Thursday, April 19, 2001

'Using the Internet in Instruction' Is the Topic of ... an Online Course By JESSICA LUDWIG Title: "Issues in Using the Internet in Instruction" Institution: Western Kentucky University Instructor: Sally L. Kuhlenschmidt, a professor of psychology who is the director of the university's Center for Teaching and Learning Course content: The course teaches faculty members and administrators how to use technology efficiently in instruction. Marketing an online course, protecting intellectual-property rights, and designing a course Web site are among the topics covered. How delivered: Web Course requirements: Students complete readings both online and from the textbook for the course, Lynnette R. Porter's Creating the Virtual Classroom: Distance Learning with the Internet (John Wiley & Sons, 1997). Self-quizzes after each section are optional. Students must make a weekly contribution to online discussion and complete a final project. When offered: Spring semester Enrollment: Twenty-five students are enrolled in the course this semester. Unusual Features: For the final project, each student must create either a Web site for an online course or an online supplement for a traditional course. In the past, titles of courses created by students have included "Adult Life and Aging," "Pharmacology," and "Germanic Culture and Civilization." Administrators who take the course complete a final project that deals with online-education policy for their academic units. Instructor comment: As a faculty member herself, Ms. Kuhlenschmidt says she tailors the course to an academic calendar and schedule. Of teaching academics and administrators, she says: "They are, as a group, the best students you could hope for. Sometimes the challenge is getting them to examine their assumptions about the way things have to be." She adds: "Sometimes they pick up on the bad habits of their students." After teaching the course for four years, Ms. Kuhlenschmidt has noticed gradual changes in faculty members' attitudes toward technology. She says she used to screen course applicants to make sure they were familiar with e-mail and with basic skills like cutting and pasting -- now, she screens less. "Students start out more savvy about the importance of the Internet. There is less explicit comparison to face-to-face classes," she says. She notes that faculty members and administrators are also more aware of different learning styles. Because she was trained as a clinical psychologist, she approaches the course with the question, "What do psychologists know about human learning?" While tools and technologies for learning may advance and change over time, reception remains constant. "The thing that's not changing is the human being: The brain is the same, the physiology is the same," she says. U.R.L.: http://edtech.tph.wku.edu/~internet/ Know of an especially interesting online course? Tell us about it in an e-mail message. Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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