The Missouri Reader Vol. 33, Issue 2 | Page 31

Effectiveness of a web-enhanced young adult literature class using online tools and eight-week face-to-face contact with students Dianne Koehnecke During the spring semester of 2007, graduate students took a young adult literature course at a Midwestern university. This course was unique in two ways: the course, for the first time in the many years it had been taught, was divided into separate graduate and undergraduate sections; and second, WebCT was used to enhance course participation and evaluation. The course was based on the theory of Wilcox and Wojnar (2000),that building an online course needed to focus on content knowledge, pedagogy, and higher-order thinking dispositions. These authors stressed that transferring content to an online environment required technological expertise and facilitating growth in a student’s knowledge base through interaction of literacies that required mindfulness. Although the class was totally online, it did add many of the online practices Wilcox and Wojnar emphasized were required in an effective course: it was student-centered, authentic, social, collaborative, democratic, and challenging. The course reflected the theory that technology in the classroom is a literacy that is as important as reading, writing, listening, speaking, thinking and viewing. This realization increased during the following year, 2008, when the university adapted the Blackboard Vista system and faculty members were given the opportunity to utilize a much more streamlined web-enhanced class feature. Additional training provided by a technology development specialist encouraged faculty participation. Instructors who chose to use the web-enhanced course varied from those who merely posted assignments on the system to others, who essentially designed their course to replicate an on-line course, with one Dianne Koehnecke is an Associate Professor of major difference: the class also met face-to-face for Education and chair of the Communication Arts, four hours per week during an eight-week period. Aesthetic Education, Reading, and Early Various theories of best practice were Childhood graduate program at Webster reviewed, such as Daniels and Bizar’s (1998) Methods that Matter: Six Structures for Best University. She has a Ph.D. from St. Louis Practice; Zemelman, Daniels and Hyde’s (1998) Best University (1992) in Curriculum and Instruction Practice Standards for Teaching and Learning in with a minor in English. She also has her Reading America’s Schools; and Fulwiler’s (1998) Specialist certification. She teaches reading, Professional Portfolios for Teachers. All of these writing, and literature classes at Webster. She texts encouraged basic pedagogical skills, such as has written six young adult books for striving integration, small group activities, classroom readers and continues to write and review workshops, authentic experience, reflective assessment, and connecting. Other texts on best academic journals and books. Her hobbies are practice pedagogy that incorporated technology swimming, walking, traveling, and spending as into best practice included Bolter’s (1998) Hypertext much time as possible with her grandchildren. and the Question of Visual Literacy and Wiggins and McTighe’s (1999) Understanding by Design. Bolter emphasized that multimedia reading skills are generic literacies in the information age, while Wiggins 31