Experiences from Developing a Teaching Related Internet Infrastructure
Richard Hannah rlhannah@frank.mtsu.edu
Homepage: www.mtsu.edu/~rlhannah/homepage.html
This manuscript describes the use of internet for instructional
purposes. The experience reflects trial and error, and a perception of the
broader developments in instructional technologies, such as the
Western Governors' Association Virtual University. [1] After climbing the
initial steep trajectory of the technical learning curve of internet literacy,
the next priority was ensuring quality within this new electronic context.
One of my first efforts was to identify the best internet related teaching
ideas with respect to economics instruction. I developed a resource page
based on this effort, Netteach. [2] Recently, I've focused more intently on
the development of specific course related materials and how the internet
medium adds to and alters the teaching and learning environment. The
following is one dimension of this exploration.
INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT
The majority of students in my classes work full time and many
spend significant amounts of commuting time to attend on-campus courses,
which is one of the motivations for Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU)
offering courses at different corporate sites--e.g., Nissan, Saturn, and
Bridgestone. Therefore, internet has emerged as a viable supplementary
delivery system for access to and provision of instructional and research
materials. The average class size upon which the following experience is
based is approximately 15 students, with a range between 5 and 30. Thus
far I have taught ten classes (some repeated) with internet infusion.
While free internet accounts are provided to MTSU students, two
immediate considerations arise for remote classes and access. First,
would students have access to a computer, and consequently a modem? I found
that most students did have a computer at home, but had never used the modem.
Second, would students using MTSU accounts from remote sites resist paying
long distance charges for a modem link to the campus computing center?
Actually, the Saturn (Columbia, Tennessee) area was of primary concern.
However, students who were Saturn employees were spared the long distance call
since the company had a special local charge arrangement. Several students,
were not Saturn employees but were taking the courses at the Saturn
site. A few opted not to pay long distance tolls, either used Internet
connections from their places of employment, or purchased a commercial service.
Beginning in the Spring of 1996 the university made a specially negotiated
commercial service arrangement available to students. Students taking
courses on campus have liberal access to labs. I estimate that
approximately half of these also had modem access from home or work.
ELECTRONIC INFRASTRUCTURE
Electronic communications, research, test components, and
comprehensive web pages have been integrated into five courses I have
taught over the past year. These courses are: micro-economic principles,
a graduate level managerial economics course, a graduate level industrial
relations course, an undergraduate/graduate labor economics course, and
an undergraduate/graduate employee benefits course. The managerial
economics, industrial relations, and labor economics courses were taught
off campus at the Saturn Corporation training facilities. The web pages
for each of these courses and the other resources cited herein are all
accessible from my homepage. [3]
The typical course web page has links to general resources
germane to the course content, uploaded files of past exams, practical
problems and a syllabus. Embedded in the syllabus by class dates are the book
chapters to be covered, electronic lectures, and for many lessons, an internet
link directly applicable to the topic covered. Suggested paper topics
and internet use tips are also included.
Supporting the course web pages are a number of other components of
this instructional infrastructure. First is the professional internet
resource pages I developed for public use. There are two significant
reference documents. The Industrial Relations & Human Resource Page [4]
contains links to such sources as the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics data
bases and the Cornell Law Library. The Benefits-L Resource Page [5] is a
prominent web page offered for public access to support professionals in
the employee benefits field. Examples of links include the Social Security
Administration, pension related materials, health care related materials, as
well as commercial pages with significant public offerings. Also, on-line
examples of employee benefit plans are included.
Actually, the Benefits-L web page was initially constructed to
support the Benefits-L internet discussion list which I manage. [6] With
over 600 subscribers, there is a wealth of practical problems which are
brought to light and excellent related advice offered. I require all students
in my benefits course to subscribe to this list. In other courses, such as
industrial relations, students are required to subscribe to a course related
list. Examples include the International Employee Relations Network
(IERN-L) and Human Resources Network (HRNET). [7] Finally, students must
subscribe to a College of Business discussion list, The_Biz, in order to
receive college and department announcements. Academic advising
announcments will also be initiated on this list. [8]
Although I impress upon my students that technology does not preclude
face-to-face consultations, there seems to have emerged a near complete
dependence on the electronic medium. I suspect this is due to
the convenience offered, especially in light of the heavy work schedules
and commuting requirements. Most rewarding is the continued contact with
several students long after they have completed a course I taught, and in
several cases even after they have graduated. In all fairness to my
institution, I have been given considerable flexibility in control of my
time (meaning very few structured time commitments aside from class
contatct hours), I think a fair exchange for the hundreds of hours of
uncompensated additional work time required to develop and integrate an
electronic framework to support instructional retooling.
