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

Journal of Geoscience Education, Mar 2003 by Cervato, Cinzia

Fifty-two students said that they posted one or more geological question on WebCT. Based on the final records shown by WebCT, the number of geological questions posted increased towards the end of the semester, and specifically in correspondence with the class debates that were posted on WebCT late in the semester. Seventy-four students (58%) said they checked the answer to their posting (31 % sometime, 27% always). I believe that the 42% who answered 'never' include the students who never posted a question on WebCT. On the other hand, close to 87% admitted to have read one or more postings made by their peers (35% of them, many to all of them. Seventy percent of the students found that reading Discussion postings helped them at least some in their learning of geology. Finally, more than 95% liked having their grades posted on WebCT.

WebCT's ADVANTAGES

The success of Internet-based communication in this course is shown by the fact that 455 students in my class (94%) made use of WebCT at least once, a very high number if one considers that some students are still uncomfortable with computers, contrary to what many of us may believe.

The "Syllabus", "Calendar", "Student Tips", and "Course Content" modules represent a simple way for the instructor to make information available to students in an easily accessible way. However, these tools do not differ substantially from a traditional WWW page where the instructor posts information related to the class. What makes WebCT and similar class management software unique, is the combination of tools within one software, and the ease with which these tools can be customized and used. Bulletin boards and chat rooms (in WebCT these are grouped under the Communication tools) can be set up for the class with extreme ease, and course notes and assignments made available without special computing skills. In particular, the "Discussion" tool is aimed at using Internet-based technology to establish a two-way communication between the instructor and all the students enrolled in the course, while protecting students' privacy and limiting public access as it is the case for general WWW-based list serves or WWW pages. Additionally, the password-protected access to WebCT allows the instructor to add to his/her notes on WebCT images taken from textbooks or publications that might be protected by copyright and therefore not publishable on a public WWV page.

The "Gradebook" tool proved very useful. It was relatively easy to enter scores or grades for each assignment, and the large number of student records that we handled and the speed of the Internet connection were the only causes of delays. Both the students and I had an updated overview of their grades, something that would have been nearly impossible with simple spreadsheets and without the use of the Internet. The ability to obtain statistical information and to create histograms of the class results for individual test or assignments, or to monitor overall class progress was quick and practical for me and useful for the students who wanted to compare their performance with the class average. Grade columns can be hidden or shown by choosing to publish them or not, something that allowed me to create temporary columns to track the class progress without confusing the students. At the end of the semester, I spent only a few hours adding the points, weighing the scores and finally assigning letter grades, all within WebCT.