Net Gains in Teaching

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Net Gains in Teaching?

• Quincy University
• Revised, 2002
• by Marsha Woodbury, Ph.D.

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Building on Personal Experience
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Checking the levels

• Inner Motivation HIGH
• (sheep are dying)
• Self-Discipline MEDIUM
• (no children, nothing else to do)
• Participation MEDIUM
• (enjoyed my nice tutor)
• Competition None
• Time Self-Paced

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And

• Degree? No
• Tuition Cost? Small
• Selection process? None

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Learning from a Tutor by Mail--The New Zealand
Correspondence School

• One-on-one relationship
• Slow pace
• Essays, short-answer questions
• Same old problem of verifying who is writing the
  answers
• Learning materials very limited

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Enter the Computer

• Today, distance education is a different animal
  (pun intended)

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What do we know?

• New technologies are constantly emerging
• The old pedagogy / technology debate
• Understanding learners and their demands
• Understanding HOW students learn online
• Engaging students online techniques

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Technologies

• E-mail
• Chat
• Streaming audio and video
• Audio files and digital images
• Online library resources
• Instant grading of homework

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Technologies

• Asynchronous synchronous conferencing software
• Course management systems (Blackboard, WebCT)
• Virtual laboratories
• Visualization
• Active learning using Java applets

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Yes,

• Without good technical support people you are at
  sea
• Computers and software cost money

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Discovery System
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SCALEhttp//w3.scale.uiuc.edu/scale/
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Combining is the secret

• Asynchronous vs. Synchronous
• Lecture courses and the web examples from CS105

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CS105What we do

• Constant email contact with students
• Web is our right arm

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Computer Science at UIUChttp//cs.uiuc.edu/educat
ion/i2cs/
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Checking the levels

• Motivation HIGH
• (career growth)
• Self-Discipline HIGH
• (Distractions of work, family)
• Participation Medium/Low
• Competition HIGH
• (Students on campus taking the same course)
• Time HIGH Pressure
• (Must keep up with class)

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And

• Degree? Yes
• Tuition Cost? Off-campus or Resident
• Selection process? None

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What we are learning

• CS usually combines local and off-campus
  students.
• Drew MacGregor reports
• Each group (on and off campus students) wants
  what the other has.
• Technology that works well for one usually
  results in complaints
• from the other.

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What makes it work

• Interaction with the distance students is
  frequent, of high quality.
• Let them phone in, TA assigned to them, quick
  replies to email
• We pay individuals to proctor paper exams, and
  that works (we can check identities as well as we
  do on campus)

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What else?

• We deliver lectures at anytime, and students are
  required to keep up.

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GSLIS--LEEP

• http//www.lis.uiuc.edu/gslis/degrees/leep.html

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Checking the levels

• Motivation HIGH
• (career, pay growth)
• Self-Discipline HIGH
• (Distractions of work, family)
• Participation HIGH
• Competition HIGH
• (Students taking the same course)
• Time HIGH Pressure
• (Must attend online classes, and
  keep up with class)

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And

• Degree? Yes
• Tuition Cost? Off-campus or Resident
• Selection process? None

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LEEP

• http//leep.lis.uiuc.edu/demos/jenkins/text/texton
  ly.html
• Christine Jenkins
• Innovative teacher who uses fun along with
  traditional methods
• LEEP has face-to-face session on campus at start
  of courses

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Good software and bandwidth makes all the
difference

• (Try chatting with 80 students at once!)
• Streaming audio with questions
• Rooms to divide students groups
• Music before and during class

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Her environment
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Virtual Classroom
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No lurkers
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Teaching Techniques

• Have them gather data, not comment on each
  others posts
• Personal stories
• Presenting web links, poll reports
• (avoids the problem of some posting early, others
  late)

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People Points

• You can whisper during lecture, and the teacher
  wont know
• Music can work with enough bandwidth
• With group work, only the people in a group can
  see the groups discussion

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Editing HTML at a distance
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Online Masters Program

• http//leep.lis.uiuc.edu/guest_lecturers.html
• Get a taste of some excellent lectures!

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Imagination is the limit

• What we couldnt do yesterday, we can do today

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Contact me for more informationMarsha Woodbury,
Ph.D. Dept. of Computer Science
MC-258UIUCmarsha-w_at_uiuc.edu
http//www.cpsr.org/marsha-w/ 217-244-8259