Contents:

• Tell Us What You Want - An Introduction and A Request
• Guest Contributor - Maggie McVay, Author and Professor at Franklin University, discusses ways that "Cohort Groups Help to Develop a Learning Community"
• Findings of Survey of ISU Distance Education Students
• Chat's Room - News from the Faculty Computing Resource Center
• ILN - What Is It? How Do I Get Started?
• CTA "Update" Workshop - A **New** Opportunity
• CTA for Your Colleagues
• On-Line - ISU Faculty Teaching Via the Web
• Edible Bites - Summaries of Articles and Links of Interest
• DegreeLink Update - ICHE Approval and Enrollments
• IPSE News - Conferences and Publications
• Mark Your Calendar - ISU News and Events
• Thought for October

· Tell Us What You Want - Introduction and Request

Welcome to Interaction, ISU's monthly electronic newsletter for people interested in developing and teaching distance education courses. The purpose of Interaction is to provide you with information on course development and design, new technologies, and teaching distance courses. As the name implies, we hope to make this electronic newsletter "interactive," its contents reflecting current issues, challenges, and innovations in teaching. Your part is simple-just tell us what you want. Send us your questions, frustrations, and topics of interest, and we will include information on that topic in a future issue. In addition, we invite you to share your experiences and tips on teaching distance courses, and to send us announcements of upcoming events. Please submit your comments and requests to interact@web.indstate.edu, a secured access e-mail account. Your contributions will not be posted as a "global" message to subscribers of Interaction. The staffs of Continuing Education/Instructional Services, the Center for Teaching and Learning, the Library, ACNS, and other ISU offices are eager to answer your questions and offer you assistance as you develop and teach your distance education courses.

· Cohort Groups Help to Develop a Learning Community
by Maggie McVay, Franklin University

The literature is replete with complaints about the isolation and lack of motivation that occurs in some distance learning programs. These factors then provide impetus for higher drop-out rates. Some programs have reported as high as a 60% drop out rate from distance learning programs. Programs that have maintained high retention and degree completion rates - up to 85% in two cases - attribute their success to the use of the cohort group concept.

Graduate school residential programs have embraced the cohort concept - a group of students who move through their graduate program together, taking the same classes and building a community of learners who respect each other and rely on each other. This same concept can be ported to web-based learning with great success. In fact, in the writer's opinion, it is a necessity for ensuring successful retention.

· Creating an Environment for Cohort Groups

The writer's experience has found that most cohort groups develop and thrive based on six basic factors:

1. Students take the same classes at the same time, moving through the program toward graduation.
2. Students frequently work as a team on class projects and assignments.
3. Students have the opportunity to form study groups.
4. Students feel empowered, as a group, to bring about change in the curriculum or program.
5. Through university sponsored activities, students have the opportunity to get to know each other on a personal level.
6. Students celebrate their 'wins' together, with graduation being the culmination of their work.

It is usually at this point that faculty says, "Look at all the interaction the residential university provides. Web-based learning doesn't allow for any of that." It is true that the residential environment makes it easier to generate these opportunities. Students and faculty alike are accustomed to the ease of seeing each other every week. However, the web-based learning environment can also create a similar situation of 'seeing' each other every week. In fact, students in web-based programs that have incorporated the cohort concept, frequently state they are closer to their classmates and learned more than in a previous residential program.

To incorporate the six basic factors into a web-based cohort concept, several steps must be taken to ensure success.

1. Faculty must be trained to use interactive web techniques (e.g., bulletin boards, e-mail, chat rooms, interactive whiteboards).
   
2. Students must be oriented to the use of web-based tools for interaction and learning.
   
3. Web-based courses must include heavy use of interaction both during course delivery and in course assignments.
   
4. Non-academic "social" events should be scheduled for on-line students to get to know each other in an informal environment.

· Faculty Development and Cohort Groups

A complete faculty development series needs to be undertaken to provide the knowledge and tools necessary for good curriculum development in this new environment. Additionally, if a cohort concept has not been used in the past, a full discussion of the impact needs to be undertaken. Questions to consider in implementing cohort groups are:

• How often will cohorts be formed? (every term, once a year).
• How many "lockstep" courses will be provided for the cohort, or will they have choices? If there are choices, how will the cohort be kept together and encouraged?
• Who will be responsible for forming the cohorts? (registration, advising, program chairs)
• Will other's be involved with the cohort? (e.g., a cohort coordinator that acts as the group liaison from one instructor to another throughout the degree process)

· Provide a Student Orientation

Students need to be oriented to the web-based learning environment. Many universities provide some type of technology orientation (e.g., how to use e-mail, chat, bulletin boards). However, what they fail to provide is an orientation to independent learning and the building of learning communities

Franklin University has elected to meet this need by providing a web-based one-credit course required of all new distance learning students. The course provides: a safe environment for learning the technology; an opportunity to practice using the technology; tools for understanding how one learns and how to adjust learning styles to a web-based environment; and a mentoring/encouraging process between the instructor and students that help the student to understand expectations and feel comfortable with online learning. The syllabus for this course can be viewed at: http://online.franklin.edu/pf100/index.htm

Additionally, cohort activities can start at the Orientation if they have not begun in some other format. The Orientation can provide a mechanism for cohort building by directing students in some team building activities. For example:

• Direct students in the cohort to come up with a cohort name and logo. Offer to provide t-shirts with this name/logo on it.
• Ask for students' name/address/phones to be published in an e-mailed list to the cohort. Encourage students to contact each other throughout their studies.
• Create a cohort distribution list that is easy for everyone to use when sending information to the entire cohort.
• Provide a special cohort bulletin board for informal postings.

