Educator's Voice

Vol 9, Issue 4
July 24, 2008

Content Coverage vs. Time Constraints in Online Learning

eCollege's Course Management System Provides Solutions for Traditional Pedagogical Problems

Too much material, too little time—faculty have long struggled to balance content coverage with critical analysis of material within the confines of limited contact time with students. Historically, the solution has been to reduce coverage to dedicate limited class time to deeper exploration of selected topics or to sacrifice critical analysis in order to cover the full-range of relevant topics. But features available in eCollege’s course management system provide key support in waging this battle.

The eCollege course management system offers two valuable approaches for instructors to facilitate students’ guided engagement with course material: encouraging advanced preparation for class and promoting thoughtful reflection on course material.

As indicated by McKeachie (1999), “learning is not the result of what the instructor does during class, but what the student does outside of class.” Thus, the use of instructional technology to engage students outside of class allows instructors to increase students’ time-on-task with material, while ensuring that limited class time can be devoted to higher-order instructional goals.

Two key technological features allow faculty to, with minimal time investment, leverage course management systems to promote student engagement: automatic assessment features and asynchronous discussion forums. Advances in such educational technologies can be used to heighten the learning experience for students and help instructors meet the growing demand to cover extensive content within a relatively brief timeframe. These features can be selectively implemented as a supplement to face-to-face activities in order to:

1. Ensure that students are prepared to actively engage in class,
2. Gauge students’ mastery of course concepts,
3. Explore topics on a level that may not be possible via spontaneous interactions and
4. Reflect upon the learning experience.

Encouraging Advanced Preparation for Class

As any faculty member will admit, students who read the text and prepare for class are more readily able to engage in, and profit from, course discussions and activities than those who have not. So, instructors assign readings and hope that students will come prepared. Instructors taking a more proactive approach might implement quizzes at the beginning of class as a motivator to ensure preparation for class. Although quizzes may motivate preparation, they also consume valuable class time earmarked for students to engage together in exploration of course material.
The integration of online quizzes enables instructors to engage students with course material prior to class without spending valuable classroom time on quizzing and grading. Online preparation quizzes can be used prior to class to assess students’ understanding of readings, provide feedback to correct basic conceptual errors and, most importantly, to provide students immediate feedback to direct their attention to the concepts they need to focus on the most.

Promoting Thoughtful Reflection on Course Material

In contrast to the social pressures of a face-to-face class, the asynchronous environment allows for prepared, individualized, thoughtful interactions free from the constraints of time, self-consciousness and other student learning variables.

Threaded discussion boards provide an opportunity to take advantage of the benefits of student-teacher and student-student interaction in an environment that encourages planned, meaningful, prepared discussion. Supplementing the time-based, spontaneous interaction that occurs in a face-to-face classroom, threaded discussions create an outlet for in-depth interactions that may require additional thought, investigation or research. While threaded discussions are not necessarily better than classroom discussions, they provide an alternate avenue for facilitating a different type of critical thinking than can be promoted through spontaneous interactions.

The key advantage of asynchronous discussion is that it allows instructors a means of probing ongoing reflections at the conclusion of scheduled class time without having the delay of waiting days for the next face-to-face interaction.

Conclusions

By expanding students’ time-on-task outside of the limitations of a scheduled class period, instructors can open up valuable contact time for higher-order endeavors. In addition, they can extend students’ time-on-task with course material after the conclusion of a given class to tap into reflective thought processes. Placing some of the instructional activities within students’ hands, facilitated by supplemental courseware, instructors are able to enhance the educational value of classroom activities by providing alternate outlets for academic expression of ideas and engage students both in and out of the confines of a typical class period.

Many educational advantages become available by integrating instructional technology to expand students’ engagement with course material outside of scheduled class time. The value of online assessments and asynchronous discussions speak to the flexibility and ease of use of supplemental course management systems. Instructors can adapt, modify and implement online assessments and discussions to fit their particular needs without straining limited time and resources. In addition to the administrative efficiency of online supplements, the asynchronous environment promotes increased student interaction with course material by allowing students the convenience of learning within the confines of their own schedules.   

-- B. Jean Mandernach, Amber Dailey and Emily Donnelli
Park University

Works Cited:
McKeachie, W. J. (1999). Teaching Tips: Strategies, Research, and Theory for College and University Teachers. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Instructor’s Tip:

Simple Steps Towards Good Course Design: Wrapping Text and Images

There is a simple, effective technique that instructors can employ to make content pages more user friendly, while enhancing the look and feel of your online course. The suggestion: try wrapping text around the image! You'll like the result and, more to the point, so will the students. Wrapping places your text and image side-by-side, rather than the traditional “stacking" format.

Of course, you don't need to, or necessarily want to, wrap text with every image. There will be instances where you'll want an image to stand alone with text above or below. If your goal is visual variability, though, text-wrapping will enhance your toolkit for achieving better usability and readability for your course.

To wrap text around an inserted image, in Author view:

1. Insert text on a Text Content Item page, Course Homepage or Unit Homepage.
2. Place cursor before the first word (left) of a paragraph.
3. Use the Image Link Wizard to insert image. (Note that the bottom of the picture lines up with the first line of text; it does not wrap.)
4. Click on the HTML button (on the upper right next to the Design button).
5. Once in the HTML view, look for the IMG tag (such as <IMG style="WIDTH: 154px; HEIGHT: 225px" alt="Picture of Mr. Furrh" src="/ec/Courses/CRS-eFX343 821097/MrFurrhWinterPicture/Photo_Winter.jpg">.
6. For convenience (although you can insert information anywhere inside the IMG tag), insert align=“right” behind IMG tag. (You could use align="left," try it and see what happens.) This information tells the browser to put the picture on the right and wrap the text around it.
7. Within the IMG tag insert hspace="8". This tells the browser to put 8 pixels of "breathing room" or space between the picture and the text. (Try different numbers like 12, 18, 25 just to see what happens.)
8. You can also specify vspace="8" for vertical space if you like, but you often don't need it for smaller pictures.
9. Back in the Design view, click on the picture to select it and, from the corners, drag it in order to resize it.
10. As always, Save Changes.

Note: You can't put an IMG in the center of a line or the middle of a paragraph and have the text wrap. There are more complicated ways of achieving this with tables and more, but it's often sufficient to do it as noted above.

If you want to play with images and HTML, check out the information, primers and tutorials at http://www.htmlgoodies.com/primers/html/. 

--Ken Switzer
Academic Trainer and Consultant

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