Creating a Quality Online Masters Program by G . Donald

The details of the inception, development, and implementation for an online masters of mathematics degree, primarily for K-12 mathematics teachers are given. While the program is not yet complete, insofar as all of the courses having being written and taught, we know at this point enough information to begin a process of reflection and refinement about the creation, administration, and operation of such a program. We have as well a good profile of the typical student. The Masters Degree Program This paper will develop a sketch of the current completely online masters of mathematics program as developed at Texas A&M University. This program has been under continuous development for the past two years. Though online masters degrees have been emerging by the score on a weekly basis, no other online masters of mathematics degree other than this one seem to be available. Its developers have extensive experience in the creation and operation of online courses, mostly at the undergraduate level. This paper addresses a number of issues of programmatic development, many of which involve the issues of quality, in its many forms. We discuss program administration, course services, content matters, measuring student performance, admission of students, measurement of student performance, and faculty recruitment. Ranging from technical to traditional to political, each aspect of the program requires careful attention. The clients of the program, that is the students, are almost without exception fully engaged in another life. Applying one’s perception of and knowledge about traditional graduate student behavior, skills, and experience is not valid in this venue. For example, when teaching a traditional graduate course in mathematics, it is natural to assume that each of the students has satisfied the course requirements in the recent past. With the online program, course requirements may have been taken twenty years earlier. As can be expected this does create teaching challenges. Program Inception The masters of mathematics degree program originated from the response to an RFP from the Provost of Texas A&M University issued in the spring 1999 term. Our proposal was directed at one of the most critical educational needs of our day, the mathematical preparedness of our mathematics teachers. The opening paragraph of the proposal, cited below, could well apply to any state. Creating a quality online masters degree program 2 With current State of Texas mandates to offer more AP level courses, the educational needs and demands on the teaching faculty of State high schools are greater than ever before. These and state requirements for CEU’s (Continuing Education Units) give a ready market of potential students for a distance master’s level program in mathematics education that in numbers alone exceeds almost every other potential distance masters program. That this program already exists in traditional format and has graduated about six students/year serves to establish that it already enjoys a credible market. The facts that Texas is the largest producer of secondary school teachers in the United States and that Texas A&M is the largest producer of mathematics teachers in Texas make it natural, and even expected, that Texas A&M should provide leadership in innovative distance education programs for teachers. ... the individuals who complete this program not only will have received education at a distance, but will know how to use the technology and to