Project I



Nomination Materials - UH Distance Teaching Excellence Award For

John C Butler

Professor, Geosciences
Associate Dean, Natural Sciences and Mathematics

Physical Geology - GEOL 1330

SectionTopic
1Teaching Philosophy
2Course Description
3Curriculum Vitae
4Evaluations
5Grade Distributions
6Other Activities
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    Teaching Philosophy as Exemplified by an OnLine/Distributed Section of
    Physical Geology - Geology 1330

I have been teaching at the college level since 1966 and have probably taught nearly 30 sections of Physical Geology during that time. I credit the advent of the Internet and accompanying multimedia applications with revitalizing my interest in this course. Up to about 1995 my preparation for class consisted of putting lecture slides into a slide holder. I had used them so frequently that each slide would trigger some recall mechanism and I was off and running ... talking. This created a very passive classroom environment in which I certainly acted like the "sage on the stage".

My first attempt at creating Internet resources was essentially a "digitization" of what I had done in class for some number of years. This added little, if anything, to the course.

With a new distribution mechanism - the Internet - I had an opportunity to think about why I included a particular image or series of images. Why, for example, had I used the same homework exercise for more than 20 years? I finally asked myself what I wanted my students to be able to do after they took the course and how could the Internet help me accomplish my goals.

Without knowing the term, I discovered that I was a closet constructivist. The Internet is a great way to disseminate information but knowledge is created by an interaction between and among the learners, the instructor/guide and the information.

I want my students to become aware of the Earth, its history and the processes that operate in and on it. I want them to be wise citizens, capable of understanding the scientific method and its limitations. I want them to become good decision makers and I want them to develop a feeling for how scientists work.

I believe that trying to take advantage of the interactive, distributed nature of the Internet has helped me to create a course that now comes closer to my ideal.

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OnLine Physical Geology - Structure of the OnLine Course

Evolution of GEOL 1330

In 1995 Internet resources were developed for the physical geology course (GEOL 1330) that I have been teaching since 1968 at the University of Houston. What began as a mechanism for distributing the course reading list, the weekly homework assignments, some rudimentary course notes and a few links to geosciences resources (shovelware) has grown over time. The notes have been expanded, a "common look and feel" has been developed, and all of the in-class power point presentations (with some streaming audio commentary) can be viewed from the student's browser. Each chapter ends with at least 50 interactive practice quiz questions.

Homework exercises were designed to engage the student through a combination of interactive, Internet-based resources, data gathering, synthesis and interpretation and two short role playing writing exercises (exercises IA and IB).

The power point presentations with streaming audio commentary are password protected -- enter physical for the name and rocks for the password (Power Point). You will need Real Player to hear the audio.

Distributed GEOL 1330

In the spring semester of 2000 I agreed to offer physical geology in an online environment. I was curious as to what it would be like to "teach" a course with a minimum of face to face contact. I found that the students were motivated by the presumed convenience of not having to come to the campus for another course. Overall, I thought that the experiment was successful.

In the fall semester of 2000 I agreed to offer both a face-to-face section (the Honors section that I have offered since 1985) and an online section. Both the face to face and online sections had access to identical resources. The only difference was in the dates of examinations, when assignments were due, and the format for the quizzes. Face to face students knew that there would be about 10 "surprise" quizzes spread over the semester. Online students took one quiz per week. The online section is being offered for a third time during the spring semester 2001.

This is a freshman course and UH does not offer lower-level undergraduate courses as part of its Distance Education program. Thus, this is not a Distance Education course but a course for University of Houston students that is distributed via the Internet. With the exception of a 1.5 hour introductory lecture and 4 examinations (all held on campus) the content was delivered electronically.

Based on the experiences of other UH faculty who have offered Internet-distributed courses, online physical geology was set up so that I enrolled the students. I wanted to teach physical geology and not a course about using computers. The registration manual included a note for the section that students should send an e-mail message to jbutler@uh.edu requesting additional information. Students who tried to enroll via VIP were told that they needed the permission of the instructor. Students who inquired were sent an attachment that asked them to describe their computing equipment, to listen to an audio clip, and to look at the course home page. Their answers, including enough information so that I would know they could hear the audio file, were to be returned to me as an attachment.

For each online class offering, nearly 90 students expressed interest and were sent an attachment. Approximately 35% returned the attachment and were enrolled in the course; about 10% of those enrolled initiated a drop by the 12th class day. This semester, for example, a total of 32 students were enrolled on the 12th class day out of 93 requests received.

This registration procedure took very little effort to manage and the return on a small investment of time proved worthwhile. The process convinced me that the students possessed the minimal computing equipment and expertise that I felt was needed -- before the course actually started and not a week or more into the semester. Students took the opportunity to ask about prerequisites and course content. A rapport with the class was initiated that seemed to sustain itself throughout the semester.

