In developing her online biology course, Peg Johnson designed experiments that
were relatively simple and inexpensive and that sent her students to the supermarket.
Title: “Biology Concepts: Bio 100″
Institution: Mesa Community College
Instructor: Peg Johnson, a professor of biology and
microbiology
Course content: The course provides a general education in
basic biology, touching on ecology, chemistry, cell life,
genetics, evolution, and other topics.
Target audience: The course is offered to non-biology majors
at Mesa Community College, an urban commuter college in
southern Arizona that offers distance-education degrees.
How delivered: “Bio 100″ doesn’t have a laboratory, but the
course still strives to provide hands-on learning. Ms. Johnson
says that she wants her students to learn through inquiry, not
exposition. A new biological concept is taught each week –
through an “interactive lecture” that punctuates textbook
readings with online multiple-choice questions, a quiz, and
experiments that students conduct themselves. Class members
never meet face to face, but a bulletin board allows students
to discuss and analyze their lab projects.
Course requirements: Students must complete one laboratory
activity and readings for one unit of study every week.
(Readings appear in the course’s textbook, online, and in a
CD-ROM for the course.) Each unit culminates in an online
quiz; midterm and final examinations are supervised by
proctors. Posts to online bulletin boards are required — and
graded.
When offered: The course has been offered every spring and
fall semester since 1998. In 2000, Ms. Johnson started to
train adjunct professors to teach the course; four faculty
members now do so.
Enrollment: Each of the course’s four sections is capped at 20
participants. Because of demand, there is often a waiting
list.
Cost: Tuition for students of the college is $164. There is a
laboratory fee of $25; a required laboratory kit costs $30,
but $25 is refunded if the kit is returned at the end of the
course.
Unusual features: In devising the course, Ms. Johnson had to
design experiments that were relatively simple and
inexpensive. Her solution: Send students to the supermarket.
On the campus, she teaches osmosis and diffusion with dialysis
tubing and sensitive scales; online, she developed an
experiment using purple cabbage, Knox gelatin, and common
liquids (orange juice, ammonia, and milk) of varying acidity.
A course book describes in detail how the unpretentious
exercises should be conducted; the laboratory kit includes
some necessary tools.
A CD-ROM used in the course is about to get a unique upgrade
in the form of an “interview” with Gregor Mendel, the
long-dead geneticist. Mendel will be played by Ken Costello,
an information-technology specialist at the college. “I’m
sewing a monk’s robe,” Ms. Johnson says. “Mendel died thinking
himself a failure. Students will see that great contributions
often come from people who do not fit the stereotypical image
of a genius.”
Instructor comment: Ms. Johnson says she drew particular
inspiration from a student who enrolled in the course from
Pennsylvania, and then lost his job during the semester. “He
packed his wife, dog, and belongings in the car and moved to
Houston, Tex.” — all while completing the class via laptop.
“He never missed a beat.” Such students, she said, “inspire
faculty to invest the creativity, time, and energy needed to
develop a quality online course.”
U.R.L.:
http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/users/Johnson_p/online100.html
From The Chronicle of Higher Education
August 9, 2001
By BROCK READ