March 1998 — Features
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Addressing Student Needs: Teaching on the Internet
Importance of Technical Staff
For online courses to be effective, it is important for there to be competent and responsive technical staff to assist the instructor, especially if he or she is new at delivering online instruction. There are numerous procedures and tricks to increase efficiency. The technical staff members are very adept at performing magic, and this can be extremely useful to the instructor.
It is not necessary for the instructor to learn HTML. However, it is important to know how to "copy and paste" and transfer a document from a word processor to e-mail for transmission. The first time an instructor conducts an Internet-based course a number of thoughtful questions will be generated for the technical staff.
One major requirement for technical staff members is that they be good teachers themselves. It is counterproductive for staff members to try to impress their instructors with their level of computer knowledge because this usually leads to increased confusion. Answers must be kept simple without a multitude of options. A supportive team concept needs to evolve.
The problem commonly associated with traditional distance education is the lack of opportunity for collaborative work, debate, dialogue and conversational learning.[3] This point needs to be kept in mind in the basic design of a course so that a variety of learning activities may be built in. The course designers, and other faculty members who have taught online courses, can be of immense help. There is no substitute for experience in this endeavor.
Once a course is being conducted, students must stay on-track and up to date. Since there are no weekly classes to attend on campus with fellow students, out of sight can quickly turn into out of mind. Therefore, weekly quizzes are useful learning tools. During the semester, a quiz was posted each week on the reading assignments, and students were asked to respond by a specific date. If an answer was incorrect, I communicated with the student by e-mail, and the student was asked to respond with the correct answer. If it was still incorrect, I referred the student to the appropriate section of the course materials, and then assigned the grade.
It was important to respond to students as quickly as possible, and I tried to provide feedback within 24 hours from receipt of quiz answers. Occasionally, lessons were e-mailed to expand upon the readings, or a provocative question was posted in the Course Forum to elicit student thought, analysis and reaction. These activities were very useful in the learning process. Students must be challenged to use their higher cognitive skills to research, solve problems and inquire about their answers to course materials and posted questions.[4]
The Course Forum was also used by students in the course to raise questions on current events, course materials or Internet findings so that everyone had an opportunity to expand their levels of knowledge. The Forum was a part of the course materials where students and I could post questions and seek answers to items of course content. Internet searches were used to respond to research topics, and for the papers that had to be written as part of the course requirements.
