This is the second in a series of three articles on the development and teaching of online courses using the Internet and World Wide Web. Asynchronous teaching, which is a method that allows students to study and interact with instructors at times convenient to their schedules, is central to online instruction. Asynchronous teaching also allows instructors to initiate and respond to communications with students at times when they are best prepared to do so. In contrast to traditional instruction, much of the teaching process in online instruction is the result of the instructional design built into the course as it is developed; activities, projects, exams, and assignments are developed before the course begins. This article describes experiences resulting from teaching two fully online graduate courses in special education and instructional design.

On almost every campus and in every K-12 school district today we find administrators, teachers, and students engaged in determining how best to evaluate teaching. There are arguments for and against using student performance as a measure of teaching effectiveness. There are also arguments for and against using student perceptions as measures of teaching effectiveness. There is even less agreement on what variables contribute to measuring the quality of teaching. Yet, the public and the governance bodies representing it are calling for evaluation of teaching. This is a reasonable demand, and our inability to reach consensus on how best to meet it is no excuse for not addressing the question of how to ensure quality teaching. With the advent of the Internet and the World Wide Web (www), a new mode of instruction and a different approach to teaching have emerged, raising even more questions about what effective teaching is and how to measure it.

We begin this discussion about online teaching with a reference to teaching effectiveness because many of those whochallenge the value of online instruction do so on the grounds that we do not know if it is as effective as traditional instruction. What is overlooked in this argument is the fact that although the teaching process does differ from traditional instruction, asynchronous teaching via the Internet has the advantage of offering many more objective ways of measuring the array of variables we typically align with the evaluation of teaching. It also offers additional opportunities for evaluation. Teaching online means that all of what you teach is public and open to review, if not evaluation. Student performance can be measured, and your responsiveness to student activities, questions, and comments is open to review, as is the quickness of your responses. This is not to build a case for any particular strategy for evaluating the effectiveness of instructors who elect to teach online. Rather, it is to remind you of the context of online instruction, which differs significantly from that of traditional instruction in terms of both delivery and openness to public scrutiny. The mechanisms exist to assess the effectiveness of online instruction at a level of retail not available in traditional instruction.

We believe that this backdrop for a discussion of teaching online is necessary if not essential. Just as we lack experience in developing instruction for delivery online, so we lack experience in teaching online from which to draw in offering suggestions on techniques. There is a body of literature on distance education teaching techniques, but online instruction was not an option when that knowledge base was developed. The research on distance education does, however, offer some direction and cannot be ignored while we wait for the online mode to be added to the knowledge base. For example, Sherry (1996) noted that "the most important factor for successful distant learning is a caring concerned teacher who is confident, experienced, at ease with the equipment, uses media creatively, and maintains a high level of interacting with the students" (p. 5). In the context of online instruction, one might also add " ... and is tolerant of changing technology, policies, and expectations." Given the lack of experience in online instruction, one might also add willingness to move ahead on one's own initiative while learning from one's own experience.

The following discussion of teaching techniques in online instruction is divided into five general categories: (a) the context of teaching online, (b) preparation for online instruction, (c) teaching strategies, (d) evaluation strategies, and (c) placing online teaching in perspective.

Teaching online includes a variety of formats. The middle school teacher who assigns his or her students the task of researching Web sites to collect data on different cultures is teaching online. The professor at the community college who offers an accounting course fully online is also teaching online. Both, at different times, will use the same techniques. There is no particular set of techniques that are applicable to specific uses of the Internet for instructional purposes.

In discussing techniques appropriate for online teaching, it is important to begin with an examination of where people are coming from when they engage in online instruction. These perspectives become important because online instruction came about because of new technology that offered a new delivery system. That is, online instruction was not created because it was a priority of the education community or a goal of higher education. When the Internet became available, the opportunity for delivering instruction was evident, and the education community began to capitalize on it for delivering instruction. We now examine the perspectives of the student, the instructor, and the institution.

