the instructor for these courses?
    Dr. Chad C. Osborne developed the courses. His profile is reprinted here:
    Osborne, Chad C. B.A. Yale University, 1965; M.A. Stanford University, 1966; Ed.D. University of Massachusetts, 1977.
    This is my "academic profile." At Yale, the lasting thing I learned was to find passion in the depth of subject matter--which at the time was the literary Renaissance in American writing, esp. Melville, Whitman, Dickenson, Twain, & Hawthorne. At Stanford, I learned to think creatively about teaching and teacher education. At UMass, I found connections between language study, "humanistic education," and educational innovations. I have been teaching at Worcester State since 1970, and am taking early retirement to work with several universities in California, primarily UCLA. My current interests include:
    Educating for Resiliency; Distance Learning and Web-Enhanced teaching; The "culture wars" and class struggle issues in education, including so-called Ed Reform, bilingual education, and the politics of education in Mass.; Expressive Inquiry and creative [divergent] productivity and problem solving; Charter Schools; and Spiritual and Teacher Education. I am beginning work on a Masters in Spiritual Psychology--Health, Consciousness and Healing.
    Personal: I am 59 years old, twice divorced, and married now to my high school sweetheart. I have 4 grown children including adopted Vietnamese and bi-racial children. I am Director of the Teacher Development Network, offering over 20 courses entirely on-line for recertification and professional development. Dr. [Professor of Education] Chad Osborne
  2. What am I supposed to do with all these links in the course? What are the expectations?
    The course is designed for adult style learning. If you are teaching, this means you are looking for material related to your job--your curriculum and students. The links add many voices from a variety of sources. They give you choices among a lot of resources. As you go through these, your interests and teaching situation should provide the best guidance.

    In effect, you are creating your own text Project with writings and web site listings and annotations. Your final Table of Contents also reflects this personal valuing and selection.

    A Course Project with writings and web site listings and annotations will be the material you submit when ready to complete the credit portion of this experience.

    Hopefully you will find this on-line course a resource you will want to return to and continue using as you teach. This is another reason to use the course to reviw and highlight material that interests you and fits your teaching situation, even if your present time and situation do not allow depth in all areas.