Session S1B
DEVELOPING A WEB-ENHANCED COURSE: A CASE STUDY
Philip T. McCreanor1
Abstract  This paper presents a case study on the
incorporation of web-based teaching tools into a senior level
engineering course on solid waste management. This course
was originally taught with two 75 minute weekly sessions in
the traditional lecture and chalkboard format. The class
progressed over seven semesters to become a web-enhanced
course which met once per week for 75 minutes. The primary
phases of course evolution were development and teaching
of the course in a lecture and chalkboard format,
construction of a class web-site which included lecture notes
and links to important internet sites, development and
incorporation of on-line interactive quizzes using CyberProf
internet software, relocation and re-organization of the
existing site materials into the Web CT environment, and
development of the final web-enhanced course.
significantly enhance student learning while decreasing the
time spent in traditional classroom lectures.
This paper presents a case study on the incorporation of
web-based teaching tools into a senior level engineering
course on solid waste management. This course was
originally taught with two 75 minute weekly sessions in the
traditional lecture and chalkboard format.
The class
progressed over seven semesters to become a web-enhanced
course which met once per week for 75 minutes. The
primary phases of course evolution were
1)
2)
3)
This paper will present the course development history and a
discussion of the successes and pitfalls encountered during
the course evolution.
4)
Index Terms  Internet, Web Enhancements, Case Study
5)
INTRODUCTION
Well-designed web-based teaching materials can be just as
effective, if not more so, than traditional classrooom
lectures. Reference [1] presented a study in which students
in a visual prototyping class were exposed to the required
information via either a web-lecture or a classroom lecture.
The study results demonstrated that the students in the weblecture group performed at a higher level than students in the
classroom lecture group on the visual prototyping
assignment. The authors suggested that web-based materials
could be used to prime students for classroom lectures or to
make classroom time available for alternative learning
activities.
While web-based teaching tools are commonly used in
distance learning applications, they also provide an
opportunity to significantly enhance on-campus learning.
Reference [2] presents a study in which material was
presented to students via either a web-lecture followed by a
full classroom lecture or a web-lecture followed by a limited
experiential activity with a faculty member. The weblecture+experiential activity group spent significantly more
time with web-lecture than the classroom lecture group and
achieved an average grade 11% higher than the average
grade of the classroom lecture group. These results indicate
that well-designed web-based teaching tools can
1
development and teaching of the course in a lecture
and chalkboard format,
construction of a class web-site which included
lecture notes and links to important internet sites,
development and incorporation of on-line
interactive quizzes using CyberProf internet
software,
relocation and re-organization of the existing site
materials into the Web CT environment, and
development of the final web-enhanced course.
The final web-enhanced course utilized the Web CT
environment and included three primary on-line
components: lesson plans, quizzes, and homeworks.
The on-line lesson plans consist of 1) a statement of
lesson objectives and goals, 2) primary reading assignments
from the text and supplemental sources, and 3) an interactive
lesson to be completed after the primary readings.
The on-line quizzes are used to ensure that the students
have completed the assigned lesson plan prior to the class
meeting. These quizzes cover rudimentary material from the
reading assignments and outline as well as variations to
example problems presented in the lesson plan.
The homeworks combine on-line and in-class
submissions. Students initially submit the homework on-line
at which time the problems are graded and the correct
answers are provided. If a student does not get a question
right, they may submit the problem reworked correctly at the
next class meeting for full credit.
This paper will present the course development history
and a discussion of the successes and pitfalls encountered
during the course evolution.
Philip T. McCreanor, Mercer University, School of Engineering, mccreanor_pt@mercer.edu
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October 18 - 21, 2000 Kansas City, MO
30 th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference
S1B-18
Session S1B
PHASE I: TRADITIONAL LECTURE AND
CHALKBOARD DELIVERY
PHASE III: ADDITION OF AUTOMATED ON-LINE
QUIZZES
This solid waste management course was taught using the
traditional lecture and chalkboard delivery method for two
semesters. During these two semesters, it was observed that
The use of on-line quizzes was initially tried as a method to
manage student practice tests. Old exams had been placed
on-line previously and were used extensively by students.
This created a fairly high demand for solutions to the exam
problems. The use of an auto-grading on-line tool to provide
students with the answers to problems seemed promising.
During the course of the semester, questions
(primarily computational) were placed on-line as practice
problems for students. The CyberProf software package was
used to administer the questions. Grades were not recorded.
