I will be conducting this research in Fall 2006 in my hybrid Bio Sci 106: Organismal and Environmental Biology class.  This is an introductory course that is required for students who are biology majors.  However, the class also has a significant number of enrolled students who are not biology majors, but who need to fulfill their degree with a science lab course.  The varied background and abilities of the students creates a challenge for me in effectively teaching the important concepts of the course.  An additional challenge for me will be that this semester will be the first time that I will be teaching this class as a hybrid course.  By having students participate in this research project, I hope to get them actively involved in their own learning, which will then help me determine if this improves their understanding of the course material.  Participation in this project will be mandatory and will be worth 10% of the students’ overall grade. 

During the first half of the semester I will create new discussion board forums every week where students will be required to complete a variety of assignments, such as summarizing the main points of the week’s topic, writing and posting questions about the course material that their classmates will be required to answer, or responding to questions that I have posted.  These discussion board assignments will be class-wide  forums where students will essentially be reporting as an individual to me and the rest of the class.

During the second half of the semester I will alternate the class-wide forums with smaller group assignments every week.   In the latter assignments, the class will be separated into smaller groups of four or five students and each group will have its own discussion board where they will need to complete assignments similar to those listed above.  Each small group will then be required to write a summary report on their findings/results and post it to the class wide forum that will be made available.  By having students work in smaller groups, and requiring each group to reach a consensus on their assignment report, I hope to increases student involvement and accountability in completing these discussion board assignments.

Every week throughout the semester, each student will be required to complete an online quiz (check for understanding) about that week’s lecture topic.  I will use the students’ grades from these online quizzes, as well as their midterm and final exam scores, to obtain a quantifiable measure of the research project’s effectiveness.

In order to provide a more qualitative measure of the project’s success, the students will also complete an online evaluation of the research project at the end of the semester.  They will be asked whether they found the smaller group activities more helpful in improving their learning compared to the class-wide activities.  They will also be asked which aspects of online learning they found most helpful and enjoyable.

The goal of my research project is to specifically answer the question “Does student learning improve when accompanied by small group assignments that increase collaboration among students and their accountability to the rest of the class compared with class-wide assignments where students collaborate less and are essentially accountable only to themselves and the instructor?”

I will monitor the students’ discussion board postings throughout the semester and provide feedback and clarification on course content as necessary, so that the students realize that the quality of their postings are important.   I will also grade their postings based on the rubric that I will provide at the beginning of the semester so that they are aware of my expectations.  In addition, every week, each student will be required to complete an online quiz about that week’s lecture topic.  I will use the students’ grades from these online quizzes, as well as their midterm and final exam scores, to obtain a quantifiable measure of the research project’s effectiveness.

In order to provide a more qualitative measure of the project’s success, the students will also complete an online evaluation of the research project at the end of the semester.  They will be asked whether they found the smaller group activities more helpful in improving their learning compared to the class-wide activities.  They will also be asked which aspects of online learning they found most helpful and enjoyable. 

The ITL course that I completed was EDU 090: Strategies for Success in Online Teaching.  The technologies that I learned in that course and that I will be using are the teaching tools available through Blackboard, such as the discussion board and online quizzes.   One of the seven principles of good practice in undergraduate education is that “Good practice encourages cooperation among students.  Learning is enhanced when it is more like a team effort than a solo race. Good learning, like good work, is collaborative and social, not competitive and isolated. Working with others often increases involvement in learning. Sharing one's own ideas and responding to others' reactions improves thinking and deepens understanding.”  I will test this idea by comparing student performance based on relatively solo assignments, with those that are more collaborative.

In conducting this research, I hope to provide myself and my colleagues with a quantifiable measure of the relative success of collaborative, student-centered learning, compared to a more isolated, online learning environment. Although this project will focus specifically on the use of discussion board assignments and online quizzes as checks for understanding, the results will have important implications for other aspects of an online or hybrid class, such as assignment design, improvement in student reading and writing skills, and student retention.  If the results of my research show that student learning is improved when supplemented with more collaborative online tools and student-centered learning, I will not only use it in all my classes in the future, but also consider expanding the scope of this project to test other aspects of my class to see if they reveal similar results.