Student Perspective

The perspective of the student is most clear. Online instruction offers access and flexibility. Students who do not need those features and who find that traditional education meets their needs might even be opposed to taking instruction online. We do not want to make too many assumptions about the positive perceptions of students. One's position definitely depends on who one is and one's particular needs as a student. Because student advocates for online courses are largely those whose needs are met by online instruction, there is a tendency to overstate the importance of institutions investing in online instruction. In fact, most students currently enrolled are not advocates, and many are not even aware of what is involved. There is also a tendency for students enrolled in online instruction to view it as warranting full utilization of all its potential features, not recognizing that institutions have yet to make such a commitment and that traditional instruction remains their first priority.

A major advantage for some students with disabilities is the ability to review all material in its original form. For example, students have unlimited access to the lectures and all resources, which do not change once they are placed online. At this stage in the history of online instruction, comparatively little development or research has been done to explore the application of online instruction to persons with disabilities. However, the features of online instruction are closely aligned with the accommodations required by most students with disabilities who enroll in traditional courses.

Instructor's Perspective

Instructors who see both the need of and the opportunity for teaching online and who are willing to invest in the experiment have a generally positive perspective. They are willing to put forth the effort to develop the instruction, which is demanding, and to engage in teaching without knowing in advance what the demands will be. When development and online teaching are combined, which is typical, the work demands for the instructor far exceed those of traditional instruction. These instructors are committed to making it work, but they are at the same time working in an environment in which traditional instruction is valued. They are faced with having to restructure what they have routinely done as instructors to become effective in teaching online. It is difficult enough to be part of an experiment without also having to convince others that what you are doing not only has value, but also is important to the mission of the institution. There has been only limited organized resistance on most campuses to the development of online instruction, but it is reasonable to assume that opposition will occur. Issues related to quality, faculty roles, and rewards will likely be raised as universities are called upon to offer courses and degrees online.

Teaching online offers many advantages to instructors who have students with disabilities enrolled in their classes. It is important to bear in mind that the only way an instructor will know that a student has disabilities is if the instructor is informed (unless the student is also enrolled in traditional instruction taught by the instructor). Instructors are able to personalize communications with students to offer more instruction if needed or to revert to other modes. For example, in the model on which this article is based, audiostreaming is used to deliver the lectures. The lectures are supplemented with a text outline of all content, readings, and other print resources. The lectures are also visually illustrated with key points and graphics. The audio could be captioned if necessary. This would allow the student to access the lecture in text form. The telephone is also an option for personalizing communications with students. However, all standard communications are via e-mail, making the transmission of messages, assignments, and feedback almost instantaneous.

Institutional Perspective

Higher education institutions vary in terms of their missions. Some have a stronger commitment to outreach than others. The public, however, tends to believe that universities are created to serve the public, which means that as innovations such as online instruction come along, the public tends to expect all institutions to respond-quickly. Yet, higher education, like K-12 education, is underfunded and must weigh all new ventures against priorities and needs.

Online instruction allows universities to reach new markets, but it involves major costs, largely associated with instructional development. Even the teaching costs are higher than those for traditional instruction because of the technical support and the instructors' time required. Obviously it is possible to have large enrollments in some subject fields, which would add to the cost-effectiveness. For example, if optional online sections of traditional courses--particularly required undergraduate courses--were offered, there would be a financial advantage to the institution and a convenience factor for students. This may occur in the future, Online instruction is an investment that may not pay off immediately, but the future is bright. In fact, some institutions offer degrees only via the Internet and off-campus sites.

These three perspectives come into play as teaching practices are established and as institutions determine how they will use the Internet for instructional purposes. There is the additional perspective of the public, which by all indications will strongly push for full use of the Internet to offer instruction. It may be the public that has the greatest influence on how higher education responds. This would be in contrast to the past, when faculty and members of professional associations controlled the curriculum and the conditions under which students pursued the curriculum.

Planning

There is no question that course development has a significant impact of online teaching. If the course is poorly designed or the content is inappropriate or not current, it will become apparent to anyone who reviews the course. The online instructor does not have the advantage of being able to make changes in lectures, resources, or even assignments on a routine basis, as might occur in traditional instruction. These decisions are all made before the course goes online. Revisions arc possible, but difficult and time-consuming. Instructors do not want to find themselves spending their teaching time apologizing or attempting to make real-time revisions in cumberome ways.

