MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching
Vol. 5, No. 3, September 2009
Replacing Professor Monologues with Online Dialogues: A Constructivist Approach to Online Course Template Design
Introduction
A common criticism of Web-enhanced course design is that online components are bells and whistles tacked onto traditional courses, which are costly to add and only minimally enhance the course content. This criticism may well have merit when online delivery focuses solely on providing course content, but fails to create a learning environment that supports the growth of a community of learners and shared knowledge. If courses are nothing more than content, then all students would need is their textbook. Faculty members, however, view the learning community as essential for cognitive growth and the development of critical thinking skills. Similarly, online educators recognize the importance of creating a learning environment that fosters interaction, dialogue, and mentoring in an effort to produce similar learning outcomes as traditional face-to-face courses.
Role of technology in course template design
Online course template development proceeds differently than the traditional course and requires a fundamental re-thinking of the course, the content, the learning activities, the learning outcomes, and the roles of professors and students. The traditional unilateral dialogue has little impact on student online learning and therefore the roles of faculty and students must be transformed. However, because this transformation requires technological training for both faculty and students, the need for change is outpacing change itself.
Few faculty members have the training in instructional design or learning theory needed to create a well-designed online course (Oblinger & Hawkins, 2006). Most faculty operate in isolation without the assistance of an instructional designer, who would provide the needed expertise in course development and assist with additional issues related to maintaining a website, such as selecting a platform for the course, updating links and software, and providing support for technology-related questions. However, Instructional designers and technology experts often approach course design with a deterministic view of technology, which leads them to organize the course to meet the needs of technology instead of the needs of the course (Gerber & Scott, 2007). This approach can lead to superficial connections between the features of a specific platform and the principles of student learning.
In this article, the authors describe the development of a course template designed to provide a unique menu of options for instructors to use when creating a well-organized, theory-based, high-quality online course. The template is designed to motivate instructors to redesign their courses to include technology in the classroom, and subsequently prepare first-year students for future online courses. Faculty worked in collaboration with Instructional designers to produce a ‘best practices’ course to serve as a model for future online course development.
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