The following semester, the on-line questions were
organized into quizzes and incorporated as 10% of the
overall course grading. The primary issue encountered this
semester was cheating on the quizzes. Once a few students
had completed the quizzes, the answers became common
knowledge. The quizzes were obviously not viewed by the
students as an important part of the learning process but
rather just a grade.
The experimentation with quizzes during these two
semesters provided the following insights. The question
formats available within a software package will limit the
types of question which can be asked and the complexity of
these questions. Motivated students will use the quizzes to
practice without grading however, many students will not. If
on-line materials are to be included in the course grading
scheme, cheating and work sharing are serious issues which
must be addressed.
•
•
•
•
Students spent a lot of time copying material they
could have reviewed prior to class,
It was impossible to ensure that background
material for a lecture had been completed without
an in-class quiz or other graded mechanism,
Homework was viewed by students as a grade
rather than an important part of the learning
process, and
The majority of students manage their studies by
crisis (i.e. material was studied only immediately
prior to an exam).
The first observation suggested that lectures could be
improved by providing student access to lecture materials
prior to the lecture. The availability of these materials
should enable the students to interact during lectures rather
than transcribe notes from the board.
PHASE II: POSTING LECTURE NOTES TO THE
INTERNET
In an effort to increase student interaction during lectures,
the raw lecture notes were posted to the internet. These
postings were truly the raw notes used to lecture from and
were many times no more than a collection of facts or
figures. These raw postings were used for one semester.
The following semester, the on-line notes were
supplemented with graphics. For example, in one section of
notes the steps used to build a landfill leachate collection
systems had been listed, each step was now accompanied
with a picture illustrating the activity. These pictures were
taken during the construction of a new LCS at a local
landfill. This not only helped students visual the activities
and magnitude of the process but also primed students with
background information for field trips to the landfill. Links
to solid waste management resources on the web and copies
of old exams were also incorporated into the web site.
The posting of on-line notes proved to be a simple
way to provide extra content, supply handouts, and pull
current information into the course. It also increased the
opportunities for classroom discussion and interaction.
Motivated students brought the outlines to class and filled
them in as their class notes however, some students were
less likely to come to class since they already had access to
some of the lecture material. Students made significant use
of the old exams to prepare for tests.
PHASE IV: COURSE M ATERIAL REORGANIZATION AND POSTING TO THE WEBCT
ENVIRONMENT
The next semester, the on-line material content was not
changed significantly. However, the entire course was
moved to the WebCT environment. The on-line course
notes were re-organized and updated during this move.
Course notes had been updated with current data almost
every semester but the move provided an opportunity to do a
much more complete revision. The forum and e-mail
utilities within WebCT were also evaluated during this
semester.
The quiz tools within WebCT were used to manage
and automate the on-line question sets. The cheating issues
encountered previously were addressed by using a question
randomization tool within the WebCT environment. All of
the students saw the same question sets but the questions
were ordered differently for each student. The students were
also led to believe that each quiz was different. This format
appeared to eliminate the cheating problems encountered
previously. However, a new issue was encountered during
the first part of the semester. The students were allowed to
complete the quizzes multiple times. The grading option
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October 18 - 21, 2000 Kansas City, MO
30 th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference
S1B-19
Session S1B
was set to give them the highest overall quiz score they
received. The result was that many students took an iterative
approach to the quizzes. They would guess at answers until
they got a question right and then record that answer. Once
they had all of the answers, they would complete the quiz a
final time and receive 100%. Once the instructor became
aware of this problem, it was addressed by changing the
grading option to give the students three attempts at the quiz.
The average of these attempts was recorded as their final
quiz grade.
The forum and e-mail tools within the WebCT
environment did not prove to be useful tools for this course
and teaching format. Efficient and productive use of the
forum requires the students and instructor to check it fairly
often. If this is not done, threads within the forum digress or
die. If e-mail were not readily available to the instructor or
students, the e-mail functions within WebCT would be very
useful. However, both the students and instructor had access
t o e-mail through the university. Thus, the WebCT e-mail
accounts were simply one more thing to keep track and were
not checked as often as necessary.
During this semester, collaborative learning
exercises were incorporated into the classroom activities.
The primary difficulty encountered with these activities was
that many times, background work was required for the
exercise. If this material was presented during the lecture,
there was no problem. However, in many instances, the
background material was to be covered outside of the
classroom. Inevitably, many students would not have
completed the material prior to the classroom activity. This
often made it difficult, if not impossible, for some groups to
conduct the activity effectively.
