Internet Innovation for Engaging Students

30 Published by the IEEE Computer Society 1089-7801/09/$25.00 © 2009 IEEE IEEE INTERNET COMPUTING I nternet technologies enable us to rethink traditional teaching approaches, which opens the floodgates to educational innovation. Why do exams have to be on paper? Why can’t we ensure the integrity of online exams? Why can’t students collaborate on exams, so they can learn from each other? And why can’t students make up the exams and grade them, so they can learn through the entire process? Internet learning technologies let us explore these questions and, inevitably, can liberate students and instructors from traditional roles and restrictions to increase higher-order learning. We developed the Asynchronous Learning Networks Participatory Examination approach (or APE) utilizing Internet technologies to actively engage students online in the entire exam life cycle, which includes letting them create, answer, grade, and dispute exam questions. Our framework allows instructors to become mentors or facilitators instead of the dominant center of attention, as in a traditional class. This process, in turn, could empower students with deep or higher-order thinking and learning processes. Based on this theory, we conducted an APE case study with 240 graduate students in an “Information Systems Principles” class for five semesters. Our study results show that APE is an effective and innovative online assessment approach, which could be widely adopted in various online and on-camThe Asynchronous Learning Networks Participatory Examination (APE) is a