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

Journal of Geoscience Education, Mar 2003 by Cervato, Cinzia

One of the goals that I wanted to achieve by adding an Internet component with WebCT to a large class where one-on-one communication is very unpractical, if not impossible, was to promote and enhance communication with the students and amongst the students. The number of students who posted one or more "Discussion" question or item on WebCT during the semester (45%) is considerably higher than the percentage of students who would ask questions in class, which is usually not more than a handful. It is incontestable that WebCT provides a discussion forum for students who otherwise would never ask questions. It also provides the instructor with a practical means to identify concepts that are still unclear after the lecture and that need to be discussed further, or to discover what interests the students most. The majority of student postings were related to geology in general, and most often to topics discussed in class (39.6%). However, only 7% of the students made use of the extra credit opportunity given to those who posted questions that went beyond the geological concepts that we discussed in class. On the other hand, some of these questions showed extraordinary insight and inquisitive interest in the subject matter.

Throughout most of the semester the "Discussion" tool served mainly the purpose of an electronic list serve. Towards the end of the class, when the students had acquired sufficient mastery of basic geological concepts to practice and apply their critical thinking skills, I used the "Discussion" tool as a means to facilitate classroom discussion on Earth science topics relevant to society in general and to the students in particular. Since teaching in context is increasingly recognized as an essential feature of education in a complex society (Yager, 1996), I dedicated two class periods to having the students work in small groups and discuss two topics: floods and the use of dams, and global warming. The students used WebCT's "Discussion" tool to convey their group ideas and opinions and to obtain credit for it. For the flood debate, I proposed three critical thinking questions and asked the students to discuss them in small groups of 3-5 in class. Further, I encouraged them to eventually collect information outside the class to support their points of view. Each group designated a scribe who was in charge of posting on WebCT the group's ideas and to sign the posting with the group's members. The designated scribe' approach was used to reduce the number of postings to be graded to a manageable size and to encourage teamwork and accountability. Two hundred and fifty-four students (52.5%) participated to the flood debate in class and 59 "Discussion postings were entered.

The setup for the global warming debate was more complex and with it attempted to force' students to respond to each other's opinions and to defend points of view that might not be theirs. The students were divided into three groups depending on where they sat and were encouraged to work again in small groups. One part of the class was given the task of posting questions on global warming addressed to the two other parts of the class. One of these two groups was assigned to answer at least one of the postings made by the first group and to defend an environmentalist point of view. The last group defended a conservative point on the impact of fossil fuels on global climate and responded to one of the questions posted with data and opinions aimed to support their point of view.