Submission Number: DAV-4-329-154

Abstract Number: 6

DEVELOPING INTERACTIVE EDUCATIONAL WEB SITES FOR REPRODUCTIVE BIOLOGY.

David J Wright and Shirley J Wright

University of Dayton, Dayton, OH ¹

Abstract:
Although many software packages are now available for creating Web pages, it is very difficult to create challenging Web sites that permit students to interact and respond to questions on-line. We have developed the Mentor program suite as a freely-available tool for teachers in any discipline to rapidly create Web sites that allow students to respond to questions and gain immediate feedback (http://mentor.udayton.edu). Unlike other available software tools, Mentor was built to handle many sequential Web pages containing interactive questions. A major benefit of this teaching paradigm is that it has enhanced learning beyond the classroom. Mentor is a great supplemental tool to support traditional pedagogical approaches. The Mentor program has been used at the University of Dayton to teach reproductive biology in introductory biology classes for science majors and non-science majors, as well as upper level biology courses including Comparative Anatomy of the Vertebrates. Web pages created by Mentor can contain text, pictures, diagrams and movies. Questions can be formatted in several ways including multiple choice, true-false, yes-no, image maps, and fill-in-the-blank. Unlike other Web authoring tools, Mentor automatically keeps track of all links from one page to another, and retains all the pages within a single file. When students answer a Mentor question on the Internet, they immediately get feedback. If a student answers a question incorrectly, he/she will automatically receive an appropriate explanation. Student answers are recorded on the Web server, so that teachers can gauge their students' progress and determine any areas of weakness. The software creates reports for the teacher, outlining the answers given by a single student or by an entire class. Outside the classroom, students access Mentor prior to an exam, where they are able to gauge their depth of understanding, and pinpoint deficiencies in their studies. Thus, Mentor delivers interactive "practice exams" to help students understand what is expected of them. Mentor increased student scores by 5 percent. In evaluations, the students were overwhelming enthusiastic about this approach, and recommended that Mentor be used in other classes. Although there is an increasing diversification in the ways in which the Web can be used in education, the simple question-and-answer approach used by Mentor with a basic HTML-syntax ensures that students with minimal computer resources can enjoy an enriching experience. Mentor is a highly adaptable program that has been used by many disciplines and has been installed at a number of institutions worldwide.

Keywords: Internet, Web site, Active learning, Software

This abstract is being presented at: 8:00 AM in session:
EDUCATIONAL/MULTIMEDIA PRESENTATIONS