Teaching a Specialty Course at Three Land-Grant Universities Through Distance Education

摘要

In their combined course, the instructors tried to maximize on-line interactions at individual sites and across sites. The course used evaluation methods to determine how the on-line version of the course compared with the individual, "traditionally taught" courses, to assess the success of distance-delivery. This course was an experiment in distance education with a specialty course taught by several instructors at multiple universities, each with students registered locally. The instructors decidedto collaborate in teaching this course to use technology to reach more learners. In addition to expanding the number of students reached, the critical mass of students allowed more interactive activities than would have been possible for small enrollments in individual classes at single institutions. The goals of the four instructors to combine their areas of expertise and to use technology to connect students with similar interests were achieved, and have application for other similar specialty courses in other scientific disciplines.