Go back to Case Studies menuElizabeth Losh, University of California at Irvine
Many educators and administrators see instructional technology as a way to solve at least some of the challenges inherent in offering large-enrollment courses. When hundreds or even thousands of students are enrolled in a single course, the limitations of the traditional lecture/discussion model become all too evident. For instructors, the logistical challenges of coordinating a large course are daunting, and students often feel alienated in a course where their voice is only one in a thousand. Many institutions look to IT for solutions; indeed, much of the grant monies available in support of educational computing initiatives is earmarked for projects that attempt to overcome the pedagogical and fiscal shortcoming of high enrollments.
Elizabeth Losh, Writing Director of the Humanities Core Course at the University of California at Irvine, is one such grant recipient. With Ellen Strenski and Michael Clark, Elizabeth pioneered the Virtual Research projects at UC Irvine that bring together over 50 instructors and 1000 students per year online in the "Core." The primary aim of the Web sites is to establish a centralized source of course materials geared toward different audiences: Virtual Research I for students, Virtual Research II for instructors, and Virtual Research III for transfer students. The sites are compilations of such things as lesson plans, in-class activities, study guides, worksheets, policy definitions, scheduling information, and other materials pertaining to writing, research, and writing instruction. HCC is the product of collaboration, and Elizabeth acknowledges the contributions of her colleagues at UC Irvine, particularly Michael Clark, Robert Moeller, Ellen Strenski, and the current director of HCC, Gail Hart.
One of the primary goals of the Virtual Research projects is to foster collaborative instruction, clearly a priority for a program that is grounded on input and teaching from faculty from many different departments. Instructors can access and are encouraged to contribute materials to the site, including lesson plans, in-class activities, useful links, and worksheets. Elizabeth sees the Web as a logical and effective medium for instructors to share resources, an activity that has always been a necessary part of teaching large classes. "Other large courses use 'good stuff' files, with materials in paper available for duplication, but all that pedagogical wisdom is relegated to a drawer and subject to loss and damage. The Web 'publishes' the efforts of committed instructors and acknowledges contributions in a democratic manner that significantly improves morale."
For students, the Virtual Research projects offer Web-based instruction in fundamental undergraduate research skills so that they can "find information and exercise wise judgment about it on [their] own outside the classroom." The Web also solves some of the basic access problems of providing resources to a large number of students. "In a course with a thousand students, we previously had to discourage students from using library resources since paper materials won't work with that number of users, even when on short-term reserve. By encouraging students to explore a 'virtual' library of electronic journal collections and scholarly archival projects and reference resources, we can show them more about how to find and integrate primary and secondary sources into academic projects." For example, in an exercise on "Recognizing When and How to Paraphrase," an article from the New York Times is used to help students identify types of plagiarism and under what circumstances citation is necessary. Another worksheet called "Defining Terms and Using a Search Engine" has students perform different types of searches (e.g., basic, Boolean, domain-specific) and analyze their results. Elizabeth and Ellen Strenski are also working on a site to help prepare transfer students for HCC and UC Irvine's writing program.
Losh is also involved with the SPIDER project, or Shared Pedagogical Initiative: A Database of Electronic Resources for the UC Community, a Teaching and Learning with Technology Collaborative grant from the UC Office of the President. SPIDER extends the work of the Virtual Research projects by reaching out to a broader on-campus audience and to other UC campuses. Funding from SPIDER will buy Elizabeth course release time to work on the hundreds of pages that comprise the projects. SPIDER will also fund a Web designer. "We hope to have better search capacity with XML markup and more interactivity with JavaScript quizzes, etc and less of a 'quick and dirty' look."
Before SPIDER, the Virtual Research projects were essentially homegrown, with Elizabeth and her colleagues doing most of their own development work. She received help and resources from instructional technology support staff, both at the ITC (Instructional Technology Center) and from NACS (Networks and Academic Computing Services), but unlike many IT projects, Virtual Research did not employ student help. "We don't really use students because they don't understand the content and the ones with real computing or Web design skills won't work for what the university pays work study students."
In terms of time spent working on the project, Elizabeth says, "too much time." She estimates that she spends at least twenty hours a week "fixing broken links, fiddling with the HTML for a better appearance, making changes based on comments from students or instructors, considering editorial decisions, reordering materials on the interface for easier retrieval." However, the fault for this lies not with technology. Indeed, Elizabeth contends that the Web is "undoubtedly more efficient" than conventional methods. For Elizabeth the trouble is that "successful projects make you want to devote more time to developing new ones."
Students generally are appreciative of the Web site, even to the point of favoring the materials they find there over great literature. "As a 'great books' course, I am often surprised to see our Web site get higher ratings in end-of-quarter evaluations than some of the fabulous works of literature that we teach," says Losh. However, students also feel that the Web-enabled Core is more challenging than its conventional counterpart, though Elizabeth regards this is an advantage. "This is an eight-unit introduction to the humanities that fulfills a lot of requirements, so this greater perceived difficulty is positive in my view, especially since we are setting expectations for workload and scholarship for freshmen that will carry over into the rest of their academic careers." She also has noted significant improvements in student writing which she attributes to the increased student access to primary course materials that the Web sites provide.
And while the Web is often accused of creating distance and alienation, Elizabeth found that developing a central resource for instructors actually helped her get to know the instructors better. "I had organized the writing component of large courses before and assisted in observing instructors, and I did the things you do: help run staff meetings, visit classes, mentor instructors, and collect instructional feedback samples. But I feel that I know this team of instructors much better and have a better sense of what is happening in their classes than I did before." She found the contributions of the instructors one of the most unexpected and gratifying aspects of working on the project. "I didn't imagine that senior faculty members would be as willing as they were to contribute their intellectual property to the site. And some of the instructors who were most resistant to instructional technology became the project's biggest boosters." And besides, as Elizabeth wisely points out, "Intelligent criticism is always good for any instructional technology program." Hear, hear!
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By Sarah Horton
Copyright 2001 Trustees of Dartmouth College
Added: 03 Oct 2001