PHASE V: THE WEB-ENHANCED COURSE
As a result of the previous experiences with using the
internet to supplement this course and several faculty
workshops on teaching effectiveness, the idea to convert the
on-line notes into on-line interactive lessons developed. A
course topic would be covered using five main components;
required readings, an on-line lesson, an on-line quiz,
classroom content, and homework assignments. The student
view of this coverage would be:
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
Complete required reading,
Complete on-line lesson,
Complete the on-line lesson quiz,
Classroom activities (lectures, Q&A sessions,
problem solving sessions, etc),
Complete an on-line homework assignment, and
Rework homework problems missed during the online submission and submit a hard copy.
Based on the layout of the course materials, it was
decided that the on-line lessons would be formatted to each
cover approximately one week of material. The weekly online lesson was comprised of a statement of lesson objectives
and goals, primary reading assignments from the text and
supplemental sources, and an interactive lesson to be
completed after the primary readings. The interactive lesson
reviews the high points from the primary readings, presents
supplementary material including pictures, graphs, and links
to other sites, and directs the students to additional readings.
The interactive lesson also includes “What if” and
compare/contrast questions, example problems, and
solutions for variations on example problems.
The
variations on example problems have been particularly
successful in that they force the students to plug in different
numbers and follow through the example problem which
ensures some level of understanding and familiarity with
basic problems and solution techniques.
Previous experiences suggested that these lessons
would not be used by many of the students unless they were
somehow motivated to complete them in a timely manner.
Thus, an on-line automated quiz was designed to accompany
each week's material. This quiz was typically due the
evening before the first lecture of the week. This format
provided some assurance that the majority of the students
had completed the background material for the classroom
sessions. The quiz content was aimed at ensuring that the
student completed the independent material and a time limit
was imposed to ensure that the student completed the on-line
lesson prior to the quiz. Rudimentary material from the
reading assignments and the interactive lesson as well as
variations to example problems presented in the lesson plan
were covered in the quizzes. The students were allowed to
complete the quiz twice and the average score was recorded.
This approach encouraged students to review the material
they missed. The cheating issues encountered previously
were addressed by using the randomization technique
mentioned in the previous section.
These on-line lessons and accompanying quizzes
constituted a significant workload for the students outside of
the classroom. Therefore, the classroom meetings were
reduced to one 75-minute session per week. The course had
originally been taught in with two 75-minute sessions per
week. This lecture typically includes the presentation of
unpublished material, traditionally difficult material, real
world experiences and problem solutions. Important or
complex topics can be emphasized or clarified during these
lectures.
Collaborative learning exercises rather than
lectures may be used when addressing materials already
covered in the on-line lesson.
A qualitative benefit of the on-line lesson plan and
quizzes has been significantly more dynamic and interactive
lectures. In some cases, the prepared lecture materials were
covered in a question and answer session driven by the
students. The very topics that were not covered sufficiently
in the independent material were what the students had
questions about.
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October 18 - 21, 2000 Kansas City, MO
30 th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference
S1B-20
Session S1B
The homework assignments included on-line and
hard copy submission options. Students initially submit
their answers to homework problems on-line. Once a
question was submitted, the student received instant
feedback as to whether their answer was right or wrong as
well as the correct answer to the problem. If they had
answered a question incorrectly, they could rework it and
submit a hardcopy at the next class meeting for regrading for
up to full credit. This approach has had a profound effect on
student's attitude towards homework. Students will work a
problem until they get it right and since they have the
answers they will know when they have worked it correctly.
This approach also forces students that need extra help to
receive it in a timely manner rather than immediately prior
to an exam. Both meetings with students which require
extra help and homework review sessions tend to be more
productive since students will have invested some time in
attempting the problems and may know exactly where they
are having trouble.
Cheating and work sharing were of course a
potential issue with the on-line homework submission and it
was quickly determined that simple randomization would
not work well. A methodology was subsequently developed
which would not only insure independent work but would
also allow for collaboration among the students. Each
question within a homework set has at least three variations
to it. The problem statement for each variation was the same
but, the numbers used in the problems were different. When
a student accesses a homework set for the first time, one of
the three problem variations for each question is randomly
selected. Thus, while some students may have exactly the
same problem statement and numbers for question one, it is
unlikely that they will have the same numbers for the other
questions. Students may then work in groups but since their
ultimate answers will be different, each student has an
individual responsibility for mastery of the material. An
additional benefit of this format is that it significantly
decreases the number of problems which have to be graded
by hand. Also, the majority of the problems which require
hand grading have generally been worked correctly.
