Prospective
Students & Families 
Assessment
& Reports WebCT for Learning Communities Workshop (May 2003)
Reflection Summary
1. What specific applications of electronic community (through WebCT) can support what you do in your learning community?
- Ability to post student journal entries (3)
- Chat room (4)
- with alumni and faculty
- Discussion (5)
- continue discussions outside of class
- We could use the chat or discussion for short essays in my class and for their English assignment
- The discussion/chat area can help with nonresidential and virtual teams.
- Calendar (7)
- Events
- Field trips, events, clubs
- Keep calendar changes current
- Bulletin board
- Class syllabus (4)
- Changes to syllabus for seniors
- Sharing
- Ideas
- calendars/assignments
- documents in "student presentation" section
- Student homepages
- Grade book/attendance (3)
- Student presentations (3)
- Daily tips (2)
- Assessment/Feedback
- Quizzes/surveys
- Maybe do feedback questions to faculty through WebCT
- Ask for specific feedback periodically
- Quizzes
- Connect with students during the summer through readings, discussion, chat rooms, "quiz" of opinions
- Linking to online examples of "good" or genre-specific writing
- Calendars, email, and tips are a great way for mentors to keep in touch with their teams
- Distribution of material
- Offering the course packet on WebCT
2. How can these applications support the intended learning outcomes of your
learning community?
- Moving discussion beyond the classroom
- Communication skills, including computer communication skills
- Assessment of learning
- Collect assessment information
- Increase belonging by connecting easily to faculty, mentors, and coordinators
- Career information for alums
- Communication and anyway to improve it is always good
- Opportunity for thoughtful discussion with no names attached-privacy
- They'll help build connections, teach students about computers at ISU and support our orientation course
- Create deeper understanding of disciplinary integration
- Get students actively involved in course/community, we have such a large group so WebCT really gives them an avenue to stay connected
- Outcome goal for me is getting connected to the LTM students in my class-this can help me with the teams through some "discussions" or "chats"
- Keep the community going after class time
- Encourage collaboration between instructors and students
- They help students feel more connected with other students and possibly staff and faculty. It encourages interaction and provides minimal time management tools\
- Help create more of a community
- Take classroom issues, discussions beyond the classroom
- Allow peer mentors to see where students may need more assistance
- Enhance computer skills of our students
- More coordinated effort with lots of people involved
- Makes communication easy and fast. Students would rather do journaling on a computer than by hand. Also WebCT would help me create a stronger link with my LC
3. What are three of the best ideas you heard or thought of during the workshop?
- Journal/portfolios
- Journal of what they learned by being in a LC
- Having students create webpages/presentations/portfolio addressing what they have learned from participation in the learning community
- Connect to portfolios
- Online reflections
- WebCT quizzes and surveys
- Create online quizzes, grade sheets
- Creating presentations groups
- Using student presentations for team work exercise
- Web presentation
- E-mail
- Only use web email to decrease clutter on Outlook
- WebCT email as separate from regular iastate.edu email so that students will focus on task, not chat
- Tip
- Tip of the day-I have "wish I would have known" comment from past LC to share with next year LC
- Using daily tips from peer mentors
- Use the "tip of the day" to give students updates
- Discussion/chat rooms
- Create discussion groups
- Discussion-we could keep track of issues brought up in class and revisit them
- Have peer mentors monitor discussion and reply to standard questions, make referrals as needed
- Better use of chat or discussion
- Using chat room so that peer mentors and faculty mentors have can have electronic office hours on a regular basis (maybe alumni mentors too)
- "Cow bell" chat function
- Calendar
- Post in-class and out of class events and reminders on calendars
- Better use of calendar
- Create a calendar which is linked to LC classes
- Linking courses
- Create a WebCT course with access for all instructors working with linked courses
- Getting instructors in linked courses connected using the LTM class lists
- Should let LC classes find ways to communicate together
- Grades
- Calculate grades more quickly
- Submitting midterms and final grades via WebCT
- Students having immediate access to their grades helps keep them focused
- Course materials
- Posting course packets
- E-reserve will do copyright checks on journal articles we want to post
- Posting syllabus on WebCT
- Logistics
- Possibility of free WebCT handbooks for students
- Among designers, dividing responsibilities (who's doing what) à weekly meeting of coordinator group and that may happen in the meetings context
- Adding a banner and text box to the course homepage
- Linking to "netiquette" page (2)
- Offer numerous opportunities for new methods of communication
- Hopefully it will make the Library 160 linking with courses easier
- Really liked the idea of CPS