PEDAGOGY
Cultivating a discipline of the mind presents a different kind of
challenge in the electronic environment. Recasting the course an
electronic image so the intended content is still imparted is a significant
teaching challenge. But there is an elevation of the mental
self-discipline required of students as well. For this reason, I think
courses which are exclusively in the realm of distance learning via the
net should have a higher threshold of permission for enrollment. Where
internet serves as a supplement to traditional classes, students must
have or obtain the requisite technical skills immediately. I try to
remedy this by a lab visit the first session.
Traditional materials like books and journal articles have not
gone away, yet. I still rely on books because they tend to be thorough and
convenient (i.e., portable). But in my major fields upper division texts are
especially deficient in offering disks of data and on-line references. The
latter is the targeted niche for my work in the internet medium. If we are
honest with ourselves, I think we recognize that we can't heap on electronic
readings without trading off traditional hard print. Only a small percent of
students are prepared to commit soul and life to the pursuit of
knowledge. These intellectual stars are usually very good at following their
own academic compass.
What we can do for the majority generates the more intriguing
questions. For one, can all this electronic infrastructure generate more
efficient trade-offs? I have already mentioned the greater convenience of
communication. If nothing else, e-mail is incredibly efficient, not only in
managing communications, but in keeping files. For example, I keep electronic
files of significant e-mail correspondences specific to each course, deleting
the file after the end of the semester. I am particularly keen on this idea
for students pursuing independent studies since documenting agreed upon
study plans, timetables, and monitoring of continuity of progress are
crucial. (I no longer accept students in such status unless they are skilled
internet users.)
One other supervisory activity in which I've found this format
effective is student teaching internships. (MTSU has a Doctor of Arts in
Economics, which requires an internship.) For example, I require an
electronic log to be kept by the intern on content or pedagogical questions.
We review the learning experience at the end of the semester with this
quick reference before us.
Another dimension of efficiency is research. Though I admit the
risk, I have taken the leap of faith that most of the quality resources
sufficient for student research papers are, or will eventually be, on the
net. Our library has advanced these possibilities by purchasing on-line
services which provide full text journal articles sufficient for at least
upper division undergraduate work. My approach has been to integrate
internet material which I consider more of a cutting edge nature. A
caveat here is that reliance should be placed on stable links (likely to be
on-line for the foreseeable future), which I find are usually university or
government links. Also, credibility of the source is a very important
consideration. Finally, the compact I make with my students is that there
will be no hard print reserve readings and no copying. Everything will be
transmitted to them electronically, or if necessary I'll provide a hard
copy at no cost.
One of the most important aspects of efficiency gains is the
re-allocation of time. If the more mundane tasks and relaying of information
which require class contact hours can now be handled electronically, what do we
do with the extra time--more lectures, more readings, more of the same?
These are not viable options in the competition for students' time.
My experience is that I have been freed to focus on the in-class learning
experience. This has meant including more team exercises, presentations, and
the introduction of more impromptu problems. As a traditional instructor
this transition has been somewhat painful and is mightily incomplete, but
I suspect this is where the real payoff in terms of the increased quality
and quantity of student learning will eventually materialize.
The physical environment of the classroom and the particular
course taught significantly affect the in-class activities. For example, in
the Labor and Human Resource Economics course, I have integrated a
considerable amount of information system problems with extensive spreadsheet
applications. I try to teach this course in or in near proximity to a lab,
though as more students have laptops, location is less of an issue. For
more qualitative problems in the areas of human resources or benefits, the
impromptu problems or discussion list messages and threads have worked
well. But I am very mindful of tying the problem to the text material
scheduled for coverage.
Before departing from the efficiency theme, I am compelled to
comment that I do not believe any of the electronic media will improve
overall educational quality if myopic objectives are governing
implementation, such as increasing the student to faculty ratio. The
intensity of time required to develop a sound infrastructure, and the
intensity of guidance necessary for each student increases in this
environment. Since I have engaged the instructional possibilities of internet,
I have not been overwhelmed for two reasons. One is the wide latitude given
by my university to experiment and pursue internet possibilities. The other
is the high attrition rate in my classes during the first two weeks,
especially since many students historically gravitated to the types of
courses I teach because of the absence of quantitative and computer
oriented technologies. This attrition has in the past year been less
pronounced since students are more exposed to internet from other sources.
EXAMINATIONS
Testing options are greatly expanded within the electronic
environment. A numerical itemization is perhaps the most efficient way
to rely options I have tried. These will progress from those which
depart least from traditional methods to those most adventuresome.
Items one through five evolved primarily to impress upon the
students the necessity of periodically checking their e-mail to drive
home the point that this is not a frivolous exercise. I try to adhere to
the principle of asking students to allocate time to learn material
with a high probability of being directly related to their grade. Also, a
nice feature of e-mail is the date and time recording of messages.
