Friday, December 10, 1999

On-Line Instructors Can Corral 'Long Mouth' Students By SARAH CARR Domineering students who monopolize class conversation can be as difficult in on-line courses as they are in traditional classrooms. But Jennifer Lieberman says instructors in distance-education courses can take steps to minimize the problem. Ms. Lieberman, who teaches faculty members how to use on-line technology, agrees with instructors who say that shy students are more likely to participate in discussions in asynchronous, distance-education courses than they are in a traditional classroom. But even a virtual-learning environment has quiet students and loud mouths, the latter sometimes known in cyberspace as "long mouths." "They are the people who post pages and pages of stuff," says Ms. Lieberman, a computer-assisted-instruction specialist at the Illinois Online Network, a collaboration of 31 community colleges and the University of Illinois campuses. The university started the venture to improve on-line-teaching technologies throughout the state. In her course, Ms. Lieberman suggests several strategies for encouraging discussion by quiet distance-education students and discouraging long mouths, including: Thank the quieter students, in a class-wide e-mail message, for their contributions. Limit the amount of text that students can post in each message. Establish a weekly minimum and maximum number of postings per student. Ms. Lieberman says it is important to establish ground rules to avoid problems later on. But she adds that if problems develop, a personal e-mail message or telephone call reminding a student to participate -- or discouraging excessive participation -- may be appropriate. The syllabus for her course is available at http://illinois.online.uillinois.edu/online/course1/index.htm Despite the occasional long mouths, the on-line environment has been a boon for quiet and loud students alike, says Virginia Crank, an assistant professor of English at Rock Valley College, in Rockford, Ill. "Everyone gets their whole response out without being interrupted, and having those responses written down makes the louder, more vocal student see and acknowledge the response of the quieter student," she says. Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

Bush will make affirmative action an issue in Presidential campaign, aides say Cornell's provost is named president at U. of Chicago Many British universities are facing hard times, survey finds 40 Americans are named Marshall Scholars New degrees, majors, or programs announced by 10 colleges Smithsonian's history museum puts digitization on display On-line instructors can corral "long mouth" students