Teaching Agribusiness in the Classroom versus Online

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Teaching Agribusiness in the Classroom versus
On-line

• 15th Annual Food and Agribusiness Symposium
• Cheryl J. Wachenheim
• Department of Agribusiness Applied Economics
• North Dakota State University
• [phone] cwachenh_at_ndsuext.nodak.edu

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Introduction Why an On-line Course?
Improve course access and increase learner
experience with the associated technology. Object
ive was to improve the quality, effectiveness and
cost efficiency of our curriculum by offering an
existing agricultural sales course online. Did
it work?
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Revising an existing course for the online
environment The anticipated process

• Written materials revised
• For online environment (audio with slides,
  Blackboard)
• For eight week course (reduced lecture length)

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Agricultural Sales (on-line)

• Audio presentations with PowerPoint slides
• Textbook readings
• Exams
• Ready Set Sell Activity (homework, sales
  presentation, paper)
• Day with a sales person (paper)

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The Actual Process 1. Revise existing course
2. Publicize course 3. Trouble shooting with
access and registration 4. Delay course to
accommodate above 5. Offer course 6. Trouble
shooting (communication, materials access) 7.
Motivating students Repeat steps 6 and 7...
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Course Assessment
All students were queried regarding.

• Motivation for enrollment
• Satisfaction with course and instructor
• Fairness of evaluation of student performance
• Participation in course activities
• Usefulness of course components to overall
  learning
• Understanding of course content / amount learned
• Interest in agrisales before and after course
• On-line students also asked about
• Effectiveness of course
• Comfort level and experience with Internet
• Level of enjoyment and learning associated with
  online experience
• Likelihood of taking another online course

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Including Grades in Anonymous Assessments

• To include student performance in instrument
  completed prior to final grades it was necessary
  for students to tell us who they were on the
  survey instrument AND trust they had anonymity.

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Results -- Motivation for Online Course Selection
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Results -- Comparative Satisfaction with the
Course
Classroom students were more satisfied with
instruction. No difference in perception of the
performance of the instructor as a teacher,
whether she cared about students, or her level of
interaction and communication with students.
In general, no difference in how students
perceived the course, or their change in interest
in the subject during the course. Exceptions
were that online students were less likely to
consider course material intellectually
stimulating and rated lower the quality of the
course, but considered grading procedures more
fair.
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Results -- Activity Participation

• On average, classroom students attended far more
  lectures (94) than online students listened to
  completely (20) or partially (16).
• Why didnt they listen?
• Fixed by including in grade on honor system.
• Students did not read their textbook? Why not?

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Results -- Usefulness of course components and
activities
Online students found slightly more useful
spending a day with a salesperson and writing the
associated paper, and rated their salesperson as
more appropriate for the task than classroom
students.
Classroom students found more useful the Ready
Set Sell activity wherein they demonstrated their
abilities in the sales process.
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Key Finding
Online learning has largely been adopted on faith
that it is preferred by some learners and
maintains existing quality of instruction. Resear
ch to support or refute these hypotheses is
limited. An assessment needs to be detailed
and ask why Follow-on Lessons follow-on
beginning with
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Assess your course
Figure out what you can about what they did and
learned, and why and how When possible, tie
activities, performance, learning, and
perception
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Have initial and follow-on course meetings
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Students tend to do what we inspect (versus
expect)

• What did we expect?
• Students would listen to slide voice-overs
• Students would read text book
• What did we inspect? first time around
• Students could look up material slides,
  textbook
• Students could follow directions on homework,
  papers
• What did we inspect? second time around
• Students listened to slide voice-overs
• Students could recall and apply content and
  application

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Meet student expectations

• Students will have expectations.
• You can ask them (e.g., what do you expect from
  the course? me as a communicator? an
  instructor?).
• You can manage them (e.g., here is what you can
  expect from me with regards to communication,
  feedback, penalties for late assignments).
• The latter can be appropriate.

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Find a reasonable mixture great design and good
luck versus flexibility
v Everything is not going to work right the first
time. Everything may never work as planned. You
still have to test and re-test with real
learners with all ranges of skills. Do your
best to set rules and stick to them, but realize
you will need to be flexible. If flexibility
does not work for you, build it into performance
assessment.
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Try out performance assessment plans

• Ask yourself two simple questions
• Can students do well on the exam without knowing
  / understanding the material?
• 2. Is assessment tool consistent with the on-line
  learning experience?

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Ensure your students are sufficiently motivated
and make it easy on them
Know your students Prepare yourself that your
course may not preempt important life
matters. Make it easy for them to get what they
need
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Use every resource you can
You are the subject matter expert. So? This
should free your mind to empower others Keep
in mind implications of dependency This should
not inhibit your use of materials developed by
others.
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Take home message
Managing an on-line course is like managing a
classroom course. The biggest challenge seems to
be selecting a set of activities by which
student-learning objectives are met while
maintaining a balance in work and life.
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At the end of the day, a strong rationale, a good
idea, outstanding resources, and demand are not
always enough to launch a product. You need to
understand your audience and be able to motivate
them.