Exams were still a part of the course grading and
provided some of the most obvious feedback on the
effectiveness of the new teaching format. In particularly, it
was observed that more complex and challenging questions
could be used on exams. The answers to open-ended and
essay questions tended to be more complete. Additionally,
there was not a sudden surge in student visitations during
office hours immediately prior to an exam as had been the
case previously. Those students who did have questions
immediately prior to an exam tended to have very specific
and direct questions rather than big issue questions. Student
comments indicate that they felt they had little preparation to
do immediately prior to an exam and they knew which
topics they must review to ready themselves for the
examination.
LESSONS LEARNED
Several major issues were encountered during the evolution
of this course. It quickly became obvious that the majority
of students would not access the on-line materials in a timely
fashion unless there was some grade related impetus to do so
The use of on-line, self-grading quizzes was a logical and
effective solution to this problem.
However, some
mechanism must be used to prevent students from sharing
answers. Most web-based teaching packages provide some
mechanism for randomizing the questions in a quiz. This is
a simple and effective method to inhibit work-sharing.
The homework submission format, initial
submission on-line followed by classroom submission of
missed problems, had the most profound effect on student
learning. It directly involved the students in the process of
learning how to work problems. This technique should be
incorporated as soon as possible.
Care should be taken not to overwhelm students
with information on-line. Excessive postings will distract
students from the focus of a lesson and decrease its impact.
Reference [3] provides a template which may be used to
develop a web-enhanced course from existing course
materials. The use of this template may facilitiate the initial
development of web-based materials and prevent
information overload issues.
Finally, some time should be spent investigating the
capabilities, limitations, and formatting requirements of the
on-line teaching environment used for the course. This will
prevent wasted time associated with developing materials
the environment cannot support. It may also produce some
ideas on alternative strategies for presenting on-line
materials.
SUMMARY
The use of web-enhancements has had a very positive effect
on this solid waste management course. Some of the
benefits observed included
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•
•
Students arrive at class better prepared for the
material to be presented.
The textbook can become an active part of the
learning process.
Many lectures drive themselves with the lesson
content being presented through an interactive
question and answer session.
Students are forced to keep pace with the class and
receive instant feedback on what their deficiencies
are.
Student focus can be directed at the important
topics.
Open-ended ‘compare and contrast’ and ‘what if’
questions can be presented in the lesson and then
discussed in class.
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October 18 - 21, 2000 Kansas City, MO
30 th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference
S1B-21
Session S1B
•
•
Groundwork can be laid for classroom
collaborative learning exercises.
Student comments indicate that they have little
preparation to do immediately prior to an exam and
they know which topics they must review to ready
themselves for the examination.
Some issues do still remain to be resolved. The
technology can intimidate students that are less computer
literate. It is important to make sure that these students do
not fall through the cracks and to get them comfortable with
the course software and the internet as quickly as possible.
Many students are uncomfortable with the self-learning
paradigm and fully expect to be taught material.
Unfortunately, it is difficult to identify these students on the
front-end and the "I am paying for an education so teach me"
attitude can be hard to change.
It is important to acknowledge some of the technical
limitations of the internet. Large files: particularly high
resolution graphics, large PDF documents, and animations;
can be expected to take a long time to load. If large files are
included in a lesson, students should be forewarned and
some effort should be made to provide alternative access to
the material.
Finally, when providing and developing on-line content
and lessons it is very easy to create too much work for the
students and overwhelm them with content. This will have a
negative effect on student morale, focus, and learning. A
small, concise lesson will be much more effective than a
large, encyclopedic lesson. Breadth and depth can be
provided during classroom discussion and presentations.
REFERENCES
[1]
Wallace, D.R., and Mutooni, P., "A Comparative Evaluation of
World Wide Web-Based and Classroom Teaching", Journal of
Engineering Education, Vol 85, No 3., July 1997, pp. 211-219.
[2]
Wallace, D.R., and Weiner, S.T., "How Might Classroom Time
Be Used Given WWW-Based Lectures", Journal of Engineering
Education, Vol 87, No 3., July 1998, pp. 237-248.
[3]
McCreanor, P.T., " A Template for Developing a Web-Enhanced
Course ", Proceedings of the ASEE Southeastern Section Annual
Meeting, Roanoke, VA. April 2-4, 2000.
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October 18 - 21, 2000 Kansas City, MO
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S1B-22