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Introducing the virtual teacherThe emergence of the virtual university and developments in course delivery have meant dramatic changes to teaching methods, writes DEREK BROWN More than 40 students are enrolled in ‘Law of the internet’ at Monash University this year – and most will never meet their lecturer. Instead they will log onto their computers and will be taught via a mix of emails, newsgroups and specially designed web pages. Universities are considered among society’s last bastions of tradition, but new communication and internet technologies have forced the higher education sector to change the way it approaches the business of teaching. The Law faculty’s internet subject
was originally taught in a normal "If these students were going to work in this area of law, they needed to be able to give intelligent and professional advice to their clients. To do this, they need to be familiar with the medium," Ms de Zwart says. So the first module of the subject was changed to become an introduction to the internet, and the entire subject was redesigned and placed online two years ago, with the help of Monash’s Centre for Learning and Teaching Support (CeLTS). The subject is taught using a web-page interface, and students communicate with their lecturer and classmates through emails and newsgroups. According to Ms de Zwart, the anonymous nature of teaching online creates some challenges to traditional methods of teaching and the relationship between student and lecturer. "When teaching face-to-face, you can nod or make eye contact with students to include them in the group and encourage their involvement," she says. "On the internet, the only way you can engage personally with your students is by writing an email to each one – you have to design other ways of including students. "I had to be disciplined in answering emails. In a classroom situation, everything is a lot more immediate. Teaching online is a lot more time-consuming," she says. While a virtual teaching environment requires additional effort from the lecturer, there are many advantages for students, according to former student Anna Johnson, who studied internet law online in 1999. "Though it was difficult not having real interaction with the teacher and other class members, I was able to study in my own time and at my own pace," she says. Ms Johnson, who now practises law in the area of intellectual property/information technology, says studying the subject online changed the group dynamics of the class. "Because there was only a formal structure in place for interacting with other students, there was very little opportunity for informality," she says. In a number of Monash distance education courses, students also receive lectures through cyberspace, but unlike the internet law subject, these lectures are delivered to students’ homes using live – or real-time – broadcast video and multi-point audio. Dr Des Casey, lecturer and deputy head of the School of Network Computing at Monash University’s Peninsula campus, says there are many benefits to real-time e-teaching environments. "The live audio and video lectures beamed into students’ homes give students the benefit of being able to interact with the lecturer while the lecture is being given," Dr Casey explains. Real-time distance education also encourages better group relations by eliminating the competitiveness that exists in face-to-face teaching environments, he says. And while hype surrounds the use of online methods of teaching, Associate Professor Daryl Nation, deputy director of CeLTS, says it’s nothing new for technology to change teaching. "Educators have always drawn on available technologies to go about the purpose of educating," he says. Whenever new communication and information technologies are introduced into education, it takes time for changes to teaching practices to settle down, Associate Professor Nation says. He believes the real challenge for educators is to find ways to adopt and creatively use technologies developed for other purposes. ACTION: For more details, contact Dr Des Casey from the School of Network Computing at Peninsula Campus on +61 3 9904 4602 or email des.casey@infotech.monash.edu.au |
classroom
setting – then lecturer Melissa de
Zwart realised that many students had little or no practical experience
of the internet, the core of their subject.