Benefits of Web Teaching
Susan Sarnoff
To the Editor:I would like to thank you for devoting your September–October issue to the problems and promise of technology. I am currently teaching my first Web-based course as part of a research project in which I am comparing student learning and satisfaction in Web- and classroom-based versions of the same course. While I do not yet have sufficient data to draw conclusions about students, I can share some observations.
Web-based teaching is far less likely to eliminate teaching than it is to transform it. Faculty will spend less time lecturing on material that students should have read and more discussing concepts and responding to individual questions. Students will become much more responsible for their own learning, with faculty as guides and mentors. Faculty should be less concerned about the threat of Web education and more concerned about receiving credit for developing Web curricula and securing ownership of Web materials.
The "course in a box" is indeed a threat, but that is because it is rigid and unidimensional. Good Web teaching is interactive and individualized, and it offers many advantages if integrated into a curriculum of live-to-virtual interaction. This kind of teaching takes a lot of faculty time, although the skills used differ somewhat from those required in a traditional classroom.
A Web syllabus can be accessed from any computer, and it enables prospective students to review course content before committing to it. A Web site with hyperlinks allows students easy access to sites faculty members identify as significant, freeing the students’ time to review the contents of sites. An asynchronous site permits students with disparate schedules to participate fully in the course and to interact with faculty and classmates at their convenience. I have also identified some unexpected advantages: students can make up missed classes in a meaningful way (and keep their germs at home), and vision-impaired students can view course material with enhancement software.
I firmly believe that some course content will never lend itself to Web teaching. I also believe that the interaction of students on a campus and research conducted in an actual library will never be effectively replicated in a virtual environment. But faculty can enhance education, even classroom-based education, by developing Web-based curricula designed to support their teaching, not replace it. Susan Sarnoff
(Social Work)
Ohio University
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