Internet delivery of instruction: issues of best teaching practice, administrative hurdles, and old‐fashioned politics

Abstract

The authors describe the preparation and execution of a statistics and a fine arts course, each of which was offered in parallel to an on-campus classroom group and an online Internet group. The authors address the pedagogical, administrative, and political issues that must be resolved before one can legitimately offer a course of study to an Internet audience that the instructor will never physically see. Pedagogical issues are paramount if the goal is to achieve best teaching practice. In addition, there are numerous administrative hurdles to resolve where admission officers, registrars, and governing boards are working from a traditional mindset where rules and guidelines are based on local geography and physical presence. Further, political issues quickly present themselves, including time issues, faculty-colleague and administrator perceptions of "legitimate teaching activity", and valuations of the course.

Linking Social Work Students to the Wider World via an Asynchronous Learning Network

“…E-mail and discussion board threads can enhance classroom discussions (Chizmar & Williams, 1997). Online discussion also helps students who are shy or self-conscious about their spoken English to participate in class discussion, and may make it easier for some students to discuss sensitive or self-revelatory material.…”

“…Ideally, this should be part of the University's infrastructure, through specialized courses and printed and online instructions. Technology assistants in computer labs and libraries should also be trained to troubleshoot problems (Chizmar & Williams, 1997). This is one reason that it is helpful if the University uses a single course development tool across campus.…”

“…It is easy to get caught up in the trap of "technology for technology's sake," using features just because they exist, including elaborate graphics, audio effects, and video streaming because it is possible to do so (Chizmar & Williams, 1997). Even discounting the time it takes away from course content to learn these new technologies, it is vital to recognize that each new technology:…”

“…Instead, it is to let course content dictate the technology used. Technology selection should be dictated by which software best accommodates course material-unless the technology is so advanced that it will not be easily accessible to most students, or by most students' computer systems (Schrum, 1998;Chizmar & Williams, 1997). For instance, video streaming technology still cannot be accessed by many older computer systems-and even updated systems may take a great deal of time to load it and play it back, especially if students rely upon dial-up connections.…”

“…In fact, the development of such course websites, incorporating both synchronous (simultaneous) features, such as live chats, and asynchronous (non-simultaneous) features, such as discussion board postings, has made it possible for some students to complete entire degree programs on their own schedules and without ever entering a traditional classroom (Maloney, 1999). Course websites are not only used for degree programs, but are also useful for individual courses (Chizmar & Williams, 1997;Sarnoff, 1999), continuing education (Jennings et al, 1995) and staff training (Axelson, 1997). For instance, the PhD Program in Social Work at the University of Utah enables faculty from diverse locations to meet infrequently during the summer, then return home to continue their education online (Yaffe & Briar-Lawson, 1999).…”