|
|
|
Teaching U.S. History Online: Problems and Prospects
John F. Lyons
Joliet Junior College
| DISTANCE EDUCATION and especially online courses are increasingly becoming an accepted part of college teaching. A survey released in July 2003 by the United States Education Department announced that enrollment in for-credit distance education courses grew from 750 thousand in 1994-95 to 1.3 million in 1997-98 and to 2.9 million in 2000-01. In 2000-01 fifty-six percent of two and four year institutions and ninety percent of two year public colleges offered distance education classes.1 Many major universities are offering distance education classes to students around the world and some have joined hands to produce classes online. The Alliance for Lifelong Learning (Alllearn), a joint project of Yale and Stanford Universities in the United States and Oxford University in England, for example, has offered online classes to their alumni since September 2000.2 Other newer institutions in the United States, such as the University of Phoenix, are promoting themselves as online specialists. |
1
|
|
Although the number of classes offered online has proliferated, many instructors express concern about teaching distance education. A survey of college and university history instructors undertaken in the fall of 1998 by the American Association for History and Computing, found that most teachers worried that students would not be able to learn enough from distance education classes. "They raise fundamental questions about the success of distance learning for early undergraduates in history. More than twenty instructors anecdotally claimed that participation and enthusiasm dropped in direct correlation to the amount of hours spent on-line in a course," the report suggested. One professor who conducted a quantitative comparative study of an identical distance and traditional course which he taught reported that "use of the internet and multimedia projects negatively affected student interest, communication with the instructor, and performance."3 Many professors told the Chronicle of Higher Education that they used technology in the traditional classroom but would not teach online because they disliked the lack of personal interaction.4 Other instructors complain that answering emails and participating in discussion boards mean that online teaching takes up more of their time than a traditional class.5 An online English instructor criticized the "attitudes and behaviors" of online students who did not take deadlines seriously, expected instantaneous feedback from the instructor, and often sent rude emails to the teacher and to the student discussion board. "The reality of online teaching can be confounding and upsetting. It can make a talented teacher feel like an unmitigated failure," she concluded.6 |
2
|
|
Even though some problems can exist with teaching online, it is still possible to create an exciting, interactive, learning experience that is rewarding for both the teacher and the students. To accomplish this, a history instructor needs a large degree of technical knowledge, or at least technical help, good organizational skills, and empathy with the students who are undertaking the unique and challenging experience of an online class. To illustrate how historians can utilize online technology to teach in an effective way, I will discuss the design of the sixteen-week United States History To 1865 and United States History Since 1865 online survey courses that I teach at Joliet Junior College in Illinois. I use Blackboard 6 to present a variety of online materials including a discussion board, music, websites, secondary readings, and primary sources.7 |
3
|
|
For both the students and the teacher, online instruction offers many advantages over a traditional class. Because there is no need to attend classes at a set time, and students are able to do course work at any time of the day, online classes can reach a whole new group of students. Busy working people, often on shift work, who want to advance their careers, frequent travelers, those who physically find it difficult to attend college, and parents who want to, or have to, spend more time at home with their children, can all take advantage of a flexible schedule offered by online classes. Some motivated students simply prefer to work on their own and in their own time rather than attend a traditional class. For the instructor, online teaching offers the ability to teach from home as well as school and from remote sites via a laptop computer especially during the summer months or if away at a conference. Teaching online also means less need for office hours, less time spent photocopying class handouts, and an end to setting up overhead projectors, powerpoint presentations, or video viewings in the classroom.8 |
4
|
|
Although distance education can be time saving for teachers during the semester, compared to traditional courses, courses like the online classes I have designed require far more time in preparation. Most of the work in an online class takes place before the semester even starts as the instructor puts the exams, discussion questions, and quizzes for the whole semester online. Thankfully, many textbook publishers now offer computer software packages including Blackboard and WEBCT to help the busy instructor. These packages contain material for teachers to use in conjunction with their textbooks which can then be adapted by teachers to suit their own preference. My college uses Blackboard 6 which is easy for both the teacher and the student to learn and use. Blackboard provides students with 24 hour access to course materials which are open to students with a password. It allows links to the internet, to quiz and essay exam creation, and automatic grading; and it lets instructors post course materials, a syllabus, and announcements. Blackboard offers interactive capabilities such as email, file exchange, discussion forums, virtual chat, and group pages. Blackboard also allows the teacher a large degree of control over the visual design of the course. However, I prefer to keep a simple, professional and serious tone to the course design, rather than overwhelm the site with visuals, animations or technological gimmicks.9 |
