On-Line Course Development in

Remote Sensing at Virginia TechPreparing Students for Careers in Remote

Sensing

15-17 August 2002

J.B. Campbell,

R.H. Wynne, & L. Erskine

On-Line Remote Sensing Instruction at Virginia Tech

Jim Campbell,

Geography

Randy Wynne, Forestry

Lewis Erskine, BSI

Supported by Virginia

Tech’s Center for

Innovation in Learning

On-Line Remote Sensing Instruction at Virginia Tech Joint Geography &

Forestry Focus on learning

activities On-line delivery Dual use: both

contact and distance learning

Joint Geography & Forestry

Geography 4354: Introduction to Remote Sensing: An upper level

undergraduate and lower-level graduate students. Students with interests in remote

sensing, and in application areas. Forestry 5000: Advanced Image Analysis:

A graduate level class for students specializing in remote sensing

Joint Geography & Forestry

Develop consistency and continuity in the way that some topics are presented;

Consistent tools, approach, vocabulary; Allow students to advance in understanding

within a common learning environment;

Incentives for On-line Format

Broadens population of students, geographically both demographically

Permits accommodation of varied student learning styles;

Efficient use of instructional staff and computer laboratories;

Compliments other teaching approaches.

Development Process

• Understand instructional context

• Develop learning goals

• Select instructional strategies

• Develop prototypes

• Formative evaluation

• Assess each learning goal

• Summative evaluation

Stakeholder Needs

Course learning objectives should be matched to needs of stakeholders;

Difficult for instructors and institutions to develop this information;

Should be developed by professional societies, umbrella organizations,

Results should be stratified geographically, by size, etc, to enhance use

Overall Learning Model

Present basic concepts, knowledge & principals;

Guide student through an initial case study, structured to focus student learning on a few key facets of the process;

Present additional case studies, reducing structure offered to students;

Students then are prepared to conduct furtherWithout strong guidance.

Focus on Learning Activities

Students learn basic principles and techniques in classroom lectures, text,

or other on-line modules.

Develop on-line activities that apply classroom knowledge– lab, homework, case studies, or projects.

Dual Use

Contact use: In traditional classroom, or short courses-- reduce demands on computer classroom space, and instructional staff

Distance learning: serve students at remote locations

Course Architecture

Course designed to be used with a commercially available image processing system running on student computers;

Course software runs parallel to image processing system; designed to be as generic as possible;

Although the course guides students in execution of specific steps, it does not attempt to teach use of that system.

Evaluation & Feedback

Provide feedback to students, so they can focus on problem;

Provide feedback to instructors, so they can

tailor instruction to problem topics; For image classification case studies, our

module includes reference data, so students see error matrices for their classifications.

It’s the Students, Stupid!

Define learning goals to match student and stakeholder needs;

Match contents and techniques to learning goals;

Avoid use of technology that does not clearly advance a learning goal;

Use technology to address weaknesses in conventional instruction

Instructional Design Staff

Brings knowledge of past experience; avoids mistakes that others have made;

Brings objective perspective; if its not clear to the instructional designer, its not clear for students;

Brings knowledge of other projects with similar issues;

Provide ability to navigate within tutorial & within course