0.3 Findings  (Page 5/22)

At the end of course, Lyle summarized some of the students’ comments from an informal course evaluation:

They loved taking the test online, and they liked being prepared before they came to class. That was a comment that kept coming up. They’d never had a situation where they were tested on the reading before the lecture. I justified it to them saying, “You know, education is not about me teaching you anything, it’s about you teaching yourself.” They didn’t like that at first, they were very freaked about it. But after about the second or third week, they really started to understand the discussions more in class because they were so prepared for class.

The technology Lyle used with the two classes was a combination of outside videos he brought into the class and several features of the Online Day website. In addition to using the Online Day testing and grade book features, Lyle posted his syllabus on the Day website, as well as several articles of his own.

Caveats for future adopters

Lyle had a few caveats for faculty considering whether or not to adopt the Online Day, rather than just buying the textbook:

Make sure that their university can offer the high-speed Internet connection to use the videos, and probably use it to a fuller extent than I did. It does take some time to learn the software, that’s with any new technology, it takes time to learn. But I would be very positive about it.

Lyle’s use of the Online Day resources was limited. He was not able to spend much time becoming familiar with the website, but did plan on using it again when he taught the course in the future. Lyle was interested in finding out how other instructors had taught with it. The impression Lyle gave was that if he were exposed to successful pedagogical strategies or models for using Online Day, he would be able to integrate more of it in his teaching.

Nancy, almost tenured

Nancy had taught for six years, but was in her first year of teaching at a Research Level One university. Because she was going up for tenure the following year, she was very focused on getting a major research grant, making presentations at professional conferences, and serving on editorial boards of professional journals. Nancy admitted that those activities left her very little time to focus on teaching.

Mentors

Nancy had several professors from graduate school who were her mentors. Her favorites shared the trait of being very engaging, to the point of being entertaining. They had the ability to use a sense of humor as they presented information. One mentor stood out in her mind. “One of my other mentors was very strong into the group process and the community of learners and community of scholars and so that idea comes through in my teaching as well.”

Nancy felt an important personal quality she possessed was her ability to use humor with the students. Nancy believed in group process, and adhered to the concept of a community of learners, in which she encouraged the students to interact with each other and learn from one another, as well as from the instructor.