April 2001 — Features
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Designing and Delivering an Online Course for K-12 Educators
The Learning Experience Through the Students' Eyes
All of the students felt that the course was paced appropriately, and most felt that the level of difficulty of the course was what they had expected. On average, most devoted nine to 12 hours per week to the course, which included reading through the course notes, exploring linked examples, writing up assignments, and posting comments on others' work on the class bulletin board. Since the class notes provided by the instructor were the primary means for introducing a new topic each week, they tended to be fairly extensive, with numerous imbedded links that students could follow for further clarification. As mentioned previously, the lectures were designed for a wide range of student abilities and experiences, so links to additional examples and material provided novice learners with the background necessary for the lecture. It was up to each student to decide what to read and explore and what to skip. Early in the course, some students found themselves spending quite a bit of time on each week's reading and assignments because they were exploring every link. It quickly became apparent to those students that they needed to decide from the start what to focus on and what to skip in each week's lesson. Having such a wealth of information just one click away can easily result in anyone spending more time than necessary on an assignment. Some students remarked that they felt the course workload was greater than in other graduate courses they had taken, although some admitted that their perception might be influenced by the amount of "exploring" they chose to do each week.
Some of the students were new to using any type of bulletin board forum. Despite having initial practice postings at the beginning of the course, it took a while for some students to become comfortable using the board. One of the more Internet-experienced students remarked that he felt that there were very few spontaneous remarks made by the group members. Although face-to-face meetings are not always practical in a distance learning class, this student also thought that exchanges on the bulletin board would have been livelier and more spontaneous had members of the group met once or twice informally.
The bulletin board was, however, the only means students had for getting to know each other. Students were asked to read and comment on other students' completed assignments that were posted to the class bulletin board. The responses were required and part of the class participation grade. It was hoped that these required responses would lead to additional dialogue among the students. At the conclusion of the course some students felt like they got to know their classmates fairly well, but others felt isolated. Despite some students' efforts to jump-start a dialogue, there were other students who just didn't feel comfortable with this means of communication. They would have preferred to engage in a discussion with real people sitting next to them.
Although all of the students in this course indicated that the course notes, discussion area, and e-mail exchanges with the instructor and grader were helpful to their learning experience, they felt that they learned the material best through:
