Advice for the Not Ready for Virtual Time Professors: Lights, Camera, Action! Tips on Creating a Workable Online Course

ABSTRACT Traditional classrooms accompanied by face-to-face interaction among students and faculty members, lectures, text and other readings, experiential learning through actual field trips and case studies are components of traditional course delivery systems. For most faculty, those were the structures used for the faculty member's studies prior to teaching. Increasingly, schools are delivering course materials using the distributed learning technologies. Those technologies include using synchronous learning tools, such as interactive live video feeds, asynchronous learning tools, such as taped lectures, and quasi-synchronous tools such as discussion boards (threaded discussions) and virtual classrooms. This paper discusses the different technologies, their relationship to different learning styles and one example of using such technologies to delivery a completely online, internet-based course. It concludes with recommendations to faculty members who may use components or all of the technologies currently available. Potential Impact: Effective use of different course delivery systems requires familiarity with the strengths and weaknesses of each teaching tool. This paper ties the strengths and weaknesses to learning objectives and goals. This will help faculty link the course delivery system to the goal the faculty member seeks to accomplish. SHEDDING LIGHT ON THE SUBJECT: WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN USING DISTRIBUTED LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES AND DEVELOPING CRITICAL THINKING? Technology enables man to gain control over everything except technology. (Esar, 1995) What is online education and what can it add to and how can it improve the learning process? Online education is an educational model for designing and delivering interactive, responsive substantive course information through media that create learning opportunities conveniently accessible to learners at a different time and place and in a different form. Online education focuses delivering course content and creating a learning environment through providing access to the course material from a different time, place and location. Online education is another means of reaching learners using different media and a further extension of other, different distributed learning technologies. The simplest form of these technologies is the correspondence course. These courses typically involved complete self-study where students perform the coursework at their leisure, then submit it for analysis and grading. In the correspondence courses, there is usually little or no interaction with other students and limited interaction between the student and the instructor. Distance learning courses are more complicated and can be more interactive than the traditional correspondence course. Distance learning courses have typically relied delivering lectures through one- or two-way video feed. To complete coursework, students attend lecture, usually with limited discussion, then fulfill course requirements in a way that is similar to traditional course delivery. Online education delivered through computer based technology provides an opportunity to teach using a different teaching methodology and to reach individuals with different learning styles. In order to complete coursework, students spend significant periods of time using their computers to obtain course material and instructions, to communicate with their peers and their instructors and to fulfill required activities that are assessed. Of course, there are many models that mix these different course delivery systems together with the traditional on ground model. To discuss how those technologies can be used to encourage critical thinking there follows a brief overview of how people learn. Critical thinking has been defined differently by different scholars. Critical thinking must be directed or purposeful, not aimless thinking. (Paul 1993, Zahorik (1997) Critical thinking involves developing students problem-solving skills or the ability to figure things out, i. …