Chemical Education Today edited by Ann Cartwright San Jacinto College, Central Campus Division of Science & Mathematics Pasadena, TX 77501-2007
Association Report: 2YC3
Developing an Internet-Based Chemistry Class by Mary Jane Patterson
With the increasing popularity of Internet-based classes, more faculty are being asked to develop them (1). In Texas, the Virtual College of Texas (http://www.vct.org) even provides a forum that allows community colleges to advertise their distance-learning classes, and it paves the way for a college to offer a distance-learning class from any other college in the state. The two colleges simply work out a Memorandum of Understanding, mutually deciding how to administer the class, divide fees, set enrollment limits, among other details. While some classes are easily adapted to an Internet format, lab sciences raise a number of issues that must be tackled before a quality course can be developed in this new medium. I will raise some of those issues and offer a few possibilities. Before You Begin Before starting to develop an Internet class, it is helpful to take some time to learn about distance-learning. Which students are most likely to be successful in a distance-learning class? What constitutes an effective multimedia presentation? What technological options exist? Which of those options are supported by your institution? Can you use a program shell that your college has available (for example WebCT or Blackboard) to develop an Internet component before taking the plunge to design everything yourself? How does your institution define distance learning? At present, it is in your best interests to learn the basics of programming in HTML, although with time the newer Web class interfaces will diminish this requirement. To help you get started, some colleges offer classes in how to teach a distance-learning course.1 If such a program is not readily available, start with Teaching at a Distance, a handbook for distance-learning instructors (2). It was developed jointly by the League for Innovation in the Community College and Archipelago Productions. Deciding how to deliver the content of a lecture course is the next big step. Will you use the same text as the traditional class? Does the publisher have the text available online? Will you videotape your lectures and offer them as streamed video from your Web site? Will you develop multimedia presentations from scratch or base them on your current course handouts? If you develop an extensive body of work, who owns the rights to it? How can you encourage interaction with and among your students? Experiences from My Own Course My personal experience at Brazosport College is based on offering Introductory Chemistry online for six semesters.2 Using the same text as the traditional class, assigning readings, and discussing them on electronic bulletin boards just did not work for my students. My Internet students simply 554
needed more guidance to get through the material (an unexpected validation of the effectiveness of our lectures!). For the next (and current) version of my course, I chose a multimedia presentation from Archipelago Productions that uses a combination of a Web site and CD-ROMs (3). Each multimedia lesson begins with a video clip of a person giving an overview of the lesson. The overview is followed by several sections that use narration, animations, step-by-step calculations, and video demonstrations to present the course content. At the end of a lesson, the same person returns to summarize what the student should have learned in the lesson. The multimedia lesson is supplemented by Web pages that provide further examples and link to “real world” sites that employ examples of the chemistry just learned. Electronic bulletin boards are also available for discussion. Since this software package was designed for a general chemistry class,2 I have developed a number of additional Web pages that help adapt it to the needs of my students, providing help with the details of calculations, suitable homework sets, and solution sets. This approach has had a significantly higher success rate for my class than the guided readings approach. Testing Testing is another difficult issue that needs to be addressed for your developing Internet class. Until technology can provide us with affordable, single-user test rooms with retinal scanners, you cannot be sure of the test-taker’s identity or of the conditions of an uncontrolled, online testing environment. Portfolio grading does not seem to be appropriate for an introductory chemistry class either. In my class, students must take traditional exams in our testing center. I have considered using online testing, but the student would still be required to take the exams in a secure testing center. Labs Labs have presented the most difficult questions. How can you provide a meaningful laboratory experience for a student at a distance, without supervision and without injuring the student or the student’s family? Some of the available options include requiring the students to attend an on-campus lab, performing virtual labs, purchasing commercial lab kits, or offering the lecture without a lab. Each of these options has its drawbacks, such as restricting class enrollment, high cost, or liability for injury. Until this semester, we have required our students to attend a traditional lab section. However, this semester we have, as a pilot project, a take-home lab developed in part at Brazosport College and mostly by Cynthia Somers of Red Rocks Community College (4). The philosophy of the labs is to teach scientific methods, making observations and drawing conclusions, using materials typically found in a refrig-
Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 77 No. 5 May 2000 • JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu
Chemical Education Today
erator or the kitchen cupboards. This format does not utilize the traditional tools of chemistry, and is probably not suitable for a mainstream general chemistry class.2 For such a class, a commercial lab kit is the best option I have seen at this time.3 However, the price of such a kit may be prohibitive for a community college.
quence with lab typically taken during the freshman year of college. While the course itself is password-protected and consequently not readily accessible, a brief description is available at http:// www.brazosport.cc.tx.us/~chem/1405web. 3. Delta Education offers customized lab kits and has a Web site at http://www.delta-ed.com/science.html.
Administration
Literature Cited
Finally, administrative support is critical for the success of the program. The class must be allowed to be given (to “make”), even with only a small number of students in order to establish the program. Enrollment limits must be set that are smaller than those for a traditional class due to the increased amount of time needed to work with online students. In an asynchronous environment, you will find yourself working with the students one-on-one, and the time spent answering email and bulletin board postings will add up surprisingly fast. Furthermore, released time for curriculum development, both prior to offering the class and during the first semester of the class, is critical for the success of the class. As our student population becomes increasingly comfortable with computers and using the Internet, the pressure for offering Internet-based classes will grow. While I readily agree that not all classes are suitable for this format, my experiences in teaching Introductory Chemistry indicate that it can be successful. Notes 1. An example is the Distance Learning Certification Program offered by The Center for Technology and Distance Learning at the North Harris Montgomery Community College District. 2. Introductory Chemistry is a one-semester course with lab targeted at students who did not take chemistry in high school. It helps to prepare them for the two-semester General Chemistry se-
1. Examples include: Judd, C. S. News from Online: Using the Web for Your Courses; J. Chem. Educ. 1998, 75, 1073. Brooks, D. W.; Liu, D.; Walter, L. J. Delivering a Chemistry Course over the Internet; J. Chem. Educ. 1998, 75, 123. Greenbowe, T. J.; Burke, K. A. Collaborative Distance Education: The Iowa Chemistry Education Alliance; J. Chem. Educ. 1998, 75, 1308. 2. League for Innovation and Archipelago Productions, Teaching at a Distance: A Handbook for Instructors, 1999. Teaching at a Distance can be downloaded from Archipelago’s Web site at http://www.archipelago.com/resources/dlhandbook.html. 3. General Chemistry Term 1; Archipelago Productions: Monterey, CA, 1999. (When I was searching for a software package for the course, this was the only complete, ready-to-use package I could find. I continue to look for other packages, but as of February 2000 I had not found anything comparable. Many people who teach online classes develop most of the materials themselves. 4. Somers, C. Introductory Chemistry Lab Manual. Colorado Electronic Community College, Denver, CO, unpublished. Davenport, A.; Patterson, M. J. Brazosport Take-home Lab Manual for Introductory Chemistry. Brazosport College, Lake Jackson, TX, unpublished.
Mary Jane Patterson teaches in the Chemistry Department of Brazosport College, Lake Jackson, TX 77566; mpatters@ brazosport.cc.tx.us.
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