Online Course Evaluation

This week we were asked to evaluate a free online course. I truly didn’t imagine how many free online courses are offered! Much to my delight, I found a course that is offered through The Johns Hopkins University entitled “Food Production, Public Health and the Environment.” Being an Agricultural Education teacher, this topic interested me and was very excited to see that there are such high quality courses over the topic being offered online for free.  The course is offered as an OpenCourseWare or OCW. Learners need not to register or stick to a set schedule for the course. It is all learner directed and all materials are available on the site.

The course is developed for adult learners who are motivated enough and interested enough in the topic to get through the material on their own because of the lack of interaction with an instructor and lack of credits earned. If a learner decides to “take” this course, they are simply doing it for their own understanding of the course, not any credit. With this being said, the target audience of this course are adult learners who are interested in agriculture and want to understand the production system and the possible challenges associated with it.

In evaluating this course, I focused on Bates 12 golden rules for distance education (Albright, et al, 2012) and pulled out a few of the rules that I thought this course really excelled as well as some that it may have struggled in.

·         Good Teaching Matters- The course looks as though it was deliberately put together for the target audience in mind and with the learner needs in mind. I had opened a few other free online courses when looking for one to evaluate and was disappointed at how many were simply a video of a lecture or presentation. This particular course has assignments, discussions, and assessments for the students to participate in even though they will not be receiving credit for any of it. The activities encourage a deeper understanding of the material.

·         Each medium has its own aesthetic- Upon opening the site, I felt motivated to take the course and look through the material and I think it has to do a lot with the aesthetic design of the site. There are varied fonts which offer a clear designation of different categories. “Two font types work the best, for example when one is used for one category and of information and the second is used for background or secondary information (Albright, et al, 2012). Also, visuals such as a chart for the schedule of modules and assignments were given as aids to visual learners.

·         There is no super technology- The course is to be transmitted to the student through a browser with slides and MP3 audio. Technology is being used but the technology is not out of control as if the students would have a hard time keeping up or using the technology. The students can easily see where the assignments, lectures, schedules, etc are and it allows for easy flow of the course because the student can easily use the technology.

·         Team work is essential- Collaboration is a downfall of this course. Because of the nature of the course, it does not allow collaboration between students nor student and teacher. I believe that with collaboration on this topic, students could dig deeper into their understanding and gain some other perspectives from other students. As stated by Beldarrian, “As new technologies emerge, instructional designers and educators have unique opportunities to foster interaction and collaboration among learners, thus creating a true learning community (Beldarrian, 2006).” Although there are not real time interactions and collaboration, the course does offer guest lectures and presentations from experts in the field.

Overall, I think that the course was designed with the students in mind as well as the fact that the course will be given in an online fashion. Attention was given to the specific learning outcomes and assignments and assessments were given as learning aids. The design was intentional in order to keep students motivated and aid in their learning process. The only limitation would be the lack of collaboration but that is only due to the nature of the course.

Albright, Simonson, Smaldino, and Zvacek. Teaching and Learning at a Distance. 2012. Pearson, Boston, MA.

Beldarrain, Y. (2006). Distance education trends: Integrating new technologies to foster student interaction and collaboration. Distance Education, 27(2), 139–153.

Lawrence, B., Walker, P.  Food Production, Public Health and the Environment. 2010. JHSPH OpenCourseWare. http://ocw.jhsph.edu. Creative Commons.