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Frank I have only taught my 'Survey of Earth Science' online for about a year and a half, and have recently taught our new 'Creating Your Sustainable Future' (i.e. Intro to 'Sustainability') online for a year. It is from these experiences that I have come to the conclusion that there is a different student who takes science classes online versus others. I have seen a much higher level of performance and completion in the Earth Science classes, even though the dropout rate is higher than my f2f sections. I think that is because, as yu said, the online student does not come in thinking it will be a 'real' class (in spite of my 6 page "Read Me First'). I I would also like to challenge your assertion that online classes don't lend themselves to inquiry based instruction. Although it is hard, and takes a lot of creativity (which I am still trying to achieve), I think that robust inquity based learning can be done online. It means we have to redevelop the model that we have all learned from: here's a rock/mineral/map, what is it. Using local resources (i.e. the Chicago building stones Rob talked about), or recent events (the Haiti or Chile earthquake). For example, with the Chile earthquake, you could ask the students to go to the IRIS website, learn about the event, and research what an Mw8.8 event is, why it was in Chile and how it compares to th Mw7.0 Haiti event. The IRIS website has seismograms of the events, and catalogues to search historic events. Using historic data, the students could investigate the probability of an 8.8 happening again this year(i.e. using Gutenberg-Richter plots). Of course all this requires a lot of design and thought for the instructor. Then we could talk about tornadoes.... I also just came from a meeting of the Illinois Association of Geoscience Instructors, and learned that several faculty at Lincoln Land Community College has added videos on YouTube. All your students use YouTube, and it is a way to incorporate some personal touches and interactions with your students. To try to combat that 'lone wolf' feeling for my online students, in the first week I ask them to post a photo of themselves to some general information questions (why are you taking this class, what do you want to learn about most, what is 1 thing you have done that you want the class to know about) and then put it together into a photo album I post to a general discussion board. This way they can attach a name to a face (I also include myself). Hope this helps, and apologies for the ramblings. Dave David H. Voorhees Assistant Professor of Earth Science and Geology Waubonsee Community College Rt 47 @ Waubonsee Drive Sugar Grove, IL 60554 630.466.2783 [log in to unmask] http://chat.wcc.cc.il.us/~dvoorhee/ >>> Frank Granshaw <[log in to unmask]> 02/25/10 10:16 AM >>> Hello everyone... For the past four years I have been attempting to develop a fully on-line earth science sequence for non-science majors. In our system we call it the general science sequence. At the end of this year I will be "retiring" from teaching distance courses and making the recommendation that we stay with a hybrid sequence (on-campus lab) rather than attempt to go fully on-line. As a point of closure I would be most interested in hearing from some of you that have been involved in similar efforts. In particular I would appreciate hearing about how you have dealt with the following issues or if you know of research dealing with these issues. Encouraging inquiry and problem solving in on-line environments - My experience has been that the on-line experience is a highly scripted one that doesn't lend itself easily to the kinds of flexibility and open-endedness that is a hallmark of inquiry-based instruction. This scriptedness also makes teaching earth science on-line somewhat problematic, since the earth sciences are a bit "messier" than math, physics, chemistry, or accounting. Providing the kind of near instantaneous, social trouble shooting that is part of an on-campus course - The asynchronous aspect tends to slow down many activities quite significantly. We have tried video-conferencing options such as Elluminate, but this adds a level of technical complication for students who are still struggling with basic technical tasks such as sending an attachment to an email. Coping with student expectations about distance courses - I sense there is a certain amount of scuttlebutt amongst students (and maybe even advise from college counselors) that if you are looking for an easy way to fill a requirement take an on-line course. Students seem to arrive in our courses with the illusion that they will be spending far less time completing an on-line course than they will its on-campus equivalent. They also seem to arrive with the impression that the experience will be a canned, "work-at-your own pace" experience. Coping with student frustrations - For much of the past four years, we've spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure out how to deal with the many frustrations students have expressed on-line. While many of these frustrations are rooted in the all-to-common technical difficulties that come with teaching on-line, my own hypothesis is that many more of these frustrations stem from students finding on-line science different from their expectations, trying to work alone without the support of instructors and other students, and their own discomfort with science (e.g. "Science isn't my thing"). Add to this the anonymity of email communication and you often get students expressing themselves in ways that they would not do in a face-to-face encounter. Again, I am quite interested in hearing from any of you who have had experience with these issues or know of research dealing with them, especially as I make my recommendations to our DL folks and the instructors who will inherit these courses. Cheers Frank G. Frank D. Granshaw Earth Science Instructor Portland Community College Sylvania Campus Portland, OR 503-977-8236