Getting help from course management software to teach a large-enrollment introductory geology class

Journal of Geoscience Education, Mar 2003 by Cervato, Cinzia

Besides the benefits that students have from working in small groups (constructivist approach Prain and Hand, 1996; Hand et al., 1999; Riggs and Kimbrough, 2002) and on discussing real issues, WebCT gave each student a means to expressing his or her views in spite of the large class size and the opportunity to receive credit for participating to the debate, something that would have been impossible in a traditional classroom with 250 students.

The correlation between final grade and use of WebCT, and in particular of the Discussion tool, is interesting and intriguing. Although I would like to believe that using WebCT enhanced student learning, I cannot demonstrate this. To my knowledge, only one web-based writing tool, Calibrate Peer Review (Russell et al, 1998) has been shown to consistently improve student learning in various disciplines in a measurable way. It is instead likely that students sho are interested in the the subject matter, and who would earn good grades with or without an Internet component, are also the ones who made most use of WebCT and read and wrote most of the "Discussion postings". To test this hypothesis, I have compared the cumulative GPA of each student in the class (obtained from ISU's Registrar Office) with the final grade and the number of WebCT postings submitted in a multiple linear regression model. Since there is a very high correlation between number of WebCT logins, number of Discussion items read and items posted, I have run the correlation model using only the number of Discussion items posted as representative of WebCT use. The results (Table 4) indicate that the correlation with the cumulative GPA is significant (Figure 3), indicating that students who are generally more successful in college have also done better in my class, and have made more extensive use of WebCT.

WebCT's DISADVANTAGES

Although it proved to be a very useful tool, I did have some problems with WebCT. First, my attempt to encourage students to answer each other's questions by giving them an open forum like a bulletin board failed miserably, since only two of the topical questions posted were answered by other students and not by me. The Chat Rooms were established with the same goal in mind, but only a very small number of students made use of them and then only when they knew that the TAs or I would be available to answer questions.

Teaching several hundred students has high administrative demands related to the class, assignments, exams and logistics. By establishing a discussion forum, I had hoped to avoid having to answer to dozens of emails from students asking essentially the same question. My purpose was that posting a public answer instead of sending a private email message would have limited the number of private emails that I would receive from students. Unfortunately, most students would post a question without checking beforehand if somebody else had posted the same question and if I had answered it. This became increasingly evident as the semester progressed and annoyed other students to the point that a couple of them posed messages explaining to their peers how to use the "Discussion" forum in a more efficient way. In addition, while 376 students (78%) read at least one "Discussion" posting, many of them still preferred to email me in person. I received 513 emails during one semester and responded to 434 of them.