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provost office) are informed, supportive and willing to provide the network needed to make the course
successful.
Negotiating with the chairperson for appropriate release time to complete the undertaking is
essential. A conservative estimate is that 250 additional hours will be needed just to initiate the course.
Depending on the departmental culture, half to full time assignment is to be sought.
The record keeping and paper transactions for large classes is very time consuming and laborious.
A WWW course should relieve some of the instructional burden by providing automated grading and datagathering
through forms and cgi scripts. Securing assistance in this area is essential.
The ongoing and summative evaluation of the course by the students is essential. Since the internet
experience may be the first internet course that students have taken in their academic careers, it is
important that they are given ample opportunity for providing feedback both during its development and
also during its status as a fully interneted course.
As each phase of the course is being placed on the internet the students should be queried for
specific feedback on every assignment, both individual and group, as well as the materials (i.e. lectures,
references etc.) Areas to be assessed include: Knowledge gained, level of difficulty, usefulness of
information, problems encountered, clarity of directions, Ways to improve, Strengths, etc.
In addition to the specific feedback there needs to be opportunities for formative feedback (weekly
or biweekly) via e-mail. This would be sought from the students as they read the Web sites, articles, and
chapters and complete the individual and group assignments.
A third evaluation or summative feedback would consist of the students assessing the entire course
at its conclusion. The current Department teaching evaluation form would probably need to be revised to
reflect the nature of an internet course.
One of the traditional concerns about large lecture classes expressed by students and faculty alike is
that they are so impersonal. This is especially the case with education and in particular special education. It
is an ironic contradiction that the very cornerstone of special education is the individualization of learning
for students and we begin the professional training of future teachers with a massive, potentially impersonal
learning experience. Through the use of the internet, individualizing the course to reflect the diversity of
students and their needs is possible. From the asynchronous nature of the internet, the constraints of both
time and location have been addressed. Through the use of chat rooms and e-mail, ongoing, individual and
group discussions can occur.
Since the internet is “blind,” potential prejudices associated with ethnicity and disability should
disappear or at least be minimized and not interfere with the learning. Through the use of test banks
students can be tested until a predetermined criterion has been achieved. The pace of the learning can be
individualized to account for the many competing demands on the lifestyles of students, many of whom are
nontraditional.
Individual mentoring experiences with professional teacher in the field are possible through the
internet and e-mail. These experiences would enable students to link up with practitioners and experts in
their area of interest for information, advice and direction about the profession of teaching.
In addition to the staff and personnel requirements, the logistics and support network on campus, the
evaluation of the course, students and instructor, and issues related to individualizing the learning, there are
critical research questions that need to be examined such as: How effective is the internet as an instructional
model when compared to the traditional large class instruction versus a hybrid that combines the internet with
traditional in-class instruction? Does the potential for individualization of learning and testing improve the
learning experience of the student? Will the internet minimize potential biases that historically have existed
between teacher and student?
The process of converting a large course to the internet presents many challenges and opportunities for
the student and professor. If future teachers are going to enter the field technologically literate professors “need
to model good practice.”
Literature References
[Harrington-Luker, 1996]. Harrington-Luker, D., (1996) Coming to grips with staff development. Electric Learning, 16 (1)
32-43.
[Hurst, 1994]. Hurst, D., (1994) Teaching technology to teachers . Educational Leadership, 51 (7), 74-76.
[O’Neil, 1995]. O’Neil, J., (1995) Teaching and technology: Potential and pitfalls, Educational Leadership, 53 (2), 10-11.