Keys to online teaching are the course design, how the content is delivered, and how the instructor interacts with students as they progress through the course, However, course development is the most important of these components. Thus there is a clear distinction between teaching online and teaching a traditional course. Although planning is obviously involved in traditional instruction, the planning requirements for developing online instruction. arc much more stringent. An instructor who is also the developer of the course to be taught online must approach the development from the perspective of understanding that what is done in development constitutes the lion's share of the online teaching process. This shift requires a different mind-set from that needed for teaching a traditional course.

Opportunities and Limitations of Features. The number and nature of features available through instruction via the Internet are extensive and changing almost weekly. Just because a feature exists, however, does not mean that it must be incorporated into every course; such decisions are up to instructors if they are also the developers. Some of the features require extensive instructor time and may or may not be necessary. In addition to the value of the feature to students, the instructor has to consider the time required to develop the feature and the time required to manage it during the teaching process.

For example, one of the tradeoffs of having instruction accessible online is that the instructor is not scheduled for a particular time to meet or work with students. The teaching time is devoted to responding to students' work and e-mail communications. If you build in a feature that results in a scheduled time, little is gained from the perspective of the institution, and the course might just as well be offered through a traditional model. You also reduce flexibility for students. Some students may prefer a scheduled real-time interaction with the instructor. Others would view that as an imposition because they chose the course because of its flexibility. These can be difficult judgment calls. However, they arc central to online teaching and must be addressed during the development process.

Examples of Features That May Be Incorporated. Once you commit to selected features, they become part of the course, and it is next to impossible to make changes once the course is under way (see Table 1). The problem inherent in change is not so much technical. Rather, it relates more to the varied rate at which students progress through the course. After the second week, you will have students in very different places in the course; a change, therefore, will not affect all students in the same manner.

Understanding Distance Education/ Online Education. Many institutions are responding to the opportunity to place instruction online without viewing online instruction as a form of distance education. Instead, the use of the Internet for delivering instruction is considered as independent of the array of distance education options that have been available for years to serve the same markets. This is not a serious concern except that there is a literature base on distance education that can be helpful to online instructors as they prepare for teaching online. For that reason, it is useful to view online instruction as a distance education option. Distance education specialists can be very helpful in planning for the delivery online instruction. Unfortunately, these professionals are often not involved because the development of online instruction is currently somewhat of an entrepreneurial activity. at the department level. Instructors of online courses need a distance education orientation.

Technology Selection

Technology selection has a significant impact on teaching online because it determines the features that can be used, and to some extent, the course design. It is tempting to select whatever is state of the art, but this may not be a good decision, depending on the level of technology commonly available to the target audience of students. Instead, you should select technology that is broadly available, but that is also sufficient for the features you wish to incorporate into your instruction. Be prepared to make some compromises during the next couple of years. Attempt to balance your instructional design needs with technology capabilities available to students. If online instruction is to be offered on campus, state-of-the-art technology might be appropriate because the institution controls the technology.

The Student Profile

Knowing about the students who enroll in online instruction is helpful in the teaching process. In traditional courses, the major criterion is whether students meet the prerequisites, whereas in online instruction, it is important to know students' readiness for taking online course-work. If the student knows in advance that the course is being taught online and has selected it because of the flexibility it offers, then the instructor can be somewhat assured that the student knows what to expect. On the other hand, students may or may not have the needed technical skills and so, as noted, online courses should be designed to require minimum technical skills on the part of students.

Profile sheets requesting data on students' interests in online instruction, prior experience with the Internet, and technical skills can be distributed at the time of enrollment. This approach allows the instructor to anticipate special needs of students. Students enrolling in online instruction may have no Internet experience, or they may be highly sophisticated with respect to technology. Helping the latter group to understand that the emphasis is on the content and not the technology is sometimes difficult. Because they are proficient in using technology., they may want to use features that are not part of your course design. If this occurs, you may find it necessary to counsel them as to why the feature will not be added or encourage the student to independently pursue use of some modification geared to his or her interests.

You will likely find that students attracted to online courses appreciate the flexibility online instruction allows. They are typically students who work and find it difficult to attend regularly scheduled courses on campus. Some may be pursuing their university work in isolation; such students are likely to feel comfortable with the format. Others may be interested in the convenience of the course, but have difficulty adjusting to not having personal contact with an instructor. Historically, students enrolled in independent study courses have had to be highly motivated to complete a course successfully. Many fail to complete course requirements because they experience difficulty in staying on task. We do not know if that aspect of distance education generalizes to online instruction. The quickness of responses via e-mail may help students maintain the expected schedule.

