Jim Matiya wrote:
>This has been an interesting day for me. Today my principal asked me if
>I would be willing to teach a "distance learning" class for AP Psych.
>We have three high schools in the district with 2500 students per
>school, I would have seven students from one of our sister schools in my
>class who would complete assignments via the computer.
>
>Many of you have classes where students have to submit work via the
>computer. What can I expect? What kinds of assignments work best? What
>should I be prepared to face?
Jim,
This is my third year of teaching our two-semester Intro Psych course
online. This year, this course and several others was part of an
experimental program which encourages exceptional Grade 12 students
throughout our college region to take college courses via computer. It has
been an exciting year, and it is definitely still a work in progress, but
we are already judging the program to be a success. It isn't for just
anybody, but we have already demonstrated that the top Grade Twelve
students are perfectly able to compete with college students in this
environment --- no reason I can see why they shouldn't work just as well
with each other.
I have emphasized a lot of online cooperative learning activities in both
courses, and I regard them as crucial to the students' success. Each week,
students work online in pairs to prepare a joint answer to a personal
application question based on the current chapter. They also do one group
project (a survey of psych resources on the web) in groups of four or five
students. The group project hasn't always been a good experience, but the
weekly pairs assignments have worked out very well, and I would encourage
you to build lots of these into your course.
My second tip would be to forget about online chat sessions, and stick to
e-mail and bulletin boards. We are very happy with the WebCT delivery
platform, but we have disabled the chat altogether --- we have found online
chatting to be much more of a distraction than an asset to serious learning.
Good luck to you. I'm anxious to hear about your experiences.
Larry Dickerson
Selkirk College
Castlegar, BC Canada
http://webct.selkirk.bc.ca:8900
