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The Convergence
of Teaching and Design in WebCT
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The Convergence
of Teaching and Design in WebCT
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© Copyright 2000 by Sharon Widmayer. The right to make additional exact copies, including this notice, for personal and classroom use, is hereby granted. All other forms of distribution and copying require permission of the author. |
ENGL 302 (Business) All undergraduate students at George Mason University are required to take one 300-level writing class. This writing class is divided into sections that focus on writing in the sciences, humanities, and in business. ENGL 302B is the business section. In the summer of 1999, a team of faculty began to redesign some sections of ENGL 302B to be:
There were 5 sections of ENGL 302B in the spring using the material designed for WebCT, including 2 sections taught completely online and three sections using online material to support a traditional face-to-face class. Distance classes normally did not meet at all on campus or, if they did, only on one or two occasions. Face-to-face classes met one or two days a week, depending upon the structure of the section. Each section enrolled approximately 20-24 students. Students range in age from young adult to middle-aged returning students and many held employment or were raising families. Approximately one-third to half the students in these courses are nonnative speakers of English. Most students in the Business sections are majoring in business-related majors, interdisciplinary majors, or nursing. Some student strengths reported during the Spring 2000 semester included ability to use vocabulary and write persuasively. Weaknesses included accuracy and proofreading skills, lack of knowledge of business writing conventions, and problems with organization and style, such as overly long sentences or paragraphs. The section that I taught was a face-to-face section.
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