April 2001 — Features

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Designing and Delivering an Online Course for K-12 Educators

by Joshua D. Baron, Mercedes M. McKay

Facilitating meaningful online discussions may cause some of the most frequent problems in running online courses. In this course, the problem was mostly due to scheduling conflicts. Each week the course notes were activated on Monday mornings, and the weekly assignments and student discussions were all due the following Sunday at midnight. Early on in the course, it was discovered that most of the students didn't have much time during the week and thus were posting their assignments late in the week. This left little time for any discussions concerning these assignments to take place. In an attempt to deal with this problem, the weekly schedule was shifted slightly so that the course notes were activated on Saturday, giving students slightly more than a week to complete the assignments. Although the weekly assignments were still due Sunday night, students were allowed to continue discussing the posting until Monday night. This slight change improved the discussions somewhat, but the issue will need to be addressed even more for the next run of the course.

All of the students entered the course with at least the basic technical skills needed to use the Internet. Some were rather advanced, while others were just at the novice level. Although this did not impact their use of the materials or success in the course, it did add significantly to the amount of time that some of the students had to spend on the course. For example, one student did not touch-type, which meant that entering in her discussion postings took her almost twice as much time as it took the other students. Another skill that appeared very important was reading comprehension. Some of the students did not read carefully and as a result often did not complete assignments correctly. Also, students who came into the course with low-level computer skills didn't progress as well with the course content because, at times, their skill level interfered with the learning process. Students who had no prior experience with things such as sending attachments to e-mail or downloading PDF files found themselves overwhelmed by some of the assignments. In future runs of the course it will be important to screen students more carefully for these skills. More information about Internet Applications in Science Education can be found at http://www.k12science.org/
MGT651/.

Joshua D. Baron is manager of curriculum development and training at the Center for Improved Engineering and Science Education at Stevens Institute of Technology. During the past five years he has led a pioneering effort in the creation of Internet-based mathematics and science curriculum materials. He has played a key role in the organization and implementation of teacher professional development programs, including a national Internet-in-education teacher professional development training program. Mr. Baron is an experienced K-12 science teacher and a magna cum laude graduate from the University of Michigan with a degree in Aerospace Engineering. He is currently enrolled in a Master's degree program in Education Technology Leadership at George Washington University.

E-mail: jbaron@stevens-tech.edu

Mercedes M. McKay is senior Internet curriculum specialist at the Center for Improved Engineering and Science Education at Stevens Institute of Technology. She directs several professional development projects for K-12 teachers and is responsible for the development of Internet-based science and mathematics curriculum material. Ms. McKay graduated from Carnegie-Mellon University and has taught high school physics and mathematics. She is currently engaged in graduate studies at Stevens Institute of Technology.

E-mail: mmckay@stevens-tech.edu