· Incorporating Interactive Techniques in Web-based Courses

Most faculty have proven themselves to be excellent classroom teachers. They incorporate group discussions, encourage group work in the classroom, and develop capstone projects that require synthesis of knowledge and demonstrated understanding through real-world implementations. The difficulty is that most faculty don't know how this can be done on the web; so they resort to the traditional lecture notes on the web and objective testing.

The key to building interaction for on-line learning environments is in three areas:

1. Assume that the content interaction is going to occur through the textbook, faculty notes on web pages, and hyperlinks to other sites. Do not attempt to recreate the lecture environment. Trust that students will get your lecture because they read more widely.
2. Model web-based interaction by creating opportunities for knowledge construction.
3. Create assignments that require students to use interactive techniques and work with their peers.

Ideas for items two and three are presented in the following list that offers suggestions on web-based interaction modeling and assignment

· Web-Based Interaction Modeling and Assignment Ideas

Type of Interaction: E-mail

• Model in Curriculum: Provide opening letter for all students. Respond to all assignments/grades through e-mail.
• Student Assignment: Require students to submit papers via e-mail.

Type of Interaction: Bulletin Board

• Model in Curriculum: Post case studies examples and ask for students to respond on bulletin board.
• Student Assignment: Require students to respond on bulletin board, and include that interaction as a percentage of the final grade. Use BB for peer critiques.

Type of Interaction: Whiteboard

• Model in Curriculum: Use electronic whiteboard for synchronous sharing of papers, lecture notes, or to assist with student questions.
• Student Assignment: Encourage students to share work with each other by requiring peer critiques.

Type of Interaction: Chat

• Model in Curriculum: Have "chat office hours" posted. Encourage students to use chat for team projects. Provide an environment with multiple chat rooms where students can break into teams and the instructor can "lurk." Ask students to attend a class chat where the instructor will pose specific questions about case studies.
• Student Assignment: Students are required to participate in chat, a percentage of their grade is calculated based on participation. Require a student presentation on a topic where they use chat to facilitate discussion.

Type of Interaction: MUD/MOO

• Model in Curriculum: Create a MUD/MOO to be used during a class chat (discussion). Preassign student roles and ask them to come prepared, in character, to deal with the issues presented.
• Student Assignment: Require students to use MUD/MOO in chat to demonstrate facilitation, negotiation, leadership, skills, etc.

Type of Interaction: Web Pages

• Model in Curriculum: Post class information on web pages, provide relevant hyperlinks.
• Student Assignment: Ask students to post assignments on web pages for peer review. Ask students to "teach" a topic and use web pages as their primary content format.

Type of Interaction: Peer Review/Critique

• Model in Curriculum: Provide feedback to students via edited comments on their papers. (Use MS Word Comments and Track Changes features, or use colored message inserts in paper.)
• Student Assignment: Require students to critique others work. Ask for copies of work before critique, with critique, and after critique to compare progress.

A demo course is available for review at: http://online.franklin.edu/demo This course provides lessons from four current online courses. Each course uses some of the techniques described in the table above. Though not all techniques are demonstrated here, it will provide an initial glimpse into possibilities of interaction.

· Conclusions

Just as residential students build friendships, join campus organizations, or create pride in their class, the same needs to happen in the on-line cohorts. Several mechanisms for creating and maintaining these cohorts need to be created in the online environment. The combination of informal opportunities for discussion, as well as structured curriculum design options, must reinforce the cohort concept throughout the students program.

· About the Author

Marguerita McVay is a professor at Franklin University in Columbus, Ohio. Her responsibilities encompass instructional design, Program Chair for the Professional Foundations curriculum, and mentoring of faculty preparing courses for Distance Education. McVay's book, How to be a Successful Student: Learning on the Internet, is being used as a textbook in many orientation courses around the country. It is available from Simon and Schuster/Prentice Hall (ISBN# 0536017115).

