Online Course and Online Program Development

Susan Smith Nash, Ph. D.

http://www.occe.ou.edu/distance/nashcv/

Robert J. Dougherty, MLS

ãCopyright June 1999

Developing Teamwork and Creativity in an Online Course

One of the things that we've noticed most about those who are new to online courses is that many instructors are so hesitant to experiment or deviate from the same methods that were used in their regular classrooms that their online classes tend to be extremely boring.

Of course, it's hard to criticize. After all, it's important to have structure in a course and to communicate to the students what is expected. So, the online syllabus is a great idea.

Putting up the syllabus with topics, dates, lectures and assignments is usually the first step. But, that's precisely where instructors go wrong. Why? This experience is irremediably passive, and doesn't require the student to interact, introspect, or take a proactive stance with respect to the material. The student clicks on the syllabus, the goes to the readings. These readings tend to be page after page of bland text. What is wrong with this?

Think about how tough it was when you were sitting in a class room listening to lectures and you'll quickly see how that particular struggle is intensified if you are all by yourself reading it online or in printed format. Boredom quickly sets in, and the task seems irrelevant.

Granted, it's difficult to translate the classroom experience to an online course. For that reason, the easiest and best first step for universities is to supplement traditional book and snail-mail based correspondence courses with an online independent study course.

Traditional Book-based Correspondence Courses vs. Online Independent Study

How can online courses be effective supplements and/or replacements for traditional correspondence courses?

Let's look at the case of The University of Oklahoma. We are two people who happen to have the good fortune of being associated with the College of Liberal Studies and the College of Continuing Education at the University of Oklahoma. Both of these entities have a very long record of independent study. However, in recent years, it has been noted that the completion rates have been falling off quite dramatically. In some cases, only 5 percent of those signing up for a correspondence course actually complete it. Why is that? A correspondence course is one of those things where it sounds great until you do it. In theory, you can get your degree without even having to set aside any extra time. You can take your book(s) with you wherever you go and during your dull quotidian tasks -- waiting in line, sitting on an airplane, waiting for soccer practice to end, during lunch breaks -- you can be studying.

The operative reality of independent study is completely different. People rarely take their books with them anywhere they go. In addition, people tend to find that the downtime they had previously hoped to use as study time was actually necessary downtime needed to rest, recharge, or restore creativity and energy levels. Their necessary downtime had to take precedence over studying.

On evaluations, students who drop out of self-paced independent study courses will tell you they felt disconnected from the faculty, disconnected from the University, and just couldn't motivate themselves enough to even set aside enough time.

After working with web courses, however, we believe that the key problem is that the traditional correspondence course is very boring. Further, we believe that the students could not convince themselves that the course was relevant or useful to their lives. Further, the faculty member (or grader) tended to be utterly faceless, making the already impersonal experience even more dehumanizing. Even the highly motivated student who manages to complete assignments is often discouraged by the slow response time of the faculty, and the scribbled marginalia on the sides of the student's papers. What is even worse, the instructor -- having no emotional or personal investment in the student's efforts -- often rushes through the grading assignment as quickly as possible, jotting down visceral reactions and half-formed thoughts. These tend to be negative, and without the comprehending smile and compassionate guidance of the "live" teacher, they seem blunt, even harsh. How demoralizing! The brave student who managed to turn in the first assignment is now frustrated and vaguely hostile toward the institution. Needless to say, this is not an ideal situation.

The big advantage that the online course offers in this situation is personal contact with the student. The student can e-mail assignments, ask questions, and contact other students. Further, the instructor who has been guided in how to couch responses in positive terms has the ability to inspire students and bolster their confidence.

But, what can be done about the typical correspondence course that has been slapped up onto the net, with the same old components -- syllabus, list of due dates, and a long, dull online textbook as the only source of information and readings?

Creativity Helps!

It is clear that the key to success in web-based instruction is creativity. Without it, there is no great advantage to web-based instruction. In fact, if the process does not have a high degree of innovativeness, creativity, and "freshness" in terms of the instructors, students, administrators, support staff, and technical components, the program runs the risk of losing momentum very quickly, and thus alienating students, instructors, and administrators. Without utilizing creative approaches and enhancing the creativity of student, professor, and support staff, the newly-developed online course could come to a crashing halt, just as the bills for the latest hardware upgrade begin rolling in.

