by Margaret Silver and Jacqueline Brandwein

"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." Albert Einstein

Background
It is vital in an ever increasing competitive higher education marketplace that universities develop and communicate an identity that will attract students. Teaching, learning and technology are moving toward a "harmonic convergence." The academic learning environment is constantly being redefined as a direct outcome of rapid advancements in new technologies. The new generation of online courses is not a fad but a natural fit in the computerized world of learner centered education.

Many faculty have been dragged kicking and screaming into the internet world. Students have been quicker to embrace these exciting, creative and challenging avenues for learning. In fact, the increasing sophistication of the students has often been greater than that of the faculty. The School of Nursing, with an ever increasing "non- traditional "student body, is constantly seeking new innovative approaches for marrying our program objectives with student needs and daunting world of health care.

The Students
The School of Nursing in addressing the needs of our diverse and "non-traditional" students, set out to develop an online format for two courses that were traditionally taught in the classroom. We choose to develop these courses in the RN to BSN program whereby our students are working professionals. They are all Registered Nurses who work days, nights and weekends. Most have growing families that require significant time commitments therefore; we choose this population for our initial pilot project.

What We Did
Two courses were selected. The first, Chronic Care, had already been developed for the traditional classroom presentation, whereas the second course, Promoting Wellness, new content needed to be created. Both courses are required in the RN to BSN articulation track. The challenge was to creatively teach within the online format of Blackboard without altering or "watering down" the critical theory and application of both courses.

Full course syllabi including objectives, goals, teaching methodologies, grading policies, required readings, etc were posted in Blackboard for each course, and students were able to print these materials. We met with our students 2 to 3 times over the course of the semester to establish a rapport and orientate them to a new technology. Readings were either posted ahead of time for the entire semester or weekly as were individual assignments. We provided extensive internet links for our students to use in their assignments, research and knowledge expansion.

The Discussion Board feature in Blackboard is the arena where most of the interaction between students and faculty occurred and communication between students happened. We posted questions, statements and ideas in relation to specific assignments, and students responded in "asynchronous" mode at varying times during the week. The Discussion Board was also employed at scheduled times, creating a chat room type environment without having using the synchronous tools in Blackboard. Course requirements encompassed everything from online exams to critiques of internet sites. All of these strategies were easily accomplished using the Blackboard format.

We found that at first students would participate once a week as required. Within the first month students began to participate either by reading the discussions or responding to other student's input two to four times per week. By mid semester the discussion board began to explode with critical discussions and a heightened level of networking. Students began to share ideas, strategies for meeting course objectives and problem solving for clinical dilemmas.

The application of online classes is user friendly. The integrity of the course is not compromised and in fact, may even be enhanced by the flexibility and availability of resources. The online format not only allows for presentation of course content, but encourages students to develop new skills in technology, networking and professional development.

Student Feedback
A course evaluation survey was created in Blackboard that enabled us to received immediate feedback from students. Overall, student responses were very positive. Twenty four hour access and convenience was the primary positive factor cited by students since it allowed them to be more creative and involved. Students also felt positively about the many interactions between themselves and their instructors, and felt it was easy to remain "attentive" because learning was individually directed and paced. Overall, students embraced the online learning paradigm and wanted more nursing courses to be offered online and indeed would recommend these courses to others.

Our View
The freedom of the online design allowed us to identify and encourage the exponential growth of critical thinking skills of each student. In a traditional classroom format, several weeks often pass by before faculty have "gotten to know" their students. In this project, we found that those students who marginally participated from the beginning were identified earlier in the course before they became at risk for negative outcomes. We found that online teaching enhanced communication skills of both the instructor and the students.

Planning for an online course, we discovered, is more demanding than preparing for traditional instruction. We had to ask ourselves several questions. Should the course be self-directed or instructor-centric? Individualized or group oriented? More interactive with media or people? Lesson structure: fixed or flexible? Students sometimes were not at the same level of computer competency. At the end of the courses most students had improved their computer and internet skills, for example creating links, critiquing websites, searching the web for research, and utilizing electronic documentation.

Conclusion
As a result of this pilot project we believe that the online format for these courses is equivalent to or better than the traditional face-to-face learning environment. All course objectives were met and even surpassed. The experience has been a positive for faculty and students. Finally, these online courses allowed the School of Nursing to integrate students from three different teaching sites and therefore provided a cost- effective method to deliver instruction for the School of Nursing and the University.