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Preparing to Teach Web-Enhanced Courses
Some instructors are teaching one or more web-enhanced courses right now. Others may be planning to do so in the near future. Either way, as in the case of using any other instructional technique in teaching, instructors need to consider many issues in the planning and implementation of web-enhanced courses both technically and pedagogically in order to reach the desired learning outcome. The key is to make sure that pedagogy comes before technology, not the other way around. This checklist may assist instructors in organizing their thoughts on dealing with some specific pedagogical issues related to teaching web-enhanced courses.
Decide how you will use instructional technology to enhance teaching and learning by asking the following questions:- In a web-enhanced course, which component(s) of your current teaching do you plan to present online? Which components will you keep presenting in the traditional way, i.e., through face-to-face classroom interaction? For what reasons?
- In what ways do you think such changes will improve your teaching and enhance student learning?
- What expectations do you have for students in taking this web-enhanced course?
- How will you explain to students the purposes of using web-enhanced teaching to help them learn more effectively?
- What student attitudes toward and expectations of technology may affect their motivation and performance? What will you do to take these
into account?
Pay attention to the changes in student experience, from face-to-face to mediated:
- How will you prepare students to move from a synchronic, fixed time frame of class time to a more or less asynchronic, more flexible time frame online?
- How will you prepare students with different personalities and learning styles to carry out some assignments partially in class and partially online, or completely online?
- How do you plan to monitor and mediate student discussions or other group activities
online? How will you keep track of each student’s contributions and build them into
your grading system?
Clarify similarities and differences between web-enhanced courses and distance learning:
- What are some major similarities between the two formats and teaching approaches?
- What are some major differences between the two approaches?
- How will such similarities and difference be reflected in your syllabus, course design and delivery, and your interaction with students?
Explain time commitment and instructor learning curve:
- Given the limited amount of time you can spend on online course development and your speed to learn new instructional technology, realistically, do you plan to put your entire course content online the first time you teach it, or phase in the process?
- What changes will you make when you teach the course for the second or third time?
- What are some of the main reasons for taking the approach you have chosen?
Consider instructor availability and student accessibility:
- With the new web-enhanced format, what kinds of adjustments will you make in terms of your office hours and general accessibility to students? Will it be virtual office hours only, conventional, or combination of both?
- With e-mail and web chat room features incorporated in your communication style, how
available will you make yourself to students? - What are your students’ expectations for this (response time, etc.)? How will you find out and help them develop realistic expectations?
Assess the need to build in interactivity and active learning:
- With more of the course being put online, what teaching approaches will you adopt to make the class interactive between you and students and among students?
- How will you present the content so that students will be actively engaged instead of
falling into some form of “spoon-feeding” or “information overload”?
Monitor changes in group dynamics and influence of learning styles:
- With some learning activities going online, what kinds of changes in group dynamics should you expect to take place between you and students and among students? How will you prepare for such changes as a teacher? How will you help students prepare for such changes?
- Students with different learning styles and preferences will be affected by such changes. How will you accommodate such changes so that every student will feel included and connected to you as well as to fellow students? How will you work with those students who prefer conventional format?
Prepare students to learn in the new, mediated learning environments:
- With students coming to the class with different levels of computer knowledge, proficiency, and access, what can you do to help them all prepare for the course?
- Pedagogically, what do you need to do to help students catch up and be comfortable with the new mediated learning environment?
Assess and evaluate teaching and learning:
- What types of needs assessments do you need to conduct among students before or at the beginning of the course?
- What types of feedback (formative evaluation) on teaching and learning do you plan to solicit during the course to determine how class is going and diagnose any problems?
- How will you evaluate student learning in this web-enhanced course: conventionally, virtually, or a combination of the two? Pencil-and-paper tests, projects, term papers, or a combination?
- How will you assure that you are testing what you really want them to learn and not what is easy to test?
This list of questions is perhaps overwhelming and the answers are still being actively debated and researched. Faculty and TA Development has materials available and regularly organizes round table discussions of such issues. FTAD can be contacted for more information.
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