(1) Pop quizzes and bonus point questions have been posted to classes
with deadlines for responses.
(2) Traditional in-class exams have included a question for which only an
e-mail response is accepted. A word limit is imposed.
(3) Students are given the option of elaborating upon in-class answers to
questions by e-mail. They can not add completely new material, but can
clarify answers for which they felt in-class exam time was insufficient
for thoroughness.
(4) E-mail follow-up inquiries are made of students concerning unclear
aspects of their answers to in-class exams.
(5) Messages posted to discussion lists to which students are required to
subscribe are included as parts of exams. E.g., students are asked to
interpret the message within the context of the course material covered.
(6) Entire exams have been e-mailed to classes at fixed times, with a
fixed amount of time to respond. One limitation is the text bound nature
of responses. I did this in one fairly technical economics course in
which graphics and equations were commonly used. Students commented on
the difficulty of reducing their answers to words. I thought this in itself
was an interesting intellectual exercise, but gave them the option to clarify
via an in-class presentation of their exam answers--only if they were
prepared to wager points (I.e., they could gain or lose exam points
depending on the quality of their presentation.)
(7) The most intensive integration of electronic testing was an
accommodation for masters level comprehensive examinations. Due to
highly flexible arrangements with a student for independent studies I was
concerned about the quality of instruction and learning. Therefore, I added
a series of evaluations around the traditional comps. Essentially, a few days
prior to the on-campus exam, I e-mailed the student (in a remote part of the
state) a "preliminary" exam to which he was to respond via e-mail. After I
read his on-campus comp results, I then e-mailed some follow-up questions with
a response deadline. Finally, we set a meeting time and I asked for further
oral clarifications and then reviewed my evaluation of his performance.
My experience keeps bringing me to a couple of substantive
philosophical issues related to examinations given the nature of our
information age. One concerns the drive for standardized assessment in the
name of accountability. Standardization has a place, and to some degree,
books, electronic teaching devices (e.g., multi-media), and even electronic
test scoring devices themselves lead us down this path. However, there is
something quite different with on-line interactivity. Qualitatively, the
ability to modify the teaching/learning process in real time, the
capacity to follow-up on exam results, and the "learning to learn" objective
of higher education do not fit the standardization philosophy. As teachers,
we must not allow standardization to become the blanket option in the
evaluation of the intellectual development and promise of our students.
The second point concerns how the universe of information, especially
on the internet, is spilled all over the educational landscape. We must ask
ourselves if testing by denying access to information makes sense in a world
in which the intellectual productivity is more geared to squeezing value from
information abundance. Again, sometimes a bit of experimentaiton
required to break the mold. My petite iconoclasm is that or three years now I
have allowed open book exams in all my courses. Generally, the most successful
students customize the course material into an intellectual framework which
organizes and integrates the content (i.e., they conscientiously keep up
and outline the material). I think the exams are more difficult in
this environment, but more reflective of the employment environment for which
we are preparing them.
Though I have not perceived that cheating has been a problem in
the traditional versions of the courses described above, clearly the
open-book format eliminates the payoff of cheating by using hidden
information. Another by-product is that in some cases the electronic
forum of testing offers options to accommodate student disabilities.
PAPERS
The internet has changed the options for the traditional
paper at least as much as it has for exams. Being very much a traditionalist
with respect to vigilance against plagiarism I require students to give very
precise internet citations. I want to examine the primary source if I so
choose. However, the impossibility of close scrutiny is evident. There is
simply too much information electronically available now to allocate more
than minimal time to control for electronic plagiarism.
One solution is not different from the pre-internet days.
Verify the intellectual capacity and performance of the student by requiring
presentations and asking lots of questions. The modification I have made
is to require shorter papers and more in-class presentation to explain the
findings.
Research on the net offers some other very interesting
possibilities. Web pages and data bases abound in some fields, my
teaching areas of labor, human resources, and benefits being well
represented examples. For the particularly qualified student, researching
discussion list archives can yield a treasure of practical insights into many
professional fields.
One word of strong caution is in order. Some students join discussion
lists and ask for help on papers, and others have gone so far as to devise
questionnaires and post them. At least for the internet discussion lists with
which I am familiar, this is inappropriate behavior. A significant problem is
that many faculty are not as versed with the internet as are their students,
and thus proper guidance is not given. Though I applaud student
initiatives, an unguided foray into the net can reflect poorly on the
the institution and faculty member.
LESSONS LEARNED
Clearly, my experience is anecdotal, but in a sense the net is a big
anecdote of our time. The best we can do right now is try to make good
qualitative decisions. I hope this text has lent insights into this effort.
The following lessons have lingered longest with me.