· Findings of Survey of ISU Distance Education Students

Continuing Education distributed a survey to students who took classes via distance education during the Spring '98 semester. The purpose of the survey was threefold: to gather general (demographic) information about our distance education students, to assess their satisfaction with student services, and to understand their level of satisfaction with the technology used to facilitate the teaching and learning. The surveys were completed anonymously, and respondents were not asked to identify the specific courses taken during the Spring. We had a 40% response rate (80 respondents), and learned:

• 75% are at least 35 years old
• 76% are employed full time
• 70% rated their computer expertise above average
• 36% were aware of the services provided by local site coordinators
• 61% felt that technology promoted their learning experience
• 73% were very satisfied with the presentation of course subject content
• 72% were very satisfied with the level of interaction they had with the instructor
• 62% were very satisfied with the level of interaction they had with classmates

· Chat's Room - News from the Faculty Computing Resource Center

ADSL is here! Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line is a telephone company technology for bringing fast internet access to your home. Already in service in larger metropolitan areas, GTE is now offering the service in Fort Wayne, Lafayette and Terre Haute. Depending on how much you want to spend, you can get download speeds from 256kbps on up to 1440kbps in your home. (The best a normal modem can do is 56kbps, and in practice rarely better than 33kbps.) Under ADSL, you can get a 256kbps line for $35 per month, 384kbps for $45, 640kbps for $69, and 1440kbps(T-1) for $89. Mind you, these are download speeds. Upload speeds are less, but unless you are running a server at home, it isn't all that important. (If you want the same speed both ways, you can get it with "DSL," which costs much more.) ADSL provides you with an Ethernet connection at home, as well as a voice line. The only "gotcha" for the time being is that there are no services as yet in Terre Haute to connect to using ADSL. Some local Internet Service Providers (ISPs) do expect to offer ADSL at their end in the near future. For the ISU remote-user community, the best situation would be if ISU would install ADSL; therefore ISU's Telecommunications Services is considering this as a way to relieve pressures on the trunk pool as more and more people try to get connected at night. For more information, call Chat at the FCRC, ext 2603, or Brad Speidel at GTE at 462-9220.

A homegrown, web-based gradebook program, WebGrades, is available for free and unlimited use by ISU faculty. Instructors who have used a gradebook program or spreadsheet for calculating and posting class grades already know what a time-saver such a utility can be. Now with WebGrades, instructors simply set up their rosters using Netscape's (or any) web browser. The obvious advantages: 1) you don't have to set up a spreadsheet or do any programming; and 2) your students can look up their own grades and progress using their favorite web browser. Students must enter their SSN/ID and class password to gain access. Of course, students only get to see their OWN grades! No more collecting release forms from students who wish their grades to be posted! Instructors log into a separate address, using their own ID and password, to modify grades/scores. You can even use the ISU Registrar's class roster data to generate your gradebook initially. To see WebGrades in action go to the following test location:

To enter as an instructor, go to the fictitious AAA256 course at: http://homeroom.indstate.edu/gradebook/instructor.html. Use the instructor ID "test" and the password "testpass."

As a student, go to http://homeroom.indstate.edu/gradebook, then click on the fictitious AAA256 course and enter "123456789" as the student ID (There is no class password since this is a demo.)

You can begin using WebGrades immediately. Set up your own instructor's account by using the link at the bottom of the instructor's page at the above address. A help guide for WebGrades is coming very shortly; the written instructions are currently being proofed. Questions can be answered by Steve Baker at ext. 8361 (root@mama.indstate.edu), Dr. Mulkey at ext. 2418 (mulkey@biology.indstate.edu), or by calling the FCRC at ext. 2603.

The Faculty Computing Resource Center helps faculty maintain web pages and chat rooms, answers technical questions, and has a variety of technical resources at your disposal including hardware repair facilities, in-house technical consultation, and even a technical periodical library for faculty check-out. We're open from 8:00am - 4:30pm, Monday through Friday. Call for details: 237-2603.

· Interactive Learning Network -- What Is It? How Do I Get Started?

CourseInfo's Interactive Learning Network (ILN) is a powerful on-line course development, delivery, and management tool. CourseInfo provides tools for maintaining grades, creating and grading on-line quizzes, providing access to course materials, facilitating communication through conferencing and web-based chat, managing students and student groups, and exchanging files. Students can check their grades and create their own student web page with a template. Faculty can create their own staff information page with a template provided by ILN.

To Get An ILN Account:
Follow the instructions at:
http://isu.indstate.edu/help/courseinfoaccount.html

Training Available On ILN:

• On-line information from ACNS
• Creating a quiz on CouseInfo's Interactive Learning Network at: http://isu.indstate.edu/help/iln_quiz.html
• One-on-one training with instructional designers
• One-on-one training from the FCRC

The Benefits of ILN:

• All elements of the courseware are on the local ISU server
• Usability for students
• Clear navigation on every screen due to use of frames
• On-line help available at the site
• Students never get lost in hyperspace since all links to the web are shown in the course's internal frame
• Easy to learn
• Instructors can work directly on their course site anywhere they have an Internet connection
• Graphics are visually appealing to higher education students, especially adults
• Uniformity of site design enables a department to create a "look" for all courses offered

Challenges:

• Same as for any course that goes on the web. Time to do it!
• Design Challenges: creating lessons/assignments for the Web; rethinking lectures for the Web; and working with interactive web conferencing, both synchronous and asynchronous.
• Testing challenges: Although quizzes/tests and surveys can be created with ILN, issues of security (who is taking the test and under what circumstances) still are problems. The testing software isn't as robust as "stand alone" testing software (no courseware is), so for distance learners, major tests should be proctored.
• Asynchronous conferencing is structured into threads so it is awkward to read all the responses. (You can only read one at a time.)

Tips: