Emergent Patterns of Teaching/Learning in Electronic Classrooms

Novel patterns of teachingflearning have emerged from faculty and students who use our three teachingflearning theaters at the University of Maryland, College Park. These fullyequipped electronic classrooms have been used by 74faculty in 264 semester-long courses since the fall of 1991 with largely enthusiastic reception by both faculty and students. The designers of the teaching~learning theaters sought to provide a technologically rich environment and a support staff so that faculty could concentrate on changing the traditional lecture from its unidirectional information flow to a more collaborative activity. As faculty have evolved their personal styles in using the electronic classrooms, novel patterns of teaching~learning have emerged. In addition to enhanced lectures, we identified three common patterns: (a) active individual learning, (b) small-group collaborative learning, and (c) entire-class collaborative learning. [] Many questions concerning the use of instructional technology may be resolved as researchers and instructors begin to provide feedback from innovative pedagogical explorations. Proponents of computers in every classroom do sometimes blindly promote technology without adequate vision. Similarly, opponents of technology sometimes raise unrealistic fears of alienated students, displaced faculty, and corporate sell-outs (Noble, 1998). While instructional technology professionals may have more realistic understandings, inflated expectations and unrealistic fears are still widespread. The turbulence is likely to subside as all stakeholders become engaged in the process of choosing appropriate technologies, designing effective courses and curricula, training teachers, and setting new goals. We can only hope that wishful thinking and fear-provoking rhetoric will give way to clearer goals with well-conceived field trials accompanied by thoughtful evaluations.