0.4 Discussion  (Page 2/23)

Although the supplementary media in Online Day were listed under “Resources” on the course website, it was not easy for the instructors to find. To help the instructors to find out about the special resources in Online Day, Lahaska posted a teacher’s guide on the publisher’s website that listed the special features, such as the case videos, the primary source material, and the in-text audio glossary. However, having the guide at a different location from the teacher website required the instructors to switch back and forth between the two for information to customize their course websites.

Course format and class location

The researcher made an assumption at the beginning of this study that the instructors who adopted the online version of the textbook would be teaching the course online or hybrid. Only two of the nine instructors, Ed and Ken, taught online. Two others, Carrie and Miller, taught hybrid courses, and the remaining five taught face-to-face. However, there was variety within these categories. Of the two instructors who taught online, Ed never met the students face-to-face, while Ken taught face-to-face in a residential orientation at the beginning of the term. One of the hybrid instructors met face-to-face over three weekends of 13 hours of class. Miller taught a hybrid which met every other week after the first month of face-to-face classes. The remaining six instructors taught their courses face-to-face on a conventional schedule.

Off-campus teaching and access to technology

Three instructors, Carrie, Lyle and Nancy, taught off campus. They were required to teach at least one course off campus each semester in order to reach students who wouldn’t otherwise be able to attend the university due to distance. In each of the off-campus classes, over half of the students were adults, many of whom worked full-time, and the great majority was female. While Lyle and Nancy commuted to the off-campus locations each week, Carrie created a compressed hybrid course.

Lyle’s off-campus classroom had far greater access to the necessary technology to make use of online resources than his on-campus section, such as high-speed internet, computers, a computer projector and screen. He was able to supplement his lectures with examples from the course website, and from the web at large. This contrasts with his on-campus section, who did not meet in the education building, but rather in an older classroom without any Internet access or computer equipment. One time Lyle carried his own television and VCR to the class to show videos. He sometimes ordered an audiovisual cart to be delivered, but this proved to be a challenge because the service was inconsistent. This made it very difficult to use technology in that class.

Nancy was required to drive an hour and a half to her off-campus classroom. After attending a workshop on hybrid teaching, she was seriously considering teaching hybrid with her off-campus class in the future. However, she planned to use the textbook she had used in the past, not the Day textbook.