Worse, in the case of a badly-designed online course that demoralizes, loses, and frustrates the students and faculty, those who were convinced to try this new approach are likely to be unwilling to subject themselves to it again.

This does not have to be the case. In fact, a well-designed course can be one of the best experiences of a student's academic career, and can be a real turning point in their lives.

At the University of Oklahoma, the College of Liberal Studies launched its first internet-based independent study degree program, the IGIS (Internet-Guided Independent Study) in September 1998. From the very beginning, the role of creativity was foregrounded in order to achieve goals of high completion rates, improved retention, and improved teaching evaluations. Further, creative solutions were sought in order to deliver the best product at the lowest possible cost without compromising quality, but instead, enhancing accessibility and deliverability. Fortunately, we had previous experience in the design and delivery of online courses, particularly those having at least a limited face-to-face classroom component.

These goals are attractive, and the notion of creativity is positive, but precisely what constitutes creativity in the web-based teaching and learning environment? How does it differ from creative strategies in the traditional classroom? Which creativity-building approaches utilized in the traditional classroom are utilizable and/or adaptable for the web-based learning environment? These were some of the questions that guided the initial design of the program, and which were constantly posed as the courses progressed.

The first class was an upper division Humanities survey offered for undergraduate students at the junior and senior level. Later, classes were offered in Social Sciences and Natural Sciences.

In order to maximize the creativity with the instructors, a set of guidelines was developed:

Building Creativity in the Online Classroom: A Guide for Instructors

Customize the content of the course: Instead of following a prescribed course which does not vary from year to year, or group to group, instructors are encouraged to modify the course contents (topics as well as readings) in order to align them with the interests and needs of the students. This is done by means of continuous needs and interest assessments which are conducted throughout the 12-week course, both by asking questions via the listserve, and by posing questions on the website which students will address in their "electronic journals."

Strive to be as interactive as possible: Although many students will not have computers or internet service providers that will allow ideal synchronous communications, it is truly surprising how effective chatrooms can be, whether they be hosted by the university's server or a readily accessible third-party program such as ICQ. Creativity in the interactive, synchronous environment often involves two key elements:

1) good planning (what are provocative and useful questions that inspire reflection and debate over the issues at hand); and

2) the ability to think "on the fly" and guide discussions so that they enter into topics in which almost all participants are to some degree "invested." For example, during one chat session in the Humanities class, a debate arose over the notion of political correctness. While it was necessary to remind the people in the chat room not to flame each other or use offensive or overly aggressive language, it was clear that the chat room gives rise to more open exchanges of ideas than are normally achieved in the classroom. Perhaps it is the relative anonymity which releases people from their natural inhibitions, or perhaps it is the text-based nature of the chat room which reinforces the "authority" of the text and gives more weight to what is being "written" rather than said. Either way, in the chatroom, the role of written discourse is interesting in the sense that the "published" word validates the person who is writing, and makes what is essentially an ephemeral conversation. At any rate, this phenomenon is something to be recognized and channeled in a productive way by the instructors.

Utilize links and existing resources on the Internet: By using links and existing Internet resources, instructors are able to keep an up-to-date "virtual library" of third-party texts. These texts may be as informal as personal home pages; a phenomenon which definitely encourages creativity, since one is forced to ask whether or not the information being presented is credible or biased. By analyzing and evaluating websites, many of the hesitations posed by administrators and governing or accrediting boards are resolved. The veracity, authority, and reliability of all material on the Internet is always questioned. This develops critical analysis skills as well as an ability to construct probing and important questions.

Find creative ways to use e-mail: E-mail may seem like a rather prosaic method of communication, but in fact, it can be quite a source of creativity. For example, students can be asked to send one-line responses to a certain text to at least one person (chosen at random) from the class e-mail roster. The goal is to have this serve as a point of departure for a round of responses.

Combine course content with personal research interests and areas of expertise: Perhaps this is the area that requires the most amount of active engagement on the part of the professor and the students. The instructor must be willing to ask the questions necessary to allow the students to engage in a "heuristic." In other words, the student can enter into a process of discovery, not just about the subject at hand, but also in a self-discovery in which they begin to identify their areas of strengths and interests.

Use lively and imagination-stimulating graphics, video, and audio: Some instructors tend to forget that the computer screen can be extremely dull and, in reality, a very ineffective medium for individuals who gravitate toward certain learning styles. In order to access the multiple intelligences engaged in a course which can provide audio, video, interactivity, and text at one's fingertips, it is absolutely imperative that the instructor take the time to learn the rudiments of graphics programs or at least website design.

