Using Web Pages as Supplementary Class Materials
David Starrett
Abstract
Web pages developed as supplementary materials for biology classes at Southeast Missouri State University will be displayed. These pages contain syllabi, instructor office hours, study guides, and links to related sites, as well as bulletin boards, interactive quizzes and interactive copies of old exams. Conferees will be encouraged to participate in interactive demonstrations of class bulletin boards and on-line quizzes and exams. Additionally, web pages used as advising tools within the major and web pages designed to provide information on laboratory research at Southeast Missouri State University will be displayed.
Paper
Within just the last few years the accessibility and capabilities of the Internet, and the Web in particular, have exhibited extraordinary growth. The potential for taking advantage of this resource in the teaching environment is also expanding rapidly. One year ago, our department dedicated a 386 computer as a web server, which has since been replaced with a Pentium-based machine. The server runs under the Linux operating system, and is maintained by a faculty member in the department with assistance from members of the Computer Services staff. Over the past year, we have thus begun to include the Web as a supplementary resource for classes in our department.
All majors within the Biology Department at Southeast Missouri State University are required to take a certain set of core courses, followed by selected upper division classes based upon their area of interest within the Biology Department. A few of the faculty in the Department have developed web pages for most of the classes in the core curriculum and some of the upper division courses. All of the core course homepages include general syllabi, with most also providing a detailed syllabus containing the class calendar, instructor office hours and contacts, and course policies for the current semester. All of the pages also contain links to relevant sites on the web. Such sites include course pages for similar classes at other institutions, pages for related programs, pages with related themes or subjects, and library and database access. The web pages associated with upper division classes are similar to the core course pages.
Some of the pages contain interactive features as well. Bulletin boards are used for a number of courses. These boards are used by students to post questions, comments, or suggestions regarding the course and related subjects. Additionally, some of the pages have quizzes and old exams which are also interactive. All of these interactive features run as CGI scripts, calling programs written in PERL by one of the department's faculty members.
The course page for our introductory majors biology class (B1 120) contains a general outline of the course syllabus as well as the specific daily calendar for the current semester and the office hours, phone number, etc. of the instructors. Though this information is duplicated on the handouts given to the students on the first day of class, the information is always present on the web page and is therefore constantly available to students. The course utilizes a 1 16 page study guide written specifically for the course. This study guide is also reproduced on the course page. The study guide is written in daily theme-oriented units and is presented on the web as a set of linked pages broken up into these specific elements. The web version of the guide contains relevant links to the particular subject areas referred to in these various units.
The pages for this course also contain links to other related sites on the web, including many that relate to theme of the course, which is using biological information to test hypotheses about evolution. This allows the student to visit other pages containing information about the subject, including pages dealing with evolution versus "scientific" creationism, pages dealing with the scientific process, and pages containing basic information such as phylogenetic trees, etc. The web provides a breadth of information sources and an ease of access that would be difficult in an alternative medium.
One of the most important uses of the web in this course is the class bulletin board. Students are encouraged to post messages to the board and can include questions, comments, opinions, or other statements relating to the class. We have found that students are more secure in asking questions on the board than in the classroom. Even though the students include their names in the posting, it is apparent that many students feel less intimidated posting to the board than in face-to-face class discussion. Questions are brought up which don't arise in the classroom environment, or which would not be voiced by the more timid students. The class theme contains controversial material in relation to the evolution versus creationism debate. Students often have strong opinions on the subject, but are afraid to bring them up the classroom for fear of being ostracized by fellow students or the instructor. The bulletin board allows these opinions to be expressed. Typically this leads to a series of related comments by other students. In essence, then, a dialogue which is not as likely to occur in the classroom occurs on the bulletin board. Though this can open the student up to brasher criticism than in the classroom, our experience has been that the exchange of ideas and opinions is normally civilized and leads to a quality "virtual" discussion.
The bulletin board dialogue also allows the instructor to gauge the students' understanding of and competency with the subject material. Again, the security of the web allows for comments less likely to occur in the classroom. This increases the ability of the instructor to gain insight into the thinking of the students. The bulletin boards accept HTML tags, which means that postings can include web page characteristics so that it is possible to post a message containing a link to a relevant site or a graphic useful in explaining or answering a question. Though relatively few students know enough HTML to use this feature, the instructors are able to respond to questions by posting links to relevant pages. The bulletin boards are also used by the instructors as another medium to post announcements and exam results. Finally, students are encouraged to become comfortable using the bulletin board in this class as similar boards are used in other courses in the core sequence as well as in some of the upper division courses.
