Trials And Tribulations Of Teaching An On Line, Live, Interactive Internet Course (original) (raw)

Most of the instructor's colleagues who teach internet courses, put the course on the web for students to access, study and complete assignments on their own. Last spring, the graduate civil engineering course, "Pedestrian and Bicycle Facilities Design and Safety" was taught on the web interactively, i.e., a "Chat room" model. Our system allowed (when it worked properly) voice communication (lecturing, etc.) by the instructor. The students had to respond via a chat room. The paper describes our system, problems that had to be overcome, teaching techniques that were developed to promote feedback and interaction among members of the class and instructor. It also contains comments from two students that completed the course. Overall, it was a rewarding experience. One student claimed he learned more than from any course he had ever taken. The author concludes that this method for delivering course material, in spite of some problems, has great potential. Background Kansas State University (KSU) has off-campus, graduate degree programs in five areas of engineering. It is administered through the Division of Continuing Education (DCE). As stated in a Department of Civil Engineering (CE) brochure, Graduate Studies in Civil Engineering (1998): "Off-campus students will be allowed flexibility in designing their program of study based on course offerings. Off-campus students must complete a total of 30 semester credit hours of course work for the M.S. degree. Off-campus students are not required to prepare a thesis or technical report, but must submit a written report and an oral presentation describing a professional level project completed under supervision."