5
|
|
To help students maintain self-discipline and motivation, especially difficult for online students working alone, it is essential to allocate weekly assignments and stay in regular communication with the students. I assign quizzes and discussion board questions with weekly deadlines to help students to keep up with the course. The multiple-choice quizzes are based on information from the textbook and the discussion questions on other resources available through the Blackboard site. The announcements page, the first thing the students see when they log on to the site, is also important for guiding the students. The announcements remind the students about due dates for assignments and maintain a regular link between the instructor and the students. I post announcements that put the weekly readings and discussions into context and summarize the major points of the previous week's work.10 |
6
|
|
Although there are wonderful resources on the web, I still use a textbook in both of my courses. Before students can analyze websites or discuss historical issues, they must first of all have some basic background knowledge of the subject. The book I assign is James Davidson, et al. Nation of Nations: A Concise Narrative of the American People which is very well written with a strong narrative structure and is therefore easy to read for students studying on their own. Some instructors post online lectures but I prefer to assign a textbook and add weekly timed multiple choice quizzes based on the textbook to help students keep up with the reading. To assist the students with the quizzes, I include practice quizzes on the Blackboard site. |
7
|
|
One of the most important parts of the course, and one that students particularly enjoy, is the discussion board. I assign a question each week for students to discuss with their peers. The questions pertain to documents students have read, websites they have viewed, or music they have listened to. After making an initial posting, students are then expected to analyze each other's comments and to react to them in two further contributions via the discussion board by the end of the week. The first posting has to be 250 words in length and each subsequent contribution a paragraph long. I monitor the message board discussion to make sure that students observe proper etiquette. I include in my syllabus a clear and detailed outline of email etiquette which makes clear that students need to be respectful to each other in the discussion. The teacher can remove inappropriate student responses to the discussion and tell the student to restate their views using more appropriate language, or the instructor can tell students to stick to the point of the question when they veer off the discussion topic. Rather than respond to each contribution, at the beginning of each week I simply set the context to the discussion question and restate the main points of the discussion at the end of the week. I assign a grade based on the quality and quantity of the students' contributions. The Blackboard site allows the teacher to sort the discussion postings by author, which makes it easier to grade them. The operation of the online discussion board still takes great effort on behalf of the instructor, however. As indicated, each of my students has to forward at least three paragraph-length postings each week and I have to read each contribution. With 26 students in a class this means more than 70 postings per week. I assign a weekly grade to each student, and post announcements that comment on the students' contributions. |
8
|
|
The discussion board encourages independent learning and critical thinking skills, and provides a comfortable environment for students who are reluctant to speak in class. Shy and timid students are more likely to participate and ask questions online than they might be in class. The discussion board is particularly popular with students because they feel that it builds class cohesion and helps to break out of the isolation associated with online learning. It is possible for an instructor to use the chat room or other forums that Blackboard provides for discussion in live time. However, to schedule a time that is convenient for the teacher and all the students makes live chat room discussions nearly impossible to organize. Moreover, threaded discussions allow students more time to think than online real time or traditional classroom discussions would allow, with the result of more thoughtful engagement. Students can simply add their postings at a time convenient to them and after having time to consider the views of their peers. To encourage further a self-directed and collaborative form of learning rather than allowing students to depend on the instructor for constant direction, feedback, and instructions, I don't respond to each discussion thread with a posting of my own. I want to let the students take the lead and to think for themselves. If a teacher makes a posting, I believe that students tend to respond to the teacher and not to each other. In a traditional classroom a good discussion develops when the instructor does not intervene in discussion groups and the same applies to an online discussion board.11 |
