Introduction  (Page 3/3)

The online day course

In order to make the context of this study clear, an overview of the software is presented in this section. The online resources included the electronic version of the textbook (Theories and Design of Counseling and Psychotherapy by Susan X Day) , video case studies, a bank of multiple choice test questions, PowerPoint slides which outlined each chapter, an interactive audio glossary, and voice recordings of the author explaining key concepts.

The textbook publisher, Houghton Mifflin/Lahaska, had employed an educational software company, Intellipro, to do the work of converting the textbook to an e-textbook, to incorporate the new multimedia components, and to provide the course templates in a proprietary course management system. The course website had two points of entry, one for students and another for educators. The educators’ version allowed instructors to build and manage the course components in addition to being able to see and use all the functionality provided the students.

The Intellipro website interface, learn ( (External Link) ), was visually appealing.

The educator button showed an alternating image either of a smiling short-haired male with wire-rimmed glasses in front of a blackboard with calculations on it, or a smiling black female seated at a desk in front of an abstract blue background. These two images cycled each time the page was opened.

To log in, all that was needed was the course number, which was assigned to the course when the instructor registered with Intellipro to teach with Online Day. The students went through one additional process to enter the course the first time. To register for the course they had to commit to the way they would pay for it. Along with the 180 day subscription to the online version, they were sent a hardback copy of the textbook though the mail. To navigate through the website, one simply by makes choices from menus, or clicked on linked terms.

The student interface

The students’ main page, “My Locker,” was simple to navigate with a menu in the left margin that remained constant.

The main features for the students were listed in the upper red box:

• The Syllabus , which included the schedule for class meetings, assignments, and exams, was a key element that explains the structure of the course. The majority of the participants’ syllabi included class rules, university policies, rubrics for each assignment, and how grades were calculated for the course.
• The Glossary was taken from the e-textbook, and could also be accessed from highlighted words within each chapter.
• The Discussion page was set up for the instructor to post a topic and the students to post their responses asynchronously.
• Resources linked to the digital materials not provided in the e-textbook, such as the case videos, the PowerPoint presentations, the illustrations, the core case descriptions, and the primary source articles, grouped by chapter.
• The Study guide contained several useful features, including “Chapter highlights” and “Self-quiz.”

The two other features listed, Grapher and Calculator , were not cogent to this course. They were vestiges of the course management system template that was created for math, science, and business courses. The Calculator was a working Java application, but the Grapher feature did not display any content.

The educator interface

The educator main page was titled, My Courses . From this page, the instructors could link to templates to add content to their courses, and manage the delivery of the assignments, announcements, and tests. Some of the functionality included personalizing the interface, re-ordering the chapters in the e-textbook, and posting discussion board topics.

In the center of the My Courses page, there were two grid-like sections; the top one, “Classes you’re teaching,” listed the current course. By clicking on “Enter Class,” the Class Materials page opens, showing the list of assignments and tests created. From this list, the instructor may view, resend, or reset an existing assignment.

The lower section labeled “Courses you’re creating,” linked to the Manage Course page. This is the where the instructor actually created the content for the course. The functions for creating and maintaining the course website were split between these two sections.

Although specific data about specific individuals in the field of counseling psychology are reported, the findings are relevant to the study of online teaching in other disciplines as well. As in all qualitative research, the goal of this study was to provide rich examples of real experiences that could be taken at face value and which the reader could abstract relevant meaning to their own life experience, present, past, or future.