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Show lessons, fail 2001 page 3 division gerontology class of 50 students. He credits the University Teaching Assistant program for making that possible. "It provides courses that would normally lack funding the opportunity to employ teaching assistants," he says. "It is the one worthwhile program that central administration provides funding for." Some believe that technology will lead to extremely large classes. An executive in the distance-learning industry proclaimed in a 1999 journal article that online classes of 1,000 students will replace traditional lecture courses within 20 years. Pamela Hardin and Usha Menon are assistant professors at the College of Nursing. They teach, along with Joyce Nordgren, a graduate-level course that is exclusively online. The heralded convenience of the Internet hasn't made their instruction in conducting, implementing and evaluating research methods much easier. A classroom with a ratio of 40 students to three professors might seem ideal, but they consider their class large. Hardin's quick crunch of the numbers estimates the course receives 1,700 student submissions. These include exams, assignments, article critiques and discussion board participation. "I didn't realize how labor intensive this course would be," Hardin says. "I think teaching the same course in a traditional classroom would be less time consuming." One unforeseen aspect of the course is the lack of computer literacy among some current students. Hardin and Menon spend a lot of time teaching computer skills, such as attaching and downloading files. They hope to see this change as younger students, raised on personal computers, begin to seek an education in nursing. |