Faculty Guide for Moving Teaching and Learning to the Web.

Faculty Guide for Moving Teaching and Learning to the Web by Judith Boettcher and Rita-Marie Conrad. League for Innovation in the Community College, Mission Viejo, California (www.leaguestore.org). 1999, 136 pages, $25.00 Paper.

Web-based teaching and learning are changing the face of higher education and rapidly becoming commonplace in institutions of higher learning. Web-based courses are being developed at a rapid pace, and faculty are working at a frenzied pace to develop the skills needed to instruct in an on-line environment. These new demands are creating instructional challenges for faculty. In the Faculty Guide for Moving Teaching and Learning to the Web, Boettcher and Conrad provide a comprehensive guide for faculty on concepts related to moving teaching and learning to an interactive and collaborative Web-based environment. Instead of presenting a "how-to" book on Web-based instruction, the authors focus on integrating technological concepts with teaching and learning. In addition, the authors introduce issues and perspectives for the future surrounding teaching and learning via the Web.

Boettcher, the executive director of the Corporation for Research and Educational Networking, and Conrad, an on-line instructor at Florida State University, have assembled a comprehensive monograph about Web-based teaching and learning. These authors have developed the eleven chapters of this monograph so that it can be divided into three parts: theory, practice, and implications for higher education. The first three chapters offer the framework for the monograph by exploring the theoretical principles behind teaching and learning in a Web-based environment. Chapters 4 through 9 offer practical methods and processes for moving teaching and learning to the Web. The concluding two chapters explore implications and the future for higher education by discussing the issues of teaching and learning in a Web environment.

Chapter 1 introduces the reader to the Web by presenting a brief history of the Internet. This chapter also focuses on how the Internet works and how the Web developed. The purpose of this chapter is to help the reader build a "conceptual understanding of the Internet and the Web infrastructure and it clarifies their usefulness for teaching and learning" (p. v).

Chapter 2 provides an overview of technology and change, and it gives a set of principles for the manageable use of technology. These principles assert that (1) good use of technology takes time; (2) not all technology thrives or survives; (3) continued technology growth can be assumed; and (4) people adopt innovation at different rates. This chapter focuses on the need for creating campus policies that will support the successful adoption of technology by faculty, staff, and students. This need is supported by key statistics and trend lines on the adoption of technological innovations.

The Web as an emerging teaching and learning environment is introduced in Chapter 3. The authors describe this emergence as the "first truly major shift in instruction that has occurred in the last 500 years. It is the shift from the classroom as the primary center of organized instruction to the Web as the primary center of instruction" (p. 15). In Chapter 3, the authors clearly provide support for the concept that the basics of teaching and learning processes are essentially communication and dialogue processes. They use the ideas of B. F. Skinner, Jerome Bruner, Lev Vygotsky, John Dewey, and Malcolm Knowles to provide support and to reexamine and reevaluate the core processes of teaching and learning.

In Chapters 4 through 9, Boeucher and Conrad address the initial planning of resources, instructional design guidelines, the development of a Web course, tools and resources needed to create a Web course, models of Web courses, and how to create and sustain an on-line community while teaching a course via the Web. These chapters provide faculty and administrators a clear guide on how to move teaching and learning to the Web. Chapter 4 addresses critical questions and decisions to be made before launching a project to move a course to the Web. This chapter also describes for faculty the different types of Web courses -- WebCourse, WebCentric, and WebEnhanced. In addition, the authors provide descriptions of decision layers that will help faculty and administrators determine key factors for moving a course to the Web.

Chapters 5 and 6 cover specific instructional design guidelines and steps for moving courses to the Web. Chapter 5 tackles Web course design from the perspectives of student time and course content. From a student time perspective, the expectations of the course focus on time and work load for both faculty and the students. The authors describe these expectations and explore what the expected instructional and learning outcomes will look like given these expectations. The goals and objectives are the focus from a course content perspective. Chapter 6 shifts to an outline of the steps and expertise required to design, develop, and deliver Web course materials. The authors assert that a systematic team approach to Web course design and development is more effective than the single faculty approach to design primarily used in traditional face-to-face courses. Both Chapters 5 and 6 conclude with specific steps for designing, developing, and delivering Web courses.

The theme of design, development and delivery continues in Chapters 7 through 9. Specifically, Chapter 7 describes the tools and resources that can be used for creating Web courses. According to the authors, the tools and resources described in this chapter can help reduce the time and skill needed to develop Web courses. Chapter 8 provides the reader with several examples of WebCourse, WebCentric, and WebEnhanced type courses. This chapter also describes different strategies for instructional activities in a Web environment. The process of design, development, and delivery concludes in Chapter 9 with a discussion on how to create and sustain an on-line learning community through collaboration. The key question asked in this chapter is as follows: "How do you build a collaborative community without face-to -face communication?" (p. 88). The authors address this question by exploring activities that are interactive, cooperative, and collaborative.

The final two chapters of this monograph focus on teaching issues and the future of Web courses. Chapter 10 focuses on issues that recur when teaching in a Web environment: (1) managing e-mail communication, (2) class size, (3) copyright and intellectual property, and (4) assessment and evaluation. The authors provide strategies on how to deal with each of these issues. Because teaching and learning in a Web environment continues to evolve, the authors clearly assert that their discussion provides only a starting point for exploring these issues. Chapter 11 provides a view of what teaching and learning will look like in higher education in the future. The authors organize these perspectives on the future around the higher education enterprise, degree and continuing education programs, institutional infrastructure, faculty and students tools and resources, content resources, and research in learning. The Faculty Guide for Moving Teaching and Learning to the Web concludes with a science fiction fantasy of what teaching and learning will be like in the year 2007.

Moving teaching and learning to a Web-based environment changes how educators approach instruction and instructional design. Advances in teaching and learning in a Web environment have brought new challenges to educators, and Boettcher and Conrad have captured and discussed the critical principles, guidelines, steps, and issues surrounding these challenges. I highly recommend this monograph to all faculty and administration in higher education who are considering or who are in the process of moving courses to the Web. This monograph is essential as reading and as a reference in that it provides specific strategies that will aid the reader in successfully moving courses to the Web. The content of the monograph is enhanced by the stories told by faculty who have taught Web-based courses. These experiences offer real insights into on-line learning from an instructor's perspective.

Although the intended audience is not explicitly stated, this monograph is appropriate for faculty, staff, and administrators in community colleges. (It is published by the League for Innovation in the Community College.) The Faculty Guide for Moving Teaching and Learning to the Web is particularly valuable for community college faculty who currently teach or will in the future be teaching in a Web environment. Its content and format will allow educators to easily apply the information provided in the design, development, and delivery of Web courses.

Saundra Wall Williams is an assistant professor in the Department of Adult and Community College Education at N.C. State University in Raleigh, North Carolina. [e-mail]