Course Design Q&A

Many questions have been raised by faculty as they’re working toward building online, hybrid, or web-enhanced courses. This section highlights some answers provided by experienced online instructors and online teaching researchers during their presentations to DePaul faculty and staff. You may also find answers regarding course design strategies, technology tools, and resources by visiting the IDDblog, and you can always submit a question to IDD@depaul.edu.

 

Questions: Developing Courses and Teaching Online

• What would be an example of a threaded discussion question?
  
  
• Once you have put together a high-quality course, why do you need a Ph.D. to teach?
  
  
• Text-book publishers and some eLearning companies have invested millions to produce courses. How can we match the quality of these courses? Why not just purchase a course instead of developing our own?
  
  
• How do you deal with cheating?
  
  
• How do you create sense of community? What steps do you take to get students to contact each other?
  
  
• Are there any courses not appropriate for distance learning?
  
  
• Should there be deadlines for online courses?

 

Questions: Evaluating Online Learning

• Is evaluation the same thing as assessment?
  
  
• Is there an evaluation problem to avoid when we compare online learning to face-to-face learning?
  
  
• If learning achieved online is about the same as face-to-face, where’s the advantage in online?
  
  
• By what criteria would one evaluate an online program?

 

 

Question: What would be an example of a threaded discussion question?

Mark Sunderman: One faculty member at the University of Wyoming set up area (Moms Club), in which the students posted pictures of their kids. Pretty soon after men wanted to join. There was lots of interaction. We had a big discussion on the best financial calculators, which got people to defend their positions. I find more discussion going on in Distance Learning than in the classroom. You have to be very organized. You have to set clear and consistent structure. I think I do better online than face-to-face. There’s no need for bells and whistles. Discussion is graded on engagement rather than content.

 

Question: Once you have put together a high-quality course, why do you need a Ph.D. to teach?

Mark Sunderman: It is the issue of ownership. Using the facilitator model the instructor is not engaged with the material. I have argued that if I have top-notch graduate assistants, I can handle more students. You need to have the person who designed the course teaching—the class is an extension of the faculty.

 

Question: Text-book publishers and some eLearning companies have invested millions to produce courses. How can we match the quality of these courses? Why not just purchase a course instead of developing our own?

Mark Sunderman: Have you watched new faculty using PowerPoint from a textbook? They stumble. These slides need to be made their own. Why have instructors there in those situations? I don’t want a shell. I want course supplements.

 

Question: How do you deal with cheating?

Mark Sunderman: Use a portfolio approach. No individual component is worth that much. If a student needed a ringer, the ringer would have to take everything. The class I taught is broken into seven units. A unit opens every other Friday, closes every other Monday. Each unit has a quiz which has 25 multiple-choice questions taken from a bank of 40. A quiz stays open for 14 days. To complete the quiz, it is okay for students to open books and read notes. I allow students to take quizzes three times, and the final score is the average of all attempts. Students may disagree with the questions. They may get extra credit (if they have researched). I want to make quizzes part of the learning process.

 

Question: How do you create sense of community? What steps do you take to get students to contact each other?

Mark Sunderman: Get them to introduce themselves through threaded discussions. Some students have posted photos. I use Custom Brigham cases put together by McGraw-Hill. I divided the class into groups of 3-4 students. Group members stay together all semester. They have to create reports and collaboratively address questions while ensuring that the group’s writing has one unified voice. They have to post it online. I have groups critique one another online. As a group they have to struggle with problems. By end of semester the write-ups get more proficient. There is competition between groups.

 

Question: Are there any courses not appropriate for distance learning?

Mark Sunderman: Just about anything can work. My wife took a drawing class online. She was able to sketch, scan her work, and get feedback from classmates.

 

Question: Should there be deadlines for online courses?

Mark Sunderman: Yes, I set strict deadlines for discussion. I did not set deadlines initially. That was a mistake! For my course, quizzes have some leeway (a grace period of a few days). I give 48 hours notice for quizzes (warning students to do anything that has been missed). More things can go wrong online. “My dog ate through my telephone connection,” for example. I am not willing to give incompletes.

 

Question: Is evaluation the same thing as assessment?

John Reeves: “Evaluation” and “assessment” are often used synonymously but I try to make a distinction between those in the sense that we evaluate “things”—programs, products—and we “assess” people. We assess their knowledge, their achievement, their aptitude, their motivation, etc. Of course, you sometimes use assessment data in an evaluation, so it can get confusing.

 

Question: Is there an evaluation problem to avoid when we compare online learning to face-to-face learning?

John Reeves: Many people confound “technology” and “media” with “instructional methods,” and this is something that literally goes back to the 1920s. In 1924, people were trying to compare film lectures with actual lectures and finding, of course, no significant difference. And part of that, of course, is the confounding of “media” with “instructional methods.” …The instructional methods are the active agents in online learning. What research has found is that learning achieved through one medium is at least as good as that achieved face-to-face AS LONG AS the two use identical learning methods.

 

Question: If learning achieved online is about the same as face-to-face, where’s the advantage in online?

John Reeves: The two most commonly cited goals for beginning an online program are to extend learning opportunities to those who may not otherwise be able to participate and to improve the quality of teaching and learning. Clarify your goals…base your evaluation rationale on informing the decision-making process.

 

Question: By what criteria would one evaluate an online program?

John Reeves: The Reeves/Hedberg model provides six criteria:

1. learning, which is difficult to measure,
2. consistency of content, wherein all students receive the same content.
3. economics—online may be a bit more economical if you have a large population that needs to be trained rapidly, but we haven’t seen this in higher education,
4. safety, such as labs or field work where an online environment may be safer to prepare students,
5. flexibility is a major advantage for many higher education contexts,
6. and efficiency, in which online can yield time saved in achieving a given set of objectives.