Teaching History Online

John F. Lyons

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN: 9780415482219
• eBook ISBN: 9781134016624
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Teaching Arts & Humanities

Bringing history teaching into the twenty-first century, Teaching History Online is a concise guide to developing and using internet resources in history instruction. It offers practical, jargon-free advice to help the history teacher develop online assignments, and provides an informed introduction to the myriad resources and tools available for use in the online classroom.

Beginning with a chapter on the benefits of teaching and studying online, John F. Lyons goes on to address instructors' most commonly asked questions and concerns, including:

• designing an online class
• providing online alternatives to the lecture
• developing a user-friendly discussion board
• conducting assessment and dealing with classroom management issues.

For historians interested in providing an online element to their traditional face-to-face classroom teaching, the final chapter shows how to develop successful hybrid/blended classes.

An accessible introduction and valuable resource, Teaching History Online includes sample lesson plans, examples of online learning tools, and suggestions for further reading, helping those who use – or want to use – online resources to create exciting, interactive and rewarding learning environments.

Visit the companion website, which includes extra reading and resources information at: www.routledge.com/textbooks/9780415482226.

Chapter 1

Getting started

TO DESIGN A HISTORY COURSE, for both the online and the traditional face-to-face classroom, requires an enormous amount of work. The subject of the course must be thoroughly mastered, readings chosen, course lectures written, assignments developed and a syllabus produced. Compared to traditional courses, however, online classes require far more of the instructor's time in preparation. Those teaching in the traditional classroom can change their assignments and lectures the night before class, but the online curriculum cannot be altered at such short notice. Before the class even begins, the instructor must design and construct an online site that contains all the course elements for the whole semester. To design an online class, instructors require a knowledge of how students learn, ought to master the basics of using a course management system, should obtain some critical information about the students they teach, need to understand the challenges of online teaching, and must envision the goals of the course.

Intellectual property rights

As soon as a college or school approaches an instructor to teach an online class, intellectual property rights need to be firmly established. Who owns the online course site the instructor creates? Can an instructor produce a site and then see the college employ someone else to use it? Both the instructor and the college have legitimate rights to the course. The instructor creates the course, but he or she also receives a salary, and uses employer resources, to develop it. Because of this, an instructor, or their union, ought to negotiate an intellectual property agreement with their college administrators. Some such agreements assign ownership to instructors even if they've used college resources to develop the course. Others allocate full ownership of online courses to the college, not the creator of the course. Many institutions that claim ownership of online courses now offer the creating instructor “rights of first refusal” with respect both to revision and teaching of the course. Another option is joint ownership of the online course between the instructor and the college. If the instructor moves to another college, he or she can continue to use the course materials. At the same time, the col lege retains the right to offer the course with a different instructor if the creator of the course is not available or not willing to teach it.

The basics of teaching and learning

To create and teach an online course, instructors must first understand how students learn. The thousands of articles and books produced on student learning may disagree on the finer points but all lead towards the same conclusion: students must be active, rather than passive, in their learning. According to a number of studies, students remember 90 percent of what they do, 50 percent of what they see, but only 10 percent of what they hear. Therefore, instructors need to be creative to make assignments that rely less on students passively listening to lectures and more on engaging students in independent discovery. In this regard, online history students need to undertake writing, problem solving, role playing, discussion, analysis of primary sources and other active learning assignments to acquire a real understanding of history.

The learning theory of constructivism points towards a number of teaching practices in the online environment. Constructivists believe that learners understand new material through the interaction of prior experiences or beliefs with new ideas. Constructivists tell us to relate course topics and assignments to the students' own lives and to their existing knowledge. Students pursue their own interests and research, rather than have instructors narrowly confine them to a set curriculum of readings and assignments. Open-ended questioning and real-world problem solving are part of the constructivist classroom. Writing journals, portfolios and class presentations replaces factual quizzes as forms of assessment. In the history classroom, constructivist theory suggests that there are different perspectives and that findings are open to interpretation and debate. Primary source documents are the center of the history classroom as students act like real historians sifting through contradictory interpretations. Just as important, students use their own experiences and understanding of life to partake in role playing or simulation exercises.

Active learning and constructivism are essential in any history course because they help students develop critical thinking and higher forms of understanding. Benjamin Bloom's famous Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, published in 1956, established a hierarchy of educational objectives ranging from the simple recall of facts to synthesis and evaluation (see Table 1.1). Instructors need to spend more time on activities and assessments that encourage

Table 1.1 Benjamin Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives

Category	Meaning
Evaluation	Make judgments
Synthesis	Create from different sources
Analysis	Make inferences
Application	Use a concept in a new situation
Comprehension	Understand and put in one's own words
Knowledge	Recall information

higher-level thinking skills rather than lower-level ones. At the end of the semester, students should be able not only to identify the main figures and events in history but also to evaluate different forms of evidence and sources, and demonstrate an ability to undertake original historical research.

Many educational studies have also concluded that cooperative learning should be a major component of college teaching. In a cooperative learning environment, students learn by col laboratively working on assignments and projects and participating in small group discussions, which provides them with opportunities to share their ideas and to learn from each other. In the process, students engage in rigorous debate but learn to show consideration and respect for the opinions of others. Cooperative learning, increasingly used in the traditional face-to-face classroom, can also be adapted to the online environment. For example, students can contribute to online discussion boards and work in small groups using online communication tools.