9
|
|
Whether it's for use with the discussion board or other assignments, some fantastic resources for studying history are available at their fingertips to online students. A wide range of wonderful history websites can enhance their educational experience. For early United States history, for example, there are sites that give students insights into the lives of Native Americans, that bring to life the Jamestown settlement, and that elucidate the horrors of slavery. Other websites contain 19th century American paintings that are ideal for helping students understand how Americans felt about themselves and about events like westward expansion. Students can examine these websites as part of their online discussion board participation. I instruct my students to scrutinize a number of websites or one site in greater detail. Because of the variability in quality of material on the world wide web, the websites shown to the students should be previously evaluated by the teacher so that they meet established criteria for authoritative and historically accurate content.12 |
10
|
|
I take advantage of Blackboard's ability to display multimedia content by posting music and speeches on my online sites to evoke feelings and emotions in my students and to allow them to examine the music and speeches in their historical context. For each of my courses I have selected sixteen musical pieces which represent the different cultures and trends in American music. The Distance Education Support Center at Joliet Junior College has converted the clips to the Windows Audio format and uploaded them to the streaming server. Students are asked to listen to the selections and bring their thoughts on them to the discussion board. Obviously it is difficult to know what music was played or how it was played in early American history but I find old songs that could well have been played or at least sound like music that probably was played. I post Native American music from the wonderful American Roots Music compilation. I assign the old English folk song "Scarborough Fair" sung by Simon and Garfunkel and the old English drinking song "To Anacreon in Heaven," which later became the music to the "Star Spangled Banner," to demonstrate the influence of the Britain on the U.S. I also post drum and chant music from West Africa and "Go Down Moses" by Paul Robeson to show African influences in American music. Minstrel and folk songs from musician Mick Moloney's Far From the Shamrock Shore also illustrate the Irish immigrant experience in the United States.13 The Blackboard site also allows me to post speeches and interviews to let the students listen to the words of prominent figures and ordinary people in the nation's history. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's fireside chats, the passionate speeches of Malcolm X, and the voices of slaves, all come alive on the Blackboard site and give students the chance to discuss these people14 |
11
|
|
Writing is another extremely important component of the online history courses I teach. Students have to write a 250 word posting on the discussion board each week and follow it up with two further paragraphs reacting to the postings of others. Furthermore, students have to take three exams throughout the semester, all using an essay format, and write a research paper. For my early United States history class, the students have to write a local history paper which examines the role the local area played in the nation's history, The students enrolled in my United States History Since 1865 course have to conduct an oral interview and write an essay based on the interview. These exams and essays are all posted to the site by the students, down loaded and graded by the instructor, and then returned with comments to the students online. Because all the exams are typed and "open book" they are easier to read and usually of better quality than traditional handwritten exams. The mechanics of grading online essays can, however, be more time consuming than in a traditional class. I have to download the essays, add comments to each one, return them to the students, and then assign a grade to the online grade book. |
12
|
|
Because all the exams and essays are typed and there is so much information available on the web, plagiarism can be a potential problem in online courses. I think, however, that this can be avoided by being creative with essay questions and thereby avoiding standard questions that are often available on student essay websites. For example, in essay questions I get the students to imagine they are an historical figure and to explain how they would experience some event. I change essay questions each semester to avoid plagiarism from previous students who took my class, and keep on file my old papers for comparison. The research papers on local history and oral history, with strict guidelines, are pretty unique and not the type that can be downloaded from the web or student essay websites. |
13
|
|
