The Key to Effective Internet Instruction

Sally Kuhlenschmidt & Lois Layne

presented May 21, 2001, Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education Faculty Development Conference

The Internet isn't a broadcast medium. It's a conversation. --John Perry Barlow

(Audience contributions can be found at the end of the presentation summary.)

Terminology for this presentation:

Interaction or Interactivity refers to

• Human to human interaction, including by telephone, Internet or other technology
• Not just a software program that responds to student input.
• It may be a supplement to a course or the basis for the whole course.

Objectives of presentation (reflect Bloom's Taxonomy)

1. Discuss what is new and different
2. Discover the advantages of interaction
3. List sample interaction modalities and activities
4. Outline the steps in designing interaction
5. Adapt class activities for the Internet
6. Share and discuss activities so developed.

This is a starting point, not the final word.

Functions of Interaction

• Supports best practices
• Provides motivation for learning
• Education: can utilize students as sources of information and experience
• Learning appropriate student or professional behavior and roles
• Student networking

Begin by stating your objectives and noting how interaction can help with each using

Bloom's Taxonomy. To refresh your memory the taxonomy is:

1. Knowledge
2. Comprehension
3. Application
4. Analysis
5. Synthesis
6. Evaluation

What is new and different about on-line instruction/interaction?

• The technical requirements must be considered-- can the student's equipment handle the interaction you require?
• The emphasis is on the student learning, not on what the teacher is doing.
• The target population of on-line instruction is the nontraditional/adult learner who comes with expectations different from the traditional student.
• The role of the teacher shifts to be more of a facilitator, evoker or catalyst. The student becomes more responsible and, because they are often nontraditional adult learners, bring their life experiences to enrich the class.
• The instructor can now choose between synchronicity and asynchronicity for class interaction-- and asynchronicity is generally the better choice given the target population.
• There are guidelines against which we'll be measured...

Interaction Modalities.

Your options for interaction include

1. The telephone, fax, and face-to-face if convenient. Faculty sometimes forget that these remain options when you move on-line.
2. E-mail and mailing lists. Advantage is immediacy and it comes to the student. Disadvantage is the instructor and the students can get overwhelmed with e-mail.
3. Discussion boards (aka Forum aka newsgroups)-- permits asynchronous, more thoughtful responses to discussion, at any time of day/night, allows you to easily track student contributions. What most on-line instructors use.
4. Chatrooms-- Synchronous (everyone has to be present at the same time). Hard to schedule and with more than 5 people can end up being more confusing than helpful. Some find it effective for particular populations or purposes, such as a study session before an exam. Practice your style in a nonprofessional setting to smooth out your "on-line personality."
5. MUDs, MOOs: These are text based virtual environments. They are chat in a described environment. It is analogous to reading a story in which all the characters are actual people who generate the dialogue. Requires greater comfort with technology but may be very useful for extensive role-play activities.

Seven Principles of Good Practice (Chickering & Gamson)

1. Encourages contact between students and faculty-- such as use of e-mail, telephone, even face-to-face if convenient
2. Develops reciprocity and cooperation among students-- using the e-mail round robin (see below) or group activities
3. Encourages active learning -- such as WebQuests or Case studies for group discussion.
4. Gives prompt feedback-- possible with e-mail, chat, or even by how on-line practice tests are set up.
5. Emphasizes time on task-- structure of the grading system and points for discussion can encourage this.
6. Communicates high expectations-- Again, the grading system and types of tasks assigned....however, it is easy to overwhelm the student in this environment and it is best to start small.
7. Respects diverse talents and ways of learning-- incorporated in the tone of your replies and how you involve and accept contributions from all students.

Chickering, A. & Gamson, Z. (No date). Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education. [Online]. Available: http://www.hcc.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/7princip.htm [2001, May 17].