Make content timely and relevant: The basis of creativity is the engagement of curiosity and the willingness to accept new combinations and/or juxtapositions which give rise to unusual combinations of words, concepts, and/or ideas. Certain previously unrelated topics, when combined or put together in "clang" associations actually lead to new associations and the generation of either new knowledge or problem-solving strategies.

"Book-free" environment: Although the notion of a "book free" environment may seem anathema to the very idea of higher education, using the resources available on the internet can be very rewarding because it requires the instructor and the student to analyze and assess the validity and/or credibility of a site. In addition, it is at least ostensibly easier to find more up-to-date information on the Internet, but this is often a very specious proposal to promote the Internat as the indisputable source of the latest and most accurate information.

Team-teaching where possible: Team teaching in the Internet environment is not necessarily a natural thing to do. After all, it is tempting to posit a "one-computer, one-world" model. However, team-teaching means that two instructors can work together to develop a syllabus and reading list, plus appear in chat rooms as the generic "professor." Team teaching gives the instructors the option of creating a new persona, which is in reality neither of them, but the professor of record. One interesting possibility, with significant ethical ramifications may occur if two or three instructors and/or graduate students are responding to class members under one "shared" screen name. In this case, the anonymity of the shared screen name sometime functions more or less in the same way that people lose their inhibitions and sense of decency in a chat room. This may seem unlikely until one actually observes the profound alteration (the "Jeckel and Hyde" effect) in action. In order to ensure accountability, it is necessary to prohibit the use of an anonymous screen name because it actually gives rise to a surfeit of creativity.

Do not force the instructor to be webmaster, but train him or her in the basics of web design: Creativity can be frustrated when the instructor is confronted with overwhelming technical difficulties. For example, if an instructor is asked to develop the curriculum, teach, manage the class, and maintain the website, all creativity can be discouraged under the overwhelming burden of webmastering. However, understanding the basics of web design can allow the instructor to develop new approaches.

Instructors are also asked to keep in mind the following checklist of points in their interactions with the students, curriculum developers, web designers, network managers, and technical specialists:

When Interacting With Students:

n Make unusual connections in order to look at things from a fresh new perspective

n Keep an electronic journal in order to record thoughts and responses

n Participate in group projects

n Participate in bulletin boards and chat sessions

n Assess interests and align assignments with career and academic goals

n Explore the internet using a variety of search engines, including the specialized ones

n Incorporate graphics and audio

n Create websites instead of sending assignments via e-mail

When Interacting With the Web Developer and Curriculum Designer

n Keep the site visually stimulating

n Encourage free-association of ideas and concepts

n Incorporate brainstorming and idea-trees

n Cluster ideas

n Keep up-to-date with third-party solutions

n Use humor and a light-hearted approach

n Use attention-getting logos, links, banners, etc.

n Make sure it has "real life" value

When Dealing with Classroom Management Issues:

n Send e-mail messages over the listserve to motivate and give deadlines

n Use humor as much as possible

n Remember that written messages are more likely to be viewed as negative and/or harsh -- always begin with a positive opening

n On automated tasks, make the automated response a cheerful, "happy" one to build in the "rewards"

n Work with programmers to have an idea of the progress that students are making in order to provide incentives for early completion

n Have links to help pages for FAQs regarding e-mail and online skills

n Require people to understand that "flaming" and "spam" are not acceptable

n Develop "Flame"-retardants

n Exercise "Spam"-prevention

When Interacting with the Hardware and Software Issues and Decisions:

n Maintain a consistent approach, but be sure to innovate each semester so that the packages never go "stale"

n Utilize unusual graphics, and "borrow" gifs for e-mails

n Upgrade video cards and programs (RealPlayer, etc) often

n Use interesting graphics and settings in video conferencing

n Constantly evaluate chat software and chat providers

n Use listserve messages in unusual, unpredictable ways (send electronic greeting cards, for example)

n Upgrade bulletin boards, and incorporate graphics when possible

n Recommend software packages that make one's life more fun

n Practice better living through toys: digital cameras, scanners, video, etc.

Although many of these elements may seem intuitive, it is surprising how often they are overlooked. What is even more pervasive is the error that many departments make when they initiate an online program with excellent ideas and current, highly creative techniques, but they quickly lose their edge when they do not incorporate new advances in highly volatile, rapidly developing world of web-based instruction.