Tuesday, August 21, 2001

An Online Course from Cornell U. Explains the Science and Skill of Grafting By BROCK READ Title: "The How, When, and Why of Grafting" Institution: Cornell University Instructor: Kenneth W. Mudge, a professor of horticulture Course content: The course aims to give students a well-rounded understanding of plant grafting. One part of the course is a how-to in grafting procedures; another explains when grafting is used; a third describes the biological principles underlying the process. Target audience: Two versions of the course are offered. One caters to students in Cornell's department of horticulture; the other is for advanced gardeners and horticulture professionals. How delivered: The course is delivered online in a series of about 10 lectures and tutorials, each of which is expected to take students a week. It might seem difficult to imagine teaching a practice as physical as grafting online, but Mr. Mudge says he has received many compliments about the training. Three weeks before the course begins, students receive a laboratory kit that includes four hibiscus plants, a four-inch pot, a grafting knife, and other essential items. The students are responsible for potting the plants, which are then used in the course's three online laboratory exercises. Each of the exercises is accompanied by what Mr. Mudge calls a "hybrid presentation" of Web instruction and video demonstrations that come on the course's CD-ROM. Threaded e-mail discussions allow students to discuss their experiments with their professor. The course's lectures are online texts sprinkled with pictures from Mr. Mudge's slide library and links to external Web sites. Course requirements: University students face stricter requirements than their professional counterparts. Both are required to take four quizzes, post messages on discussion boards, and fill out written laboratory reports assessing their grafting progress. But the undergraduates' quizzes require essay answers, while the gardeners' are multiple-choice. Cornell students also must complete supplementary readings drawn from the university's libraries, and they must write a two-page critical essay on one of the readings. When offered: The undergraduate course is offered in the spring. The professional course -- which is not offered for credit -- is taught in both fall and spring semesters by Kelly Hennigan, currently a graduate student of Mr. Mudge's. Enrollment: Mr. Mudge caps the courses because he wants to keep the discussion threads manageable. On average, about 20 students take the for-credit course in a semester. Unusual features: The version of the course offered to professional gardeners is the fruit of two pilot programs that Mr. Mudge and Ms. Hennigan conducted last year in collaboration with Cornell Cooperative Extension. The class was offered for free, because the students were actually subjects of a university experiment. This year, the not-for-credit version of the course costs $200. Mr. Mudge and Ms. Hennigan were one of two groups to win the American Distance Education Consortium's Education Programs Award this year for their work with the course. Instructor comment: Mr. Mudge says he is continually impressed by the quality of interaction that takes place online. "I had a student who developed a new kind of grafting knife, and he posted the picture on the Web site," he says. "That tells me that there's some very creative learning going on." U.R.L.: http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/hort494/mg/ 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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