Because students appreciate the flexibility offered by online instruction, they are generally highly motivated. It is also helpful to know their expectations. Some may expect to move through the course very quickly. Team projects or other collaborative activities may not be possible if students are progressing at different rates. Knowing students' expectations in advance will help you accommodate them as much as possible.

Setting the Stage

Another step in preparation for online teaching is referred to as "setting the stage." In many ways, this step is part of the teaching process, but it involves decisions that need to be made before engaging students in the first lesson. This step pertains to setting the stage for asynchronous teaching, including establishing the conditions for communication, setting rules, and articulating expectations.

The conditions for communication are directly related to the amount and nature of the interaction you desire between yourself as the instructor and the students. You will already have made cessions on the communication features, but you must now create a predisposition toward communication. If a large number of students is enrolled, there will not be time for lengthy e-mail discussions on topics unrelated to the course, and you will need to control the amount of time devoted to individual students.

Many people use the Internet for social conversation. As an instructor, you want to discourage excessive socializing among your students, yet they need to feel comfortable communicating with you and their fellow students via e-mail. Students who are inexperienced in using e-mail may find it to be very impersonal, and you will need to be sensitive to indicators that suggest this lack of comfort. Initial strategies for encouraging on-task communication include the following:

1. Design response forms for all activities.
2. Structure initial activities that allow students to express their views.
3. Ask questions for clarification.
4. Add positive comments so that students know how they are doing and are reinforced for responding.
5. Monitor your e-mail for indications that some students may be late in starting their lessons or are very sporadic. Send a brief inquiry if this occurs ...
6. You might send a message on the list-serv to welcome all students if the class begins without a personal orientation session.
7. Some instructors find that placing photos of students and the instructor online helps as an icebreaker and makes online instruction more personal.

Establishing Rules. AS in traditional instruction, rules are helpful in online instruction--both to students and to you as the instructor. You do not need a large number of rules. We mention a few basic rules, but each instructor must consider the nature of his or her course and personal situation in deciding what rules are most appropriate. Avoid too many rules and weigh each in terms of the implications for the course. Examples include the following:

1. If you are offering the course within the structure of a semester, be certain the students understand the deadlines.
2. You may want to set a time line for when midterm and final exams are administered.
3. If your course includes a project, set time lines for when you expect students to be engaged in the project and when the product is due.
4. You may want to place a limit on the length of e-mail messages. This helps students think through their messages and to be concise. However, allow for elaboration when it is necessary.
5. If your course is organized in units, you might want to set target dates for each unit to help students pace themselves. We would not suggest target dates per lesson, however, as this would be too restrictive.

Creating Expectations. The final preparation task we encourage teachers of online instruction to consider is creating some expectations for students. They need to know what to expect from you. In traditional instruction, they learn what to expect from you from nonverbal cues, from your verbal responses, from your sense of humor, and from other students. In online instruction, they may learn about your performance expectations over time, but not as readily. You can help them by being explicit at the beginning of the course. Examples include the following:

1. Let students know what your pattern will be in responding to e-mail and providing feedback on activities and exams so they can anticipate when they will hear from you.
2. Let them know whether phone calls are appropriate, and whether they can stop in to see you in your office if they are on campus.
3. If you place significant value on a particular project or activity, tell the students.
4. Tell students if you are bothered by casually written e-mail messages.
5. If some readings or activities are listed as optional, do not hold students responsible for the related content.
6. Let students know the circumstances under which they can appeal to you for technical help. Consider the other resources that might be available to them, such as a help line, as well as the number of students enrolled. Students need to know how to access help, but you as the instructor want to avoid being inundated with technical questions.

The actual teaching of the course will be very different from teaching in a traditional classroom format; here we note a few of the differences and suggest several basic strategies. For one thing, your teaching will likely occur at your office or home, and at varied times instead of the set schedule characteristic of classroom teaching. Your challenge is to balance this flexibility with the need to develop some kind of schedule for responding to students. You need to determine a feasible response time and maintain it--or, if you cannot maintain it, you need to revise it. It is important to keep the students informed as to when they can anticipate responses.