Examples of Activities mentioned above

• E-mail round robin- Example, in a language class, one student starts a story in the language and sends it to the next student, who adds and sends it one, etc. All students review the final story.
• Discussion Group with topic- the teacher (or a student) presents an issue or problem and asks students to share personal experiences and interpretations of the topic or to react to other students.
• Group Webpage project-- have a group create a webpage on a particular course topic, conforming to scholarly standards of citation, etc.
• Volunteering-- have students volunteer in course related business or institution close to home and then share their experiences (appropriately watching confidentiality).
• Simulation or created environment-- using a MUD or MOO, create the world of a literary work, a business venture, or ancient culture, and have students work through the concepts and issues in this simulated world.
• WebQuest-- to encourage critical thinking, Small groups of students are given a particular course-appropriate task to research on the Internet meeting specific criteria and answering specific questions. See Dodge, B. (1997, May 5). Some thoughts about WebQuests. [Online]. Available: http://edweb.sdsu.edu/EdWeb_Folder/courses/EDTEC596/About_WebQuests.html [2001, May 17].
• Case Studies-- Present a case study pertinent to the field (from a paragraph to several pages long) and have students identify the problem and discuss possible solutions. Excellent resource for learning about case-writing: Herreid, C., Schiller, N, & Hollander, S. (2000). National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science. [On-line]. Available: http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/projects/cases/case.html.

Designing an Internet Interaction for your Class

1. Explicitly list the objectives for your students as well as yourself (See Bloom's Taxonomy)
2. Select a topic or activity
3. Describe strategies for interactions
4. Choose your interaction modality, e.g., discussion board
5. Anticipate the strengths and possible pitfalls: Be patient, train your students, keep it simple!

If you're looking to find the key to the Universe, I have some bad news and some good news.

The bad news is - there is no key to the Universe.

The good news is - the universe has been left unlocked.

Contributions by Audience at Presentation

Discussion focus can be on a content area from student readings or research. Issues are similar whether face-to-face or on a discussion board.

Assign students to smaller groups. Group memberships can be mixed across sites (whether interactive television classrooms or Internet instruction). Give demonstrations.

You might assign a group to monitor the discussion board for a 2 week period and prepare a collaborative report during the 3rd week to share back.

You could have a weekly group leader and e-mail him/her topics that you want discussed around a particular problem.

If you use chat, have a leader in charge-- set it up based on a discussion prompt. After 5-6 week s you get a very tight group.

Don't forget the phone is available.

Post an example or issue and ask students to agree/disagree with the topic and tell why... have the discussion group work toward consensus. An example of an issue for a class in Bioinformatics could be "How do you use computers in your practice to access information?" In Interior Design you might ask about product liability issues. Or you might give students data about causes of death and ask them how they could use this information to avoid or prevent deaths.

Remember to build in thought time for the students. That happens as a consequence of face-to-face classes being spaced over time and may be lost on-line if you don't plan for it.

Teach students about how to be on-line students successfully. Teach them to structure their time and how to respond appropriately. Explicitly teach them netiquette (These things were done for face-to-face classes before they got to college. There hasn't been time for the current generation to be taught these things in grade school.)

What do you do about an overbearing student who monopolizes the discussion forum?

• How would you handle it in a face-to-face classroom?
• Try phone/face-to-face conversation
• Wait for the other students to stop that student
• Have a discussion forum about 'appropriate behavior in a discussion forum.'
• Provide the student with his/her individual statistics on contribution and contrast to the contribution rate of other students. (Statistics can be obtained in Blackboard course software).
• Some course software allows you to exclude particular students whose behavior is extreme.
• Remember that your behavior leaves a record...so don't wait until you are angry to deal with this and might say something you regret.
• [Thought from Sally Kuhlenschmidt: What harm does it do to let that student talk on and on on-line? You may need to let him/her know that you can't read it all and that the other students aren't going to read it all. I might create a forum just for them so others don't have to search through that person's material to find what they need. But if the individual is getting some benefit and it isn't derogatory...why not? I might suggest that the student start journaling if writing gives them such release. Of course, I wouldn't do any of this until I had talked with the student face-to-face or at least on the phone. It is hard enough to get students to write-- I hate to discourage one.]

How can you get feedback on your teaching?

• Provide your e-mail address on every page of content with an encouraging note to write with feedback.
• Blackboard provides a "survey" which allows students to write comments without being directly identifiable. (With the exception that the very first student to respond can be matched until several more respond).
• Ask a colleague to receive e-mail comments and strip off identifiers.
• Individual schools need to develop feedback mechanisms.

Further Resources | Issues in Using the Internet in Instruction

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