Submitted to Ag Bioethics Forum, Iowa State University, 28 April, 1995
Teaching on the Internet:
Experience with a Course on Global Change
Eugene S. Takle and Michael R. Taber
Department of Agronomy and Department of Geological and Atmospheric Sciences
Iowa State University
Ames, IA 50011
Introduction
We have experimented with the internet as a platform for a course on the changing nature of our global
environment (ISU course Meteorology 404/504, also cross-listed in Agronomy and Environmental Studies). We
describe some new dimensions such a platform offers for helping students learn.
The course has a homepage which contains a
syllabus summary, each item of which can be pulled up with a mouse click. These include links to course
information, schedule of lectures, list of students enrolled with e-mail addresses, required reading,
reference lists, student assignments, other related homepages, latest pertinent news releases, and
information on national and international symposia.
We have tried to develop some new wrinkles to improve the learning process for students and at the same
time emphasize broader university goals such as global awareness, exposure to technology, and improvement
in writing skills. One capability that adds a unique dimension to internet courses is an electronic dialog that enables students to
add to (but not modify) databases accessible from the homepage. We are indebted to Doug Fils of the International Institute of Theoretical and Applied Physics for
developing this capability for us. Students can enter questions, essays, literature searches, arguments,
or other information into databases organized by the instructor as described below.
Some advantages of an internet-based course include making information more readily available, offering
interactive student exercises, providing expanded accessibility, developing skills in public writing,
giving student partial ownership of the course, and continuing contact with course alumni. Each of these
will be briefly described.
Information availability
The computer allows development of a more complete information base for the course that may consist of
text, colored photographs, animated images, video, and audio, all of which can easily be modified,
updated, and expanded as the course evolves. The hypertext language allows new information from other
sources on the web or any local storage medium to be smoothly and quickly merged with existing information
through the use of hot links. These are particularly useful in our course for real-time information, such
as weather forecasts, satellite observations of sea- surface temperatures (El Nino), and ozone-hole
measurements.
We also assembled a live video session over the internet with an international expert on societal impacts
of global change. Students saw the expert at his desk in Boulder, CO in live video in front of his
computer answering questions from our class, which he could see on his computer screen. Having read the
book authored by the expert, the students, in dialog with the author, are exposed to a deeper
understanding of the issue and are able to hear the underlying thought process to an extent not provided
by the course lecturer. And furthermore, a 50-minute dialog over the internet is much easier to arrange
and much less expensive than 2 days of travel to accomplish the same objective.
The information base is not frozen but is available to be updated. Lists of references and recommended
readings can be updated as new articles become available. The course schedule is easily modified to
accommodate unexpected university closures (snow or ice storms), presentations by visiting experts, and
new opportunities that arise. Employment information can easily be posted for rapid dissemination. Also,
information made available on the homepage reduces paper and duplication costs associated with
handouts.
Interactivity
The electronic dialog enables students to react to information in the database. Students have an
opportunity to extend discussion beyond the class period on topics that arise in lecture or in their
outside reading by posting a question or comment directly on the homepage. If a question goes beyond the
expertise of the instructor, we try to get a campus or off-campus expert to respond. Having the question
posted on the homepage means that it will be available to everyone on the planet that has internet. A
response from someone from another department on campus, another university, or another country is just an
e-mail message away. Two assignments made during spring 1995 relate to ethical issues: the rights of
women to have more than 2 children and the right of government to impose a tax on fossil fuels. These
were kept separate from the class dialog to make them self-contained dialogs that students could browse
and add to as they were so motivated. Considerable interaction among students resulted.
Interactive student exercises are being developed for the Global Change course that will allow the student
to do simple interactive experiments to learn about climate models. By changing input parameters, the
student will learn how sensitive or insensitive the climate system is to components such as cloudiness,
surface color, dust in the atmosphere, etc.
Accessibility
Students with access to workstations such as those on the ISU campus network running Mosaic or personal
computers running Netscape can gain access to the homepage and information base 24 hours a day, 7 days a
week. Although this presents advantages for students living on or close to campus, it does present a
possible impediment, particularly in accessing images, to commuting students who do not have remote access
from home. Students can preview/postview graphs, tables, slides, and summary information typically
presented by use of an overhead or slide projector. This allows the student to assimilate information
from such sources at his/her own rate as opposed to the rate determined by the instructor. It also
provides pre-lecture material and exercises and post-lecture continuity that together enhance the value of
the 50-minute lecture period.
Public writing
We usually acknowledge in our curricula the importance of public speaking, and we require courses in this
area. However, an equally important skill is public writing. We here draw the distinction between public
writing and writing assignments that are handed in to an instructor, graded, and handed back, with
confidentiality shielding the student product from scrutiny by peers or other readers. Students writing
for the latter purpose may try to anticipate "what the instructor is looking for", or attempt to use a
style (e.g., pompous, folksy, cliche-laden) that they think will earn a good impression rather than work
on developing a clear and direct style that communicates effectively. Rarely are students required to do
public writing. The electronic dialog is very public, and it exposes the student to criticism or
accolades from peers. Public exposure provides an extra measure of incentive to clean up the grammar and
spelling since the document might be read by thousands of people (possibly including a future employer).
It also gives those students having a gift for writing opportunities to exercise their talent in
preparation for careers that build on this skill. Public writing assignments are good practice for
real-life situations.
Extending course ownership to students
We are continually amazed by the variety of information students dig up in the process of completing
assignments that involve literature search. The instructor can harness this energy by using these
references, perhaps annotated by the student, in an expanding reference list for the topic. Knowing that
particularly interesting or new literature sources will be selected by the instructor to be a part of the
database for the topic (with acknowledgment of the student by name, of course) is additional incentive to
seek such sources and summarize them well. This not only assists future students but gives present
students more ownership and personal identity with the course.
Continuing education
Preliminary results of our survey indicated that 94% of the students intend to connect up with the course
at least occasionally after it is over and 81% likely will connect at least occasionally after they
graduate from the university. Such continuing participation by course alumni is a very powerful tool for
solidifying and deepening the learning that results from the course. Extension of the electronic dialog
to contain an "alumni section" would allow advanced students access to discussions that likely would be on
a higher plane than the present class.
Summary
In summary, the functionalities we have described permit an extension of the traditional paradigm of
instructor/text as the core of the learning process to one that gives the student access to a much richer
resource and functionality base and allows the student to optimize the rate of and connections for
information flow to match his/her learning rate, style, and potential. These attributes may be
particularly useful for courses having an ethical component, because the internet framework provides (1) a
readily accessible bank of factual information, (2) a means for students to dialog with one another, with
the instructor, and with outside experts not associated with the course, and (3) a means of using
cooperative learning (through groups of students or the entire class).