The Message Process

You will develop your own style of communicating. You may find that a conversational style will work best. But, keep in mind that the message is in text form and that the reader sees only the text. The literature on independent study is relevant to this issue. For example, Rowntree (1986) discussed several principles applicable to the creation of messages. These suggestions, in addition to writing plainly, include the following "(a) cut out surplus words, (b) use short familiar words, (c) use precise words, (d) use strong, active verbs, and (e) use specialist vocabulary with care and write short simple sentences" (pp. 231-232).

The bottom line is to communicate effectively. Use of a specialist vocabulary will depend on the nature of the course. You obviously want to help students develop the vocabulary of the field and do not want to avoid this responsibility just to comply with guidelines for messages. At the same time, you want students to understand your message.

We have found that students tend not to vary from the focus of the lesson when sending messages. Rarely have we received a casual message. When we do, however, we tend to reflect on our traditional teaching experience and the value we place on social interaction with students before and after class, in the hall, or in social situations outside of class. If this type of communication is totally absent, many of us miss interaction that we found reinforcing in traditional teaching. As we gain experience, however, we may be able to broaden our approach to messages, viewing non-course-related communication not as "off-task," but rather as a valuable component of education--both for us and for our students. On the other hand, instructors need to maintain a delicate balance because of the time constraints.

If you are teaching more than one course online and also maintaining your personal e-mail, one of the problems in responding to students' messages may be the limitation of the e-mail system you are using. If it is time-consuming or awkward to access your e-mail for a specific course, you may not respond as frequently or fully as you would have otherwise. In time, e-mail systems will be developed that facilitate the maintenance of several e-mail accounts simultaneously.

Variability in Responding to Activities. You are likely to spend considerable time responding to activities. Obviously, the amount of instructor time required in responding to activities will be determined by the number and nature of the activities that are integrated into the course. Our experience has been that activities are very useful for assessing students' grasp of what the course is about.

Additionally, you can make comparisons between students' messages and their responses to activities. We find that the response styles vary. This variation is due in part to the restrictive nature of some activities. But, it may also be because students have more control over a message they are creating than a message in response to directions. For this reason, you might add comments that elicit a message from the student when you respond to an activity. These responses are sometimes more revealing of what the student really knows about the activity. Some suggestions on responding to activities include the following:

1. Refrain from being critical of a student's performance on an activity. Instead, offer another perspective and elicit elaboration.
2. When possible, share an experience that might illustrate a better response to an activity.
3. As the course progresses and students become more comfortable with the mode of instruction, you can take a more analytical approach to evaluating student responses to activities.
4. Encourage students to reflect on their experience related to specific activities.
5. If you receive an especially good activity, you might consider sharing it on the listserv. You may want to check first to ensure that all students have completed the activity.
6. Be alert for creative responses from students, and note such creativeness in your response. This may occur when the student actually falls to produce the response you are seeking. Encourage such students to continue their creative approach if it does not detract from the basic core of what you are teaching.

Time Management. Although online instruction offers flexibility to students and instructors in terms of when they devote their time to the course, this flexibility can actually create major time demands; hence discipline is required. As noted, setting rules and time lines can help students manage their time. The problem is that many of the students who elect to enroll in online courses do so because they are busy. They coordinate personal and professional schedules and may also be enrolled in a traditional course. We know that there is a high attrition rate in independent study courses, but we do not know if that behavior generalizes to online instruction. It may help that online instruction is a hybrid approach to distance education that incorporates many of the features of independent study with the structure of an organized class. That is, students have classmates to interact with, and communication with the instructor is an integral part of online instruction. However, the instructor should be sensitive to signs that students are falling behind or experiencing a dramatic decline in the quality of their work. In such instances, intervention in the form of an inquiry or suggestion may be needed.

As the instructor, you may also experience an increased need for time management. Scheduled class sessions no longer serve as indicators that you need to prepare for class or grade papers. Teaching is on a continuum, If you are used to teaching courses that meet once a week, the change will be dramatic because everything else that you do is affected by your having to be available to respond to messages and activities daily. You can structure which part of the day you devote to responding, but you almost have to respond daily. You could restrict the days on which you respond, but this reduces the flexibility for students, which is central to online instruction. On the other hand, you cannot be totally controlled by online teaching.

