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Volume 3 Issue 4April 1999

TIPS on Online Classes:

Designing Successful Internet Classes

Karla Frizler,
Instructional Designer, City College of San Francisco
Course Developer and Trainer, Aspect Telecommunications

To integrate technology successfully into instruction, teachers need to develop skills in evaluating its appropriateness with regard to teaching goals. Aspects of the Internet, such as the World Wide Web and e-mail, can be valuable teaching and learning tools if driven by sound pedagogical focus. To assist instructors, I have developed a checklist of questions for reflection by all teachers regardless of discipline, student population, or educational institution. The six general areas include:

• Identify your instructional goals
• Determine appropriateness of Internet to achieve goals
• Know who the students are
• Access to the Internet at the institution
• Resources for instructors and students
• Assessment and evaluation of instruction

For purposes of this article we assume that you are analyzing one course at a time, and that it is a course you have taught before.

Identify Your Instructional Goals

• What are your course goals and objectives?
• In which areas do your students generally have difficulty?
• What are some possible solutions, using the Internet?

The first step in any kind of curriculum design is to determine the goals for your course. Though your course content goals will be very specific, there are some general teaching objectives that span all disciplines, including: attitude/motivation, critical thinking, collaboration, problem solving, and application of course material.

Reflect on goals with which your students typically have success. Why do you think they are successful in these particular areas? What strategies do you employ to help them succeed? Then, think about the course goals that your students have difficulty achieving. How have you addressed these problem areas in the past?

Determining Appropriateness of Internet to Achieve Goals

Once you have a clear sense of your goals for your students, think about which functions of the Internet might help address the trouble areas. In general, the following functions of the Internet typically address the corresponding areas:

• E-mail/Bulletin Boards: Collaboration; student-student and student-teacher communication; reading/writing skills; expanding discussion beyond classroom; motivation for writing/natural communication; give all students an equal voice.
• MOOs/MUDs (real-time discussion virtual-reality environments): authentic practice in target language; immersion in language-dependent environment; ownership of learning materials; opportunity for role play.
• World Wide Web: skimming and scanning; research strategies; critical thinking; problem solving; vocabulary; motivation for student writing/publishing.

Know Who Your Students Are

• Have your students ever use computers and/or Internet before? For what purpose(s)?
• How comfortable are they using computers/Internet?

Before introducing any technology to your students, it is wise to do an initial assessment of their comfort and skill level in relation to computers. During training, teachers can pair up newbies with more experienced students. It is also helpful to know how many of your students have access off campus to a computer for completing course assignments.

Access to the Internet at Your Institution

• Where will your students complete their Internet assignments?
• Is there a computer classroom available for you to use?
• Are there open computer labs for students?

Find out what the guidelines are in the lab(s) you plan to send your students to before giving assignments. Computer lab managers set up policies and procedures which vary widely among institutions, and even within different labs in the same institution. Make clear to lab manager(s) your teaching goals in the event of any problems. Be sure you and your students know where the open labs are, what hardware and software is available in each lab, and what technical support is available to your students (be prepared to answer some questions yourself).

Resources for Instructors

• Is anyone in your department interested in doing a similar project?
• What support (technical and instructional) is available to faculty?
• How can I find online resources in using the Internet as a teaching tool?

Consider collaborating with a small group of instructors teaching the same course or sequence of courses. The group can develop materials to be used by all. Also, find out if there is a faculty lab at your institution that provides training and ongoing support in education technology.

Another suggestion is to take advantage of the Internet. Many instructors worldwide have put their course materials online (e.g. World Lecture Hall, http://www.utexas.edu/world/lecture/).

There are also e-mail discussion lists comprised of teachers interested in education technology (e.g. http://edweb.gsn.org/lists.html).

Assessment and Evaluation of Instruction

• Did your students feel they benefited from having an Internet component in this particular class? Why or why not?
• How could you revise the activities/ project to make it more successful?

As with anything new you introduce into the classroom, it is important to assess its value from both a teaching and learning perspective. Distributing a survey to your students at the beginning and end of each semester will give you helpful feedback. (Be sure to include some open-ended questions.) Give yourself time to test your project, make revisions based on student feedback, and test again.

Helpful Hints

• Know the Internet before introducing it to your students
• Start small, then expand your project
• Collaborate with colleagues (locally and globally)

The instructional design principles I have outlined above are simple to follow. Any teacher with creativity, enthusiasm and some amount of access to networked computers can successfully integrate one or more aspects of the Internet into teaching. Good luck and see you in cyberspace!

At press time, Karla Frizler was the Instructional Designer for City College of San Francisco. She now serves as a Course Developer and Trainer for Aspect Telecommunications in Silicon Valley. To contact her directly, please write to: frizzy@jps.net