(1) The greatest efficiency in terms of economizing on instructor and
student time has been in e-mail use and a commitment to provide reading
materials on line. For some students on-line research for papers has
saved time, but most students still have a significant learning curve if
they are inexperienced users.
(2) Students will "buy in" to convenience, especially in an environment
where commuting time is significant and classes may be dispersed to
off-campus sites. This convenience motivates them to gain on-line access
from home, work, or other sites.
(3) Maintaining quality in a course highly evolved toward an electronic
infrastructure requires intense focus on how the technology should, and
should not, be employed. Experimentation with different learning
configurations to maximize the advantages of the technology is
essential. The faculty member must find the effective combination of
his/her own experience and style with the opportunities presented by the
technology. This suggests a fundamental re-thinking of how we allocate
teaching time. For example, I have become less and less likely to lecture
on material covered in the book, and more likely to strike out into
related areas of research or engage the class in impromptu problems.
(4) Students are accountable for more material not covered in class. I
make this point very clear, and reinforce it with test questions.
Bluntly put, this means students must learn more on their own by reading
the text. The demonstration of what they've learned with in-class
application seems most crucial.
(5) One question is ever present in our new techno-glitz educational
environment. Is the student better educated? Much of what we are about in
higher education is based on faith (i.e., truth in its multiple dimensions).
The advances at this stage are more tactile than visionary. We've just got to
do it, and through this process figure out how to do it better. I think there
is too much hype in hyper-education. We need more harness.
(6) An electronic infrastructure potentially extends educational
possibilities to more people who would otherwise not pursue higher learning.
If fact, this is a component of the unfolding agenda of the Tennessee Board of
Regents. Students may be enthusiastic, but woefully unprepared for the rigor,
wrongly attributing the old model of correspondence courses to this more
demanding and more interactive environment.
FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS
I have to date only taught each of the courses mentioned in this
manuscript one time with the full complement of web page and other
electronic support systems. The next wave will incorporate web page
elaboration, tighter editing, and more attentiveness to on-line data bases.
Having experimented with one custom published text, I am also interested in
the possibilities of meshing these selective materials with internet
resources. More data disks compatible with spreadsheet applications are also
on the horizon.
Another more immediate objective is to develop on-line cases for
student teams, dispersed in different locations. I expect this to be
quite time consuming, but but promising of some interesting pedagogical
insights.
In the fall of 1996 I will broadcast a graduate managerial
economics course and in the spring of 1997 I am scheduled to broadcast a
benefits course from MTSU's distance learning room. These experiences
will yield some opportunities to experiment with syncing internet with
broadcasting systems. Also, individual and group presentations by
students via telecommunications systems suggest other avenues to explore.
There are two projects for which I have longer term leanings.
One is the development of a CD for one of my courses. MTSU has the
production facilities for this kind of effort. The other project is, for
lack of a better term, a "living text." Conceptually, this would be an
on-line text with continuous work in progress.
From my experience on the net during the past four years, I also
am intrigued by another development. This is the blending of faculty,
students, and practitioners--typically within discussion lists. [9] These
new internet patterns raise interesting questions about the universality
of the learning experience and who and where the intellectual resources
are.
REFERENCES & NOTES
[1] Http://www.concerto.com/smart/vu/vu.html.
[2] Http://www.mtsu.edu/~rlhannah/Netteach.html.
[3] Http://www.mtsu.edu/~rlhannah/homepage.html.
[4] Http://www.mtsu.edu/~rlhannah/IR_HR.HTML.
[5] Http://www.mtsu.edu/~rlhannah/employee_benefits.html.
[6] Subscribers are from the U.S. and abroad and are a blend of benefits
administrators, consultants, actuaries, consultants, and academics. The
list averages about 10-15 messages per day.
[7] A comprehensive listing of internet discussion lists and how to
subscribe is provided on the IR_HR page.
[8] This list evolved from an earlier one specifically for economics
students. However, MTSU does not have enough economics majors, and
enough economics faculty requiring internet use to generate a critical
mass of subscribers for participation. Thus, converting to a more
general list made sense, especially since advisors can communicate with
students and job postings can be made via this medium.
[9] An article on this, "Teaching Resources and Patterns of Association on
the Net," is forthcoming in the August 1996 issue of the _Labor Law
Journal_. I also have two additional working papers on the topic of
patterns.
Richard L. Hannah, Assoc. Prof. INTERNET: RLHANNAH@FRANK.MTSU.EDU
Economics and Finance Dept., Box 27 Off. Tel: 615-898-2228
Dir., Center for Economic Education Fax: 615-895-7580
Middle Tennessee State University Mgr: Benefits-L
Murfreesboro, Tennessee USA 37132 Co-mgr: Benefits-CA
Homepage: http://www.mtsu.edu/~rlhannah/homepage.html