You might begin and end each day responding to messages from students, checking your c-mail at noon and intermittently during the day and weekends. Over time, you may develop a more structured schedule as it becomes possible to predict the students' study patterns. When students submit assignments and messages, they expect you to respond within the time line you established at the outset of the course. Our experience suggests that there are clusters of students who respond during the day, at night, and on weekends. Students' study habits are strongly influenced by the instructor's pattern of responding.

Managing your files may not be a teaching strategy, but it is a necessary part of teaching online. The more students you have enrolled, the more complex the process of keeping track of each student's progress. If you are teaching more than one course simultaneously, keeping track becomes even more difficult. Messages and activities should be reviewed as they are received. Whenever you check your course e-mail, you find a series of messages from students who are at different lessons in the course. You might have 15 new messages, but only from four different students. The responses of individual students will not be sequential unless they happened to come in close together with no other response in between. It is easy to respond in the order in which the responses were received. However, you also want to organize the responses by students so you can monitor the work of individual students. Some e-mail programs allow you to create individual files, and you can maintain an electronic file system. Another option is to print students' responses and maintain a traditional file system on each student. You can also develop a grid listing the names of student son one axis and the identification number of activities on the other. You can then easily check the activities that have been completed. This is a convenient approach to monitoring students' work as it allows you to check where each student is at a glance. You may want to experiment before deciding on a specific plan.

Collaboration. Collaborative projects have become popular in traditional instruction because they help build team skills and create situations that enhance cooperative learning. The assignment of students to teams to carry out projects has been a mainstay teaching technique for teachers in K-12 schools. At the postsecondary level, it has been used extensively in some fields, but only recently has it become generalized across most fields of study.

Online instruction allows for collaboration among students. In many ways, the behaviors conducive to successful performance in online instruction are conducive to collaboration. Those behaviors entail becoming proficient in using electronic communication vehicles, being task oriented in working independently, and demonstrating assertiveness in becoming acquainted with other students in the course. As the instructor, you arc responsible for creating the conditions that assist students in developing these behaviors. Providing a roster, encouraging communication among students, creating situations in which students are required to communicate with each other, and placing a value on communication among students will help. Obviously, students' prior experience in using the Internet will influence their readiness for engaging in collaborative projects during the course.

The nature of the collaborative work you assign as part of the course requirements needs to be carefully thought through. In traditional instruction, you have an opportunity to become acquainted with the students and you can intuitively gain a feel for how students in a particular class will work in teams. You can also identify students who appear to have group leadership skills and position them on different teams to help engage students in the group process. In addition, you are present to monitor teamwork and facilitate group efforts. In online instruction, assignments are designed and developed in advance of beginning the course, so you do not have the personal contact with students as a database to draw upon in forming groups and monitoring their performance.

You will develop your own approach to using collaborative projects in online instruction. Be creative. Exchange ideas with colleagues. Collaboration is an effective method that has great potential for online instruction. Some ideas that we have found to be useful include the following:

1. When planning your project assignment, design the activity to teach an integral part of the course content. If this is evident to the students, they will place a higher value on the activity.
2. Delay engaging students in group projects until they are well into the course and have become comfortable with online instruction. Encourage them to learn about their fellow students and to begin communicating with them via e-mail, the listserv, or real-time chats.
3. When developing group assignments, provide detailed information on the project requirements. If all students on the team will receive the same grade on the project, be certain this is clear. It is also helpful to provide a time line as to when you expect students to begin and complete the project.
4. If learning team behavior is an important outcome for the course, you might want to include a lesson on team behavior and roles.
5. Solicit periodic progress reports from teams. Setting up response forms that allow you to assess their progress and the quality of their work in progress is a good strategy because it allows you to provide feedback and to identify problem situations.

Students will rely on electronic communications to complete their group projects. Depending on the nature of the assignment, they may find the use of the FAX helpful. If they live reasonably close to one another, they may wish to meet personally or have phone calls in addition to using e-mail. One of the challenges facing students in carrying out group collaborative projects lies in establishing their credibility with team members. We have all worked on groups in which some members did not carry their load or were not reliable. Remind students of their responsibilities in group work.

