(684)UTILIZING WORKBOOKS TO PROVIDE TARGETED SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIALS TO FACILITATE LEARNING IN ONLINE CLASSES FOR UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS

摘要

Online education can be a powerful and flexible tool in undergraduate education. Online classes allowthe use of innovative technologies in which students can progress at their own pace. But there can bechallenges in developing and maintaining class interaction, particularly for asynchronous courses. Aspart of an asynchronous online course in Introduction to Epidemiology, the professor created aworkbook focusing on the application of core principles using individual and group activities. Thisworkbook expands upon lecture materials, the traditional textbook, wikis, discussion groups, and avariety of multimedia internet resources already incorporated into the class. The goal of the workbookis to enhance students’ critical thinking skills within the context of an online class and provide anopportunity to work on applied exercises. Working with a local publisher, the professor developed andpublished a workbook with applied exercises which were integrated into the Blackboard environmentof the class. Assignments were developed using a scenario in which students were described as aparticipant in a “real-life” or fictional setting, such as an intern at a local health department or aninvestigator of an outbreak. Students were then challenged to develop a solution to a public healthproblem using either real or fabricated data as appropriate. They were encouraged to work collectivelyon the data analysis and Excel spreadsheets were provided in Blackboard to allow for collaboration,as this more closely mirrors how epidemiologists work in the field. Following an exercise, studentsthen completed individual assessments of their learning in the module. Changes in printing capabilitiesnow allow instructors to create class specific workbooks which can be printed for small runs and beupdated as needed. These workbooks decrease the cost of textbooks as they can be fully targeted toclass materials and produced relatively inexpensively. They can also be put online but the advantageof using an actual book was that it gives students a concrete source with class materials for review.The workbook was designed in modules to match the overall course structure and students weregiven the option to complete work on activities within groups, with both self-graded and individuallygraded assessments. While this workbook was developed in the context of an epidemiology class, the core concepts and methods used could be applied to classes within a variety of fields.