Principles of Heredity (Bl 140) is a course in the core curriculum taken by most majors in their second semester. The home page for this course, along with those of other genetics-related courses in the department, is accessible from a Genetics page. In Bl 140, the bulletin board has been more directly content-driven than in Bl 120. Students post questions on the board about the material covered in class, or about related topics, and most commonly the instructor responds. In some cases, the instructor will e-mail a question outside his area of expertise to another faculty member in the department, inviting a response. A recent modification to this program allows the instructor to use a web-based form to respond to individual posts on the board, contributing to the question-answer style of the board in this course. The instructor is compiling a frequently asked questions (FAQ) file from student questions on the board, to be added to the course page in future semesters. The bulletin board helps the instructor to identify students' problems in understanding the course material, to respond in a way that is accessible to all the students, and to keep an automatic record of these exchanges for future use.
One faculty member in the department teaches an interdisciplinary course, Ul 415 Science and Religion, which makes extensive use of a class bulletin board. In this case, the students, who are mostly seniors in the honors program, use the board to continue class discussions outside the walls of the classroom. As noted before, some students who are quite reticent in person are more comfortable expressing their ideas on the web. It is also apparent that students vary greatly in their preferred times of day for thinking about the course and related issues. The bulletin board is a means of synchronizing the communication of students who have wildly divergent schedules. One student may post a comment at 1 AM, drawing a response from another student at 8 AM; these two might never encounter each other outside of class in any other way. The instructor also uses this board to provide current links; while many resources relevant to the class are available on the home page, the board was the easiest way to give students a link to an article on the Web about the recent experiments in cloning sheep, for instance.
Old exams are sometimes kept on file for various classes and made available to students. In the core botany course, old exams are placed on the course pages. These exams include all the original questions. The exams are designed to be interactive and contain buttons which allow students to call up the answers. Students can thus read a question, answer the question for themselves, and then view the instructor's answer. An interactive quiz is included on the genetics page, although this resource has not been used formally in the class yet.
In addition to specific course pages, pages have been set up which detail the course requirements for the specific areas of interest within the Department. These pages allow students to determine the specific classes required for each particular area and even which semesters or years those classes are offered. For example, students in the core botany class can look up the advising page for the botany major. These students can then determine what would be required for specialization within that area of interest. If a student is interested in botany, this may allow him or her to consider how to arrange a schedule to fit that area of interest. Some of the area of interest pages have links to course pages for the classes required and recommended for the major or specific area of interest. Students can thus explore the specific areas of interest within the major on their own and follow links to many of the required courses to determine the course layout and content. This can allow a student to make educated decisions regarding areas of study within the biology major through the Web. In the relatively short time that these pages have been running, some students have already used them for the intended purpose and responded with positive comments about their use.
Students are encouraged to seek out research projects with faculty members in the Department, often with faculty involved in research in the student's specific area of interest. We have designed homepages for some of the research laboratories in the Department. These pages contain information about current and past research projects. References to publications by the faculty or students are also listed. Most have links to outside pages relevant to the research project, including other laboratory pages, suppliers, jobs, industry, etc. Prospective students, students in particular classes, or students taking a class with a particular professor can investigate relevant research projects within the Department. This may aid students in deciding what laboratories to seek projects in, or may even expose students to projects, encouraging them to seek out research opportunities with particular faculty members.
The experience of the past year indicates to us that there are some applications in which the Web is very useful as an outside resource for classes. It is necessary in most cases to provide the students with some impetus to begin using web sites, such as an assignment or some homework points for posting on a bulletin board. Some students arrive at the institution with no prior computer experience, and need special assistance to become comfortable with the web. The interactive nature of the web bulletin boards, the constant availability of information over the web, the ease with which connections can be made to outside resources, and the ability to rapidly update information to follow a changing field, are all advantages of the web over other ways of communicating with students. While this technology in no way supplants traditional forms of communication, it provides an added dimension that enriches a number of our classes and programs.