A New Way to Teach
Almost two years ago, I wrote a Labstracts
article about a book that describes the different generations and
how their attitudes toward collaboration differ. I suggested that the
teaching techniques that worked well when we were students might fall
flat with younger folks. For example, students in the Millennial generation
(born after 1980) live in constant communication with each other and
are therefore much more comfortable collaborating than are the skeptical
Generation Xers or the competitive Baby Boomers.
When I wrote that article, I had no idea that a new teaching assignment
was heading my way, giving me an unexpected chance to apply my new thinking
about classroom collaboration.
My dean asked me to develop an online biology course.
So, for the first time in my 6½ years at the University of Oklahoma,
I’m not teaching. Instead, I have “release time,”
a whole semester to think about teaching biology in a brand new way.
My online biology class, called “Contemporary Issues in Biology,”
will fulfill a general education science requirement for non-biology
majors. In some ways, it will be similar to the classroom course that
I normally teach, “Concepts in Biology,” with the notable
exception that the online course will not include a laboratory.
But the online course will require much more student collaboration
than my classroom course. My goal for the online course is for students
to learn enough biology to be able to understand some of today’s
issues, including genetically modified organisms, cancer, human origins,
and many others. My strategy will be to assign weekly textbook readings,
then require students to complete at least two short writing assignments
per week.
So where does the collaboration come in?
The students will be writing for each other, not just for me. Each
week, students will not only have to complete the writing assignments,
but they will also have to respond to what other students wrote. They
will use multiple tools, each suited for a particular type of assignment:
EZBoard and Calibrated
Peer Review for posting and responding to smaller writing assignments,
and Blogger for
posting installments of their semester-long projects. A student’s
writing assignment will not be complete until he or she has both written
AND responded to what at least two other students submitted.
By the way, I cannot claim credit for this course’s structure.
I have borrowed liberally from Dr. Laura Gibbs, whose exemplary online
course, Mythology
and Folklore, is inspiring many instructors at OU and elsewhere
on how to do online teaching “right.” Unlike most online
courses, which are hidden behind a password-protected course management
system, Laura posts her entire course on the open internet and welcomes
visitors. I urge you to visit her site, including the teacher's guide
– it may help you see online teaching in a different light.
In contrast to Laura’s fully functioning class, my course is
currently little more than a zygote – I have an idea of what it
might be like, but I haven’t really started developing any of
the major parts. Soon, however, I will start building the modules, using
resources from the text and perhaps some of the major online teaching
repositories such as MERLOT
and Biodidac.
I am really excited about this opportunity to build an entirely new
course with student collaboration in mind. I’m also curious about
how this experience will influence how I teach my classroom courses.
I’d love to hear about your own experiences with online teaching,
good and bad – just send me an email.
At any rate, I’ll keep you posted on how things develop!
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