Web-Enhanced Lecture Course Scores Big with Students and Faculty

Abstract

In spring of 1999, I developed a Web site to enhance a lecture course in Biology. The class met twice a week and there were three lecture exams that comprised most of the points for the course. As Developmental Biology is visually intensive, I wanted to utilize the ability of the Web to allow students access to illustrations and movies. The course Web site I developed with WebCT (http://www.webct.com/) had the following features: e-mail (from within the Web site), a bulletin board, chat groups, announcements, direct student access to lecture notes, videos and animation used in lecture or exam keys, monitoring of student grades by students (they can compare their own grades with Web site-generated histograms of all class grades), faculty monitoring of hits and time on the Web site, posting of exam results (especially important now that we cannot legally post grades in hallways), and use of online timed quizzes (with grading by program). With WebCT, or an equivalent package such as Blackboard, teachers are not bogged down in learning HTML language or even learning FTP procedures. Thus, students could view the course Web site from homes, their jobs, or when on trips across the nation (important for our commuting, urban university students -- 75% of our University of Colorado-Denver students have family and jobs). In addition, the professor does not have to deliver the key to the library reserve desk or deal with hallway postings that are torn down by students. Animations and video can be viewed outside of the classroom (as opposed to audio-visual aids that are not available outside of the classroom or only available by in-house checkout from the library). There are a growing number of Web sites that contain videos or animation. I believe that the use of video and animation both in lecture and on the Web is one of the major advantages of computers in teaching. With lecture notes and calendar published on the Web, the instructor can update them during the semester instead of publishing them months ahead of time. The professor can post an answer to a question that one student asked and the answer will reach all students (using the Bulletin Board or e-mail functions). Many students said that they learned valuable computer and Internet skills that have helped them in other courses. I also attempted to use the Web to mimic the process of research. Later in the semester, the class met in the computer lab to conduct original research using videos posted on the Web (http://www. cudenver.edu/~bstith/resweb.html). We measured and compared the time for a calcium wave to cross various cells (this activity was related to a discussion of the biochemistry of the calcium wave in lecture). As a measure of its value and its ability to interest and motivate students, 17 out of 25 students continued to visit the Web site in the weeks after the final was given. This was not just to view final grades, as some entered the site up to three weeks later and the average number of hits after the final was 8.2 [+ or -] 4.8 s.d. per student (range of 2 to 17 hits). Disadvantages students noted included slow computers at home (or even in university computer labs), or slow modem connections to the university computer from home. There were student concerns about getting dumped offline. Other disadvantages for the instructor include the time required for learning WebCT and setting up the Web site, difficulties in digitizing video and making the animations, lack of technical help, and, sometimes, the lack of reward for integrating technology in teaching. Online Quizzes Perhaps one of the biggest advantages of the use of WebCT was that I could set the time allowed for the online quizzes and the number of times that students could take each quiz (http://www.cudenver.edu/ ~bstith/quinstr.html). As a starting point, I would suggest allowing three attempts. WebCT would then keep only the highest grade among the attempts (the score that is kept could be the result of other options). …