Students were subscribed to a listserv and the first messages were sent about a week before the start of the semester. I explained why I was offering an online course and the students were asked to discuss why they were taking one. The archives of the listserv are public.

The first class meeting was held on campus on the Saturday before the start of the semester. By that time I knew more about the students than I would have by the end of the semester for a face to face class. As noted in the syllabus, the exams were held on campus three times during the semester. During the spring semester of 2000 I decided to follow the exam with an hour lecture that introduced the next section of the course. This proved to have been the most unpopular thing I have done in more than 35 years of teaching. The students argued that they were capable of reading on their own and did not feel the need for an introductory lecture. From then on, students were free to leave once they had finished the exam. I was available for any questions following the examination.

An answer sheet was posted by noon of the examination day (Examination 1). Brief explanations as to why a particular response was correct are posted along with the distribution of scores in the class. This proved to have been a good practice. Students received nearly instant feedback (they were allowed to take the exam with them as their answers were recorded on a scantron sheet). The brief explanations seem to satisfy them as to why their answer was not the best.

I use Excel as a gradebook and the "save as html" feature creates a file that is available from the syllabus and from the footer at the end of each chapter. This online gradebook allows students to make sure that I have evaluated their work and recorded it in a timely fashion and to get an idea as to how they are doing with respect to the rest of the class.

Each week a message is sent to the listserv. These quickly became known as "Dr. Butler's nagging memos". I briefly reviewed the material they would be working on during the coming week and, for the online sections, distributed the weekly quiz (see Week 1). Quizzes were due within a week and students were given the opportunity to improve their answers as long as the final response was submitted within a week. The quizzes gave me an opportunity to function as a Virtual Tutor. This is an experience I find has become almost extinct with a face to face section. I estimate that less than 2% of my posted office hours have been occupied by discussions with students taking lower level courses during my 33 years at UH.

Assessment is an ongoing process in these courses. The students throughout the semester submit four "surveys". The surveys are more fully described in section 6.

This semester I added a "discussion component " to the online class. A topic is posted at the beginning of the month and students are expected to post at least two responses for each of the three topics. My goal is to engage the students in expressing their opinions on academic and geology topics. So far, the experiment seems to be working. (The committee can follow the first discussion by opening the February Directory at the archives page.)

With the exception of some of the cgi scripts, I have done all of the html scripting and image processing. This has proven to be a rewarding experience. The process of designing the web resources forced me to really think about what I want the learners to be able to do. Subsequent face to face sections have been enhanced as a result of the course redesign process that was necessary to present the material online. The primary benefactor of these efforts has been me but I believe there have been spin-off benefits to the students as well.

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Teaching Evaluations - OnLine Physical Geology

A series of four surveys are an integral part of the evaluation process used in all of sections of GEOL 1330 that I teach (face to face as well as online). The surveys are spread throughout the course and are web-distributed cgi forms. Submissions are returned to me in the form of tab-delimited text that can be put into a database for storage and further analysis.

These surveys were submitted to the Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects as I am interested in using the information that has been received in talks and publications. Approval was obtained in 1999 and an agreed upon statement accompanies each survey.

Survey 1 is essentially a pre-test in which I have tried to get a sense of what students are bringing to the course in the way of Earth literacy. The average score for the fall semester 2000 face to face class was a 9.5 as compared with a 10.1 for the online class offered in the same semester. The difference is not significant at the 95% confidence level. I use the responses to see if there are topics that need to be addressed more thoroughly.

Survey 2 is distributed about a month into the semester. In this survey the focus is on the student's attitudes towards education in general. A summary of responses to specific questions follows.

Survey 3 is distributed about 8 to 9 weeks into the semester. The focus is on the course in physical geology in particular and students are asked to evaluate the usefulness of the various components/resources that are available.

Survey 4 is distributed when there are about 2 weeks remaining in the semester. This survey is similar to the survey that Geosciences has used in its face to face sections for the past decade. My face to face section received the "standard" form rather than the one shown here as this one has an online flavor.

All of the data for the three online sections and the past 5 years of face to face sections are stored in a database and some of these data have been used in talks (and accompanying abstracts) and journal articles (see my curriculum vitae).

Another set of evaluations is that of Comments From Former Students. All students seeking permission to enroll are asked to read through these comments prior to making a decision as to whether to seek enrollment. I found the comments to be quite revealing and basically honest and offer them as another form of course evaluation.

I hesitate to reproduce raw data and am also reluctant to engage in an in depth data analysis. Therefore, I have selected a few of the questions and present responses for the online and face to face sections taught in the fall semester, 2000.

As noted in the following section, students in the two previous online versions of the course have performed (class gpa) higher than any of my previous face to face section in the past decade. A summary of my findings is deferred to the following section.

The following questions were asked about four weeks into the semester as part of survey 2.