0.4 Discussion  (Page 18/23)

Lyle was also a neophyte to teaching, in the same stage as Laura. For this course, he did adopt the online test bank to create weekly quizzes, but did not attempt to incorporate any other features of the Online Day program. He was not very comfortable learning new software, and he enjoyed the more traditional lecture format in teaching. Lyle expressed an interest in learning more about using the Online Day resources through a future workshop at a professional conference. He was interested to hear from others about their experiences in teaching with it. Like Laura, Lyle was also in Establishment , at the trial-committed phase of his career in his second year of teaching.

Before Nancy entered the field of psychology, she had a professional career as a lawyer. She was a few years older than Laura and Lyle. At the end of her sixth year as instructor, Nancy was facing tenure review. She had only been working at a Research One level institution for a year, and there were expectations for her to provide professional leadership at the national level. Most of her energy was directed toward the publication of a book and several articles for journals, serving on the editorial board of a professional journal, and presenting papers at conferences. There was little time left for Nancy to devote to her teaching, much less learning new course software.

Nancy had seen the Online Day course demonstrated at a conference, and it looked quite simple to use. However, when she tried to set up her class in the Online Day website, she had trouble getting started. She was disappointed that the software did not include prompts, like Blackboard provides, to lead her through the process of setting up the course. In addition, she discovered that her off-campus classroom had no Internet connection and that the students did not all have computer access from home. Finally, she found out that some of the students who did have computers at home did not have high-speed Internet connections which were necessary to view the streaming case videos from the website. At that point Nancy abandoned the idea of using the Online Day resources altogether.

Nancy used Blackboard to post announcements and some PowerPoint presentations from an earlier class on theories using a different textbook. She had recently attended a course in hybrid teaching which covered such topics as how to engage students in online discussions and how to assess them. She thought meeting face-to-face only every other week would be helpful both for her and for her off-campus students, because many of them had to drive an hour or more to reach the off-campus classroom. Nancy was completing the Establishment stage- Consolidation phase and was moving into the Advancement phase of Establishment .

Ken, a recently retired counseling practitioner, was in his sixth year as a college instructor. Ken was teaching for enjoyment, the modest income, and the benefit of being involved in a professional community. A friend of his on the faculty of the college had been wooing Ken to come teach with him for a number of years. When Ken finally retired and found full-time retirement unappealing, he decided to try his hand at teaching. His schedule was flexible, relieving him of the tightly-scheduled day he had experienced in private practice for over 30 years.