April 2001 — Features

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Designing and Delivering an Online Course for K-12 Educators

by Joshua D. Baron, Mercedes M. McKay

  • Problem Solving Scenarios : Students were presented with realistic scenarios describing classroom environments and traditional science lessons. They were then asked to integrate "unique and compelling" Internet applications into these scenarios, as they might need to do in their own classrooms.
  • Case Studies : Students were provided with in-depth case studies written by actual classroom teachers who had engaged in a range of Internet-based projects.
  • Simulated Classroom Exercises : Students were asked to participate in several Internet-based projects as if they were K-12 students using them in the classroom.
  • Critical Reviews : Students had to review several major research reports and papers and then critique them based on what they had learned.
  • Project Management Plans : As a culminating project, students were asked to develop a very detailed plan for implementing an Internet-based project in their own classrooms.

A Web-based discussion area was used to facilitate both peer-to-peer collaboration and instructor feedback. Weekly assignments were posted to the discussion area, and students were asked to discuss each other's postings throughout the week. The instructor would review the postings two times per week and supply feedback and comments to the students. This feedback process allowed the instructor to guide the discussion so as to focus the students' attention on the central themes and issues of the course. This is in sharp contrast to the instructor's traditional role in face-to-face courses, whereby he or she broadcasts knowledge to students, rather than guiding them through the learning process.

E-mail was used extensively by the course grader to supply private comments and detailed feedback to the students on their course assignments. This was done on a weekly basis in order to supply timely responses to each student on the work he or she had just completed. This was a time-intensive undertaking but had a very positive impact on the students and on their achievement in the course. The instructor also used e-mail to introduce the course topics each week, answer student questions, and alert users to technical problems when they arose.

The course was broken down into 15 weekly sessions that began on Monday and ended on Sunday. There were two or three assignments per week that were generally designed to reinforce the concepts that were introduced that week. Most of these assignments required students to interact with their peers, and formed the basis for class participation. Besides these, there were three short opinion papers required. These generally involved either a problem solving scenario, case study or critical analysis. The final project was the development of a Project Management Plan (PMP) that detailed how students would implement an existing "unique and compelling" Internet-based project in their own classrooms. This final project required that they utilize all of the skills and knowledge they had learned throughout the course, and was designed so that they would leave the program with everything they needed to be successful back in their own environment. The PMP was used as both a final assessment and a final learning activity, and replaced the need for a traditional final exam.