Because there is no close person to person contact between the students and the teacher in an online class and the process of teaching is mechanical, it is essential to personalize the online experience as much as possible. One of the outcomes of this impersonal experience, and a problem that online teachers complain about most, is that students can be demanding and rude in their correspondence with the teacher.15 Students who would hesitate to approach a teacher after class on in an office, or criticize teachers in the traditional classroom, prove much less reticent with the impersonality of email. Online students are much more likely to question grades, to ask teachers for extended deadlines or to cajole the instructor into assigning more lenient and undeserved course grades. A further major drawback to online teaching often mentioned is that it is very difficult to bring your personality to bear in teaching online and to build rapport with the students. Humor, or an approachable personality, is difficult to put over using email or in a course site. But it is not impossible to establish rapport with the students online, it just requires more thought and effort. To help build up a good relationship with the students, a teacher should address email to a student by name and sign his/her own name at the bottom, and should encourage students on a regular basis. Emails can, however, appear to imply misleading ideas that the author never intended or may contain words or phrases which would be acceptable to say in person but which can seem harsh in tone on paper. Once sent, emails cannot be taken back and may later be used against a teacher by a disgruntled student. It is best for teachers to carefully proof read their email messages before they are sent and to archive all emails sent or received during the semester. |
14
|
|
The major complaint of online students is that professors do not reply quickly enough to their emails and give unclear directions in assignments. Although it seems reasonable to respond to student emails within 24 hours, busy faculty away at conferences or out of town on holiday weekends cannot always quickly return students' emails. Its best to make it clear at the beginning of the semester that when possible the teacher will respond to the students within 24 hours and when the teacher is away to put an announcement on the course site telling the students they will be unavailable. I answer emails twice a day and tell my students that I will have their essays graded within a week. Furthermore, to avoid excessive email from students I have found it important to be clear and precise with instructions. In a traditional classroom it is easier for a teacher to explain an assignment and a student to ask a question if he or she does not understand. Any clarification is at once known to the entire class. In an online class unclear instructions will lead to an avalanche of emails to the instructor. In general, teachers have to spend more time answering emails from online students than from traditional students. Students in the traditional classroom can ask questions before, during and after class. Without this avenue, online students email me far more often to discuss readings, quizzes, and other online assignments. |
15
|
|
One possible source of tension between the teacher and the students concerns technical difficulties with the course site. When the network goes down, internet links disappear, or students' computers break down, the instructor needs to be flexible. I would suggest that you do not give students a lot of work on the automated testing part of Blackboard because online activity can easily be interrupted by technical problems with the server, or the computer. Computers do often malfunction, and sending essays to the Blackboard site can often be a problem to some students. It is not unusual for the server to go down on the evening that a major assignment is due and teachers have to be prepared to extend their deadlines. |
16
|
|
Students have reacted positively to my online courses and in the student evaluations the majority of students rated the courses as "very good" or "excellent." One student stated "Mr. Lyons effectively communicated assignments and responded to emails generally within 24 hrs. He also graded assignments in a timely manner," while another wrote: "He responded quickly and thoughtfully to any concerns." The student evaluations for this online class noted the high demands of the course. A student complained that "There was a lot of writing for this class, it should almost have a perquisite of Com 101 before you take this" while another observed that the instructor was "well organized and the essay questions on exams require you to use high-level thinking." Another student concluded that: "It was more difficult than I expected, but I did learn a lot."16 |
17
|
| |
|
Conclusion | |
|
As many scholars have noted and feared, there are drawbacks to teaching history online. I have found that preparation, the intensive use of the discussion board, and emailing students means that I spend far more time on the online course than on the traditional course. The use of textbook software packages, a properly administered discussion board and clear concise directions can, however, alleviate the time demands on teachers. Furthermore, online teaching offers instructors a flexible schedule, the chance to reach people that the traditional class cannot, and to do things that cannot be done in the classroom. Distant students learn how to work collaboratively, and in a self-directed way and with all the historical resources available online, distance studying can be a more enjoyable experience for students than traditional classes. Overall, online history teaching is intellectually challenging and, if done well, rewarding for students and teachers alike. |
18
|
|
Notes
1.Ê"A Survey Documents Growth in Distance Education in Late 1990s" Chronicle of Higher Education (August 8 2003), A28. For an overview of the history of distance education see Judy Lever-Duffy, "The Evolution of Distance Education," in Mark David Milliron and Cindy L. Miles (eds) Taking a Big Picture Look @ Technology, Learning and the Community College (League for Innovation in the Community College, 2000): 251-274.
