When technology bites back: A case report describing an instructor's experience with online teaching

Journal of Physical Therapy Education, Spring 2003 by Hayward, Lorna M

I still do not think that the online chat is an efficient way of communicating to complete our group work. For our group, it would be more convenient to meet before or after class and go over our answers rather than trying to find a time when we will all have access to computers with working Internet. I guess being a PT [physical therapy] major I still prefer the personal, one-on-one communication of actually meeting with a group over the newer technology. Sometimes, I feel that it is hard to express what you want to say on a computer. Communication gets jumbled when everyone is typing, and things get printed on the screen out of order. For those of us that are slower typers, it is hard to get our answers out while others are moving so fast. (Student reflection 10/5/01)

Chat room sessions were assigned to help students prepare for the lab recitation. Overwhelmingly, students indicated that the chat room sessions were not perceived as useful. The reason was surprising. In their reflection papers, students voiced that while the rationale for using virtual chat rooms was sound, the application in a physical therapy curriculum was artificial because of the daily contact physical therapist students have with one another.

The [communication] method that I preferred least was the virtual chat. It was a waste of time for all of us. I live with one of my group members, and I see the rest of them literally 8 hours a day. We all sit together in class, study together, and go out together. It would be much easier if we could just do the assignments as a group in person instead of trying to all find time to go online and do it.... (Student reflection 9/28/01)

Even though many students articulated a preference for face-to-face interaction, they also realized the potential benefit of online instruction and the future workplace application. This particular physical therapist student admitted that, for her, acceptance of online learning was a slow process, but as she became more familiar with technology, she was more open to it:

Because of this [original problems with Blackboard], I did not want to give the technology a chance. Now that all of the kinks have been worked out of the system, my ideas are changing slowly. I think that it is important that we all know how to use the technology, and I am more open to it. I still think that it is a little bit of apain, but that is only because I do not have computer access at home. I think that all professionals need to keep up with new technology in order to advance their knowledge and be able to advise their patients. (Student reflection 10/19/01)

Students found the discussion board assignment to be useful for several reasons, the main reason students articulated being that viewing their peers' comments about health research in the news was interesting and broadened their perspective. However, the number of postings for each Web newspaper article assignment became repetitious due to the large number of students in the class. Therefore, reducing the number of thread postings per assignment from 2 to 1 mitigated this concern.