For each activity, supporting resources such as content standards, performance standards, and rubrics for student reference are provided. Students post their responses to the videos in an electronic forum. The online tests are intended to encourage students to read the text rather than to serve as graded exams. Thus, each student is given two attempts at the test, which they must take weekly. Tests are timed and made available only for about a week.
Students post reports about professional development conferences to the conference forums.
A reference section links students to important Web sites in psychology, learning, and teaching. In her class, preservice students view videoclips of teachers conducting lessons that align with specific aspects of the standards. Because of the dynamic nature of this medium, students are able to write more integrated, connected narrative assignments that address the underlying philosophy of the standards with specific regard to students' needs and teachers' roles. These are written in the preservice teachers' own words and not as restatements of what was written in the standards. Rather than being the customary recitation, their work reflects a recognition of their students' needs, promotes student interaction, defines the teacher's role as facilitator, and reports on their increasing effectiveness with manipulatives.