The Challenges

1. A Summer of Hot-Button Issues Online: CJ 412:Mass Media Ethics goes from the classroom to chat room Mike Dorsher, Ph.D., assistant professor Department of Communication and Journalismf The Challenges Solutions Tried • Ease fall and spring enrollment pressures on a popular course • We require CJ 412 for all advertising, journalism and PR students • Mass Media Ethics is also a general education course • Making the course available in the summer, primarily online • Students can then focus on it, without commitments to 3-5 other classes • Greater time flexibility with online courses • Students can hold summer jobs and save for college expenses • Instructor can teach from his summer lake home! • Cuts commuting to campus when gas costs $3 per gallon • Maintain the learning community nature of this discussion-based class • Especially for complex philosophical concepts and techniques such as the Potter Box (right), which we normally discuss and practice in groups repeatedly during class • Using “clickers” in class also enhanced discussions • Maintain an emphasis on students’ oral communication • Increase learning during classmates’ case study presentations • Find a way to forecast which students would benefit from writing a final paper on their case study rather than presenting it orally • Translate Mass Media Ethics into an 8-week summer course in Desire2Learn • But still have two mandatory, five-hour on-campus class days • One in the first week to lecture on the Potter Box, practice it, get library orientation for online materials and take pictures of everyone in class • One in the last week of class, for oral presentations of case studies • Enhanced D2L discussions by using technologies such as: Video clips of instructors Head shots in every post Assessments and conclusions Extra credit and private threads • 42% of the 20 students said they learned the most from the case study presentations, followed by 26% who cited the discussions • 80% agreed the two on-campus days were a good idea • 60% agreed the head shots on discussion posts helped; only 7% disagreed • Similarly, only 7% disagreed that the video clips helped them learn • 90% said they’d like to make more use of live online chats • But 40% said they thought they’d have learned more if they had taken CJ 412 in class in the spring or fall semester • And 50% scored worse on an anonymous ethics scale post-test than they scored on the pre-test the first day of class Live ‘office hours’ chats D2L surveys replace clickers • Only one student qualified to write a final paper by earning an A or B on the mid-term essay • and the case study outline • 94% said the course ‘fosters • student involvement in learning’ • -- the exact same percentage as • in spring 2006 student evals Partial peer grading on orals