If active learning, constructivism and cooperative learning should be important elements of any online history class, instructors should also be aware that students have different styles of learning and different interests. Howard Gardner's ideas on multiple intelligences are a good starting point from which to think about the different assignments we can use online. Gardner identifies at least eight different kinds of learning styles: linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal and naturalist. It is possible to design an online class that can reach the various learning intelligences of all the students. For instance, reading and writing would interest the linguistic learner. Quantitative history would appeal to logical-mathematical learners. Assignments that include photos, paintings and videos would appeal to the spatial learner. Interactive technology and simulations would help bodily kinesthetic learners. Musical learners would be addressed by including assignments with music. Discussion boards and a group project would permit interpersonal learners to interact with other students. For the introverted intrapersonal learner, a self-reflective journal activity would meet the requirements

Table 1.2 Multiple intelligences

Category	Meaning	Online Activity
Linguistic	Ability to use words, spoken or written	Compose essays and journals, read books, diaries and letters, and produce podcasts
Logical-Mathematical	Ability with numbers and reasoning	Analyze and produce historical statistical data, charts and timelines
Spatial	Ability with images	View and produce paintings, posters, photographs and videos
Bodily-Kinesthetic	Ability to use bodily movement	Participate in simulations and role playing, and visit historical sites
Musical	Ability with rhythm and music	Analyze songs and lyrics, and produce presentations with music
Interpersonal	Ability to interact with others	Participate in cooperative learning, group work, and the discussion board
Intrapersonal	Ability to work alone and self-reflect	Write journals and essays
Naturalist	Ability to recognize patterns in nature	Analyze maps, battle field simulations and environmental history

while the naturalist learner would enjoy assignments involving maps and environmental history. Resources available online make it possible to accommodate all learning styles (see Table 1.2).

What all this tells us is that we should provide varied forms of learning activities and teaching strategies in our online classes. Online instructors ought to design a course that focuses on active learning, higher-level thinking, and collaboration with others. Instructors need to develop assignments that reach all learning styles and provide course material in a variety of forms using written text, audio, and visuals. At the same time, instructors should take into account diverse student interests and allow students to choose their own assessments or assignments as much as possible.

Course management systems

Most educational institutions now use course management systems (CMSs) (also called learning management systems or virtual learning environments) to help instructors create online courses. There are many CMSs, such as ANGEL, Blackboard, eCollege and Moodle, that provide online shells into which instructors add their course content. CMSs vary in appearance and in features but have some common elements. They offer students twenty-four-hour access to course materials. CMSs provide a link to the Internet, the creation and automatic grading of quizzes and a grade book, and allow instructors to post course materials, a syllabus, and announcements. Readings can be posted via attachments or by scanning texts, and PowerPoint presentations, videos and podcasts may be added. CMSs also allow interactive communication from instructor to students and student-to-student via email, file exchange, discussion forums and virtual chat. A CMS may be customized by the instructor to suit teaching style and course content.

Before an institution chooses a CMS from the many on offer, there are the following major issues to consider:

• Quality of product support The company should provide twenty-four-hour technical support and quickly resolve any problems that emerge with the system. Quality of support can be determined by contacting references or talking with technicians, administrators and instructors at other institutions.

• Ease of use Navigation of the CMS should be relatively easy to learn, intuitive to the average user, and should not require a long period of training. Look at the various CMS websites for tutorials and demonstrations, ask for a representative of the company to come to campus to talk about their product, or seek a trial run of the CMS before you purchase. Contacting instructors at other institutions would also seem advisable.

• Features The CMS should support all the features that instructors need in an online class, including newer tools such as podcasts, blogs and wikis.

• Regular updates There should be a history of ongoing enhancement to the core product. Online technology and learning is constantly evolving, and the CMS should keep up to date with these changes.

• Cost All educational institutions have to take into account the cost of the product. Nevertheless, cost should not be the first consideration when choosing a CMS. It is no use choosing the cheapest CMS if it is a poor product. It is best to pay a little more for quality.

The task of preparing an online class is made easier by many textbook publishers who now provide Internet-based software packages to help the busy instructor. These packages contain customized course material for teachers to use in conjunction with their textbooks. Some publishers simply provide online test banks, PowerPoint presentations and primary sources while others offer complete online course sites ready for use. The publisher-provided course site is available to an instructor as long as they assign the publishers' textbook to their students. If an instructor does decide to adopt a textbook site, they need to view these publisher-provided packages as teaching supplements, not as readymade courses. Publisher-provided materials do not necessarily cover the material that is most important to the instructor. Nonetheless, publishers' material can present the teacher who is new to online teaching with basic course content to which the instructor can add to during the course development process. Instructors should only use material from these cartridges that meet the goals of the course and ought to create their own assignments and assessments as needed.

Course mana...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Why teach and study online?
• 1 Getting started
• 2 Reconfiguring the lecture
• 3 The discussion board
• 4 Assessment
• 5 Classroom management
• 6 Online teaching in the face-to-face classroom
• Conclusion
• Appendices
• Additional resources for teachers
• Notes
• Index