2.ÊBBC History Magazine, 4 (December 2003), 82-83. See www.alllearn.org.
3.Ê Dennis A. Trinkle, "History and the Computer Revolutions: A Survey of Current Practices," Journal of the Association for History and Computing 2 (April 1999).
4.Ê Michael Arnone, "Many Students' Favorite Professors Shun Distance Education," Chronicle of Higher Education (May 10, 2002), p. A39-40.
5.Ê Jeffrey R. Young, "The 24-Hour Professor," Chronicle of Higher Education (May 31, 2002), p. A31-33.
6.Ê Ellen Laird, "I'm Your Teacher, Not Your Internet-Service Provider," Chronicle of Higher Education (January 3, 2003), p. B5
7.Ê For other examples of teaching history online see Alex Zukas, "Cyberworld: Teaching World History on the World Wide Web," The History Teacher 32 (August 1999), 495-516; and Paul Kubricht, "Reflections on Teaching International Cold War History Online," Journal of the Association for History and Computing 3 (November 2000).
8.Ê Paul Kubricht, "Reflections on Teaching International Cold War History Online," Journal of the Association for History and Computing 3 (November 2000) makes many of these points.
9.Ê For a helpful introduction to using history textbook publishers websites and other online material in the classroom see J. Patrick McCarthy, "Commercial Publisher Web Sites for U.S. History Surveys" Perspectives (February 2000), 21-28.
10.Ê Useful guides to developing an online class are Mary Boaz et al. Teaching at a Distance: A Handbook for Instructors (League for Innovation in the Community College and Archipelago, 1999); Marc Rosenberg, E-Learning: Strategies for Delivering Knowledge in the Information Age (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001); Allison Rossett (ed) The ASTD E-Learning Handbook (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002); and Dennis A. Trinkle and Scott A. Merriman (eds.) History.edu: Essays on Teaching With Technology (ME Sharpe: Armonk, New York, 2001). For further help see Teaching History Online published by Spartacus Educational every week. It is available from <www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk>.
11.Ê For good advice on using a discussion board see Zane L. Berge and Lin Muilenburg, "Designing Discussion Questions for Online, Adult Learning," in Allison Rossett (ed) The ASTD E-Learning Handbook (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002), 183-189.
12.Ê For example
the website on Hopewell culture by the National Park Service at
www.nps.gov/hocu/
; The Essentials of Adena Ritual by the University of Indiana
at <
www.gbl.indiana.edu/abstracts/adena/contents/html
>; Virtual Jamestown at <
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/vcdh/jamestown>
>; Slave Voices at <
http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/slavery/
>; and Westwards The Course of Empire Takes Its Way at
http://nmaa-ryder.si.edu
. A good guide to history websites is William P. Leeman, "American
History Websites for Use in Secondary Schools" Social Education
63 (April 1999), 144-151.
13.Ê Various Artists, American Roots Music (Palm, 2001); "Scarborough Fair" from Simon and Garfunkel's Greatest Hits (Sony 1990); "To Anacreon in Heaven" from Douglas Jimerson, George Washington Portrait in Song (Amerimusic, 1999); Various Artists, Africa: Drum, Chant and Instrumental Music (Nonesuch, 2002, originally released in 1976); "Go Down Moses" by Paul Robeson, The Essential Paul Robeson (ASV Living Era, 2001); and Mick Moloney, Far From the Shamrock Shore: The Irish-American Experience in Song (Shanachie, 2002).
14.ÊGreat Speeches of the Twentieth Century (Rhino Records, 1995); and audio cassettes with Ira Berlin (ed.) Remembering Slavery (New York: New Press, 1998).
15.Ê Ellen Laird, "I'm Your Teacher, Not Your Internet-Service Provider," Chronicle of Higher Education (January 3, 2003), p. B5
16.Ê Student evaluations in the possession of the author.
|
Content in the History Cooperative database is intended for personal, noncommercial use only. You may not reproduce, publish, distribute, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, modify, create derivative works from, display, or in any way exploit the History Cooperative database in whole or in part without the written permission of the copyright holder.
|