The art of verbal communication does not necessarily transfer to e-mail. The message may be the same, but without the personal cues that accompany verbal communication, misinterpretations can easily occur. Long before e-mail, researches explored ways to communicate effectively. The message has been the focus of those who study communications. Johnson and Johnson (1991,p. 110) have summarized much of this research and offer the following suggestions. You might share these with your students as they are also of help in written communication.

1. Clearly own your own message by using the first-person singular pronoun ("I," "my").
2. Make your messages complete and specific.
3. Make your verbal and nonverbal messages congruent.
4. Be redundant.
5. Ask for feedback concerning the way your messages are being received.
6. Make the message appropriate to the receiver's frame of reference.
7. Describe your feelings by name, action, or figure of speech.
8. Describe others' behavior without evaluating or interpreting.

These are suggestions that are also applicable to instructors. The suggestion that we find particularly interesting is the suggestion of being redundant. What is implied here is that there are times when the message warrants being sent more than once and communicated in a different way. The sender needs to have the receiver in mind when sending a message. With some messages, it helps to provide examples, repeat parts of the message, or follow up with the same message but in a different context.

There arc few differences between evaluating student performance in online instruction and in traditional instructional settings. For the most part, the same approaches and criteria can be applied. If there is a difference, it is probably in the amount of assessment you engage students in and issues related to confidentiality.

Because online instruction is a form of independent study, monitoring progress is important. It is helpful not only to know where students are in completing the course, but also to know where they arc in their understanding of what is being taught. Frequent quizzes, activities requiring students to demonstrate performance, and other products help. These are all tasks that must be done when you develop the course rather than in real time. You can also probe students by sending inquiries through messages to elicit responses.

The confidentiality issue may or may not be a concern for you. Some people are concerned that e-mail is not a secure system and worry about the confidentiality of student responses to exams. Others worry about whether the student personally takes the exam; take-home exams, however, are no different in this respect. Independent study units have dealt with this by having exams proctored. You can ask students to come to campus or to a predetermined site to complete the exam if cheating is a concern. There is no way to completely prevent cheating in traditional modes of instruction or in online instruction. As an instructor, you need to develop the procedures that work best for you with the kind of course you are teaching.

If teaching online is a new experience for you, it will be helpful to employ some formative evaluation strategies to collect data on the effectiveness of the course design and the teaching strategies you are using. For example, it is helpful to elicit responses from students on what can be improved. It is also important to know the conditions under which they are completing the course. You can include a brief questionnaire after each lesson and at the end of the course. Interviews and focus groups can be used to collect information as well. Another strategy that you may find helpful is to require students to maintain a journal to record their experiences and observations.

As in traditional teaching, most teachers develop their teaching styles and behaviors over time, and the same is true about online instruction. Over time a pedagogy of asynchronous teaching will evolve, and some practices will become standard. Each instructor will most likely continue to have his or her personal teaching attributes. Whether the techniques you use in traditional instruction will translate into workable options for you when teaching online is not known.

It is also not known if institutions will attempt to create conditions designed to facilitate online instruction or leave it up to instructors to determine what works best. We do know that there are obvious differences between traditional and online instruction. Course development is part of online teaching. Online teaching is a continuous process as opposed to a series of scheduled sessions. Your office or home may be your classroom, and the mode of communication with students will largely be via electronic means. Those instructors who thrive on personal contact with students will need to find other sources of reinforcement.

Online instruction is probably here to stay. It is not yet clear how pervasive this instructional mode may become. Nor is it clear whether future teachers may have the option of specializing in online instruction. What it clear is that online instruction is happening--and there is much to learn.

AUTHORS' NOTE

The authors wish to acknowledge Professors Jerry Chaffin and Ronald Aust for their consultation during the development of this course. Appreciation is also expressed to the SCR [*]TEC project for technical support.

The following chart reads as follows:

Row 1: Feature
Row 2: Description

Lectures in text or audioformat:

       Text lectures are much like articles and may or may not
       contain illustrations. Lectures in an audioformat contain
       narration, notes, and illustrations.

Video resources that can be downloaded:

       Video may be useful in conveying content large file size
       of video severely limits this medium.

Syllabus:

       The syllabus describes the course policies and structure.

Readings:

       Readings are digitized and placed online for the class to
       read.

