An Artisan Model for Web Teaching



An Artisan Model for Web Teaching

Alberto M. Bento and Regina F. Bento

abento@ubmail.ubalt.edu rbento@ubmail.ubalt.edu

Contact Information (same for both)

Affiliation: Merrick School of Business, University of Baltimore

Phone: (410) 997 9786; Fax: (410) 997 0256

Summer address: 9806 Claiborne Circle. Columbia, MD 21044

Submitted for 2001 International Conference on Informatics Education and Research

An Artisan Model for Web Teaching

Abstract

For a growing number of universities, the question is no longer whether they should engage in web-based education, but rather how they should implement web teaching. In some cases, universities adopt what we call an Industrial Model of web teaching, where a centralized team of instructional technologists and faculty experts develops the courses, which are then taught by a number of instructors. These instructors interact online with the students, but do not own the intellectual rights to the course materials and must operate within the framework of the original course design.

In this paper we present an alternative approach to web teaching, which we call the Artisan Model. In this model, the role of the faculty member remains as central and autonomous in the development and delivery of online courses as it would be in the traditional face-to-face environment. There may be a centralized technical support staff, but the essential responsibility for course development and delivery remains with the faculty member. He or she retains the intellectual property rights to the course, and is as free to choose or modify its content and materials as would be the case in a regular face-to-face environment.

The Artisan Model is based on the idea that universities provide more than just instruction. Higher education is also meant to foster the development of work habits, to promote creative and analytical thinking, to encourage life-long learning, to offer opportunities for professional socialization and group peer experiences. In the Artisan Model faculty are empowered to make course design and delivery choices that attempt to fulfill those goals by building on the strengths of physical and virtual classrooms. Instead of looking at face-to-face interaction (same place/same time) and web-learning (any place/any time) as "either/or" course design choices, faculty approach the issue as a product-mix choice: which form of delivery or interaction is more appropriate for what purposes, and what are the appropriate proportions of each in a given course (anywhere in the continuum from fully face-to-face to fully web-based).

In the Artisan Model, the main function of faculty is not to generate instructional resources, but to concentrate on the role of facilitator of the learning process. There is no substitute for faculty leadership and guidance of the learning process, whereas in most fields there is already a wealth of available materials (books, CDs, hypermedia, etc.). By choosing from available resources, complementing them with additional materials as necessary, faculty are able to concentrate on what they are uniquely qualified to do, the facilitation role.

An exciting challenge for faculty in the Artisan Model is to find the web tools that best allow them to translate to the online environment their own preferred approaches to teaching a given course. In this paper, we discuss various web tools (web boards, web collaborative tools, online tutorials, integrated course tools) and specialized technology (audio and video streaming, teamwork and animation software) that may help faculty find the online equivalents of their preferred teaching techniques. Those tools and technologies also allow faculty to explore possibilities that would not normally be available in a regular face-to-face environment. For each of the usual types of courses (case-oriented, reading-oriented, project-oriented, interaction-oriented, theory-oriented, etc.), we will discuss and demonstrate the online equivalents of traditional teaching tools and techniques (books, cases, group discussions, presentations, demonstrations, individual and group projects, experiential exercises, etc.).

Word count: 554 words.

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