Topic: Assessment of online courses for use of Information Processing            Models (IPM) and suggesting for their application.

Author: Palekar Poonam

Year: 2004-2005

Abstract:
Due to benefits of internet more and more people are getting connected to the web. By placing the learning material online both time and resources can be saved. Depending upon the need of online education role of teachers, students and teaching strategies have changed. For developing online course we have to change traditional teaching approach to student centered learning which needs interactivity and critical thinking. Information processing models are effective in acquiring the information and developing the thinking skills of the learners. Need of conducting research aroused from the very number of researches done in the online learning and information processing family models. It was conducted to find out whether online courses use Information Processing Models.

Objectives of the research were:

• To find whether Information Processing Models are used in the online courses of University of Regina.
• To find the extent of use of Information Processing Models in the online courses of University of Regina
• To find the ways of incorporating Information Processing Models in the given online courses.

It was an evaluation research undertaken to find whether Concept Attainment Model or Advance organizer was applied in an online course offered by university of Regina. The researcher selected Biology 140 “Human Biology” course among the other online courses offered by University of Regina. Checklist was used to record the presence or absence of each item prepared in the checklist. After evaluating the course it was found that Advance organizer was used to some extent but CAM was not used in the course. The suggestions regarding application of both the models to teach the concepts of the course.