Listserv:

       Listserv is an e-mail service that forwards all messages
       to all members of the class.

Chat group:

       Chat groups allow real-time conversations. Users
       communicate through the keyboard.

E-mail:

       Much on-line communication occurs through e-mail, and all
       students are required to have an Internet e-mail account.

Activities:

       Activities require student feedback that is collected
       through forms, converted to e-mail, and sent to the
       professor for grading.

Links to Web sites:

       Other sites on the Internet may contain information that
       may apply to your mission. Linking to them is a simple way
       to expose the students to this content.

Schedule of lessons:

       The schedule of lessons describes, lists, and provides
       links to all of the lessons.

Roster:

       All students are listed in the roster along with their
       e-mail addresses for fellow students.

Quizzes:

       Multiple choice quizzes are provided and graded
       automatically.

Young people with emotional and behavioral disorders are often best served when the clinician, teacher, or other practitioner obtains "continuous," quantitative, credible measurement of the youngster's functioning in order to make decisions informed by such data, rather than by subjective impressions. The Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders will be publishing, in a special issue or series, manuscripts that illustrate the use of ongoing data collection in making intervention decisions for such young people.

We invite manuscripts--written in plain language understandable to a wide variety of practitioners--from practitioners in the fields of counseling, educating, early childhood care, juvenile corrections, mental health, psychiatry, psychology, public health, rehabilitation, social work, special education, and other disciplines studying and serving young people with emotional and behavioral disorders. We hope to see illustrations of data-based intervention decision making in home, school, community, clinic, institution, and other settings. Length should be 2,000 to 2,500 words, plus figure(s) and table(s).

Abstract

Participant and Problem. Please describe the young person having a significant problem of emotion and/or behavior, including a detailed description of the setting and the emotional and/or behavioral problem for which data collection assisted an intervention decision. Include situation(s) in which problem(s) existed, general assessments conducted (e.g., tests), and setting(s) of intervention.

Ongoing Data Collection. For the problem(s) for which ongoing data collection helped your intervention decision, please include:

1. Operational definition(s) used for the problem or desired behavior(s);
2. Description and illustration of the data collection method(s) sufficient for readers to replicate it;
3. Evaluation of the credibility of the data collected; ideally, interobserver agreement method and results.

"Research" Design. Describe the design, even if "B-only" (measurements during intervention only) design.

Intervention(s). Please clearly describe the intervention(s) used. Give a rationale that may help other practitioners in their decision making. Relate your intervention changes to the data so that the impact of data collection (and perhaps graphs) is clear.

Results and Discussion. Present data results in narrative and in a figure. Discuss your projects with emphasis on:

1. Relation of the data to intervention decisions;
2. Feasibility and effectiveness of the data-collection procedure;
3. Effectiveness of the intervention(s) employed, which may include suggested alternatives;
4. Recommendations for use of ongoing data collection in making intervention decisions for young people with emotional and behavioral disorders.

Please note:

Daily or other frequent data collection must have been used to generate an ongoing record of the problem undergoing intervention. Primary data must be objective, unless there is no reasonable way to do so (e.g., measuring pain).

Data on the target behavior(s) of a single young person or on a group of young people with emotional and behavioral disorders across time arc both appropriate for this special issue/ series. The intervention need not be successful if the methods and results are sufficiently useful to practitioners. No sophisticated experimental design needs to have been used; however, group comparison designs are not appropriate.

Please send 5 copies of your manuscript to:

Robert P. Hawkins, Professor Guest Associate Editor, JEBD Department of Psychology West Virginia University Morgantown, WV 26506-6040 Ph: 304/293-2001, ext. 663

REFERENCES

Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, F. P. (1991). Joining together (4th ed.). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Rowntree, D. (1986). Teaching through self-instruction: A practical handbook for course developers. New York: Nichols.

Sherry, L. (1996). Issues in distance learning. International Journal of Distance Education, 1, 337-365.

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By Edward L. Meyen, Cindy H. T. Lian, and Paul Tangen

Edward L. Meyen is a professor of special education at the University of Kansas. Cindy H. T. Lian is a graduate student in music therapy, and Paul Tangen is a graduate student in the Department of Design at the University of Kansas. Address: Edward L. Meyen,3001 Dole, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66047. e-mail: elm@ukans. edu