A Pilot Study on Concurrent Learning/Teaching Model (CLTM) for Online and In-Class Informatics Students

The Informatics program at Mercer University is offered at four regional academic centers located throughout the state of Georgia. We serve non-traditional students who have primary responsibilities such as caring for family, working, and participating in their communities. We aim to offer availability and access to all required courses, access to full-time faculty instruction, and a realistic schedule to graduation. We face two challenges. One is how to operate multiple courses with limited faculty members while maintaining the minimum operation cost. We are offering online education as one possible solution and this has its own challenges. Subsequently, our second challenge is how to deliver the same quality in-class learning environment in an online format for a course in the technology domain. This past year, Informatics faculty conducted a pilot study on concurrent learning environments for online and in-class Informatics students. Surprisingly, 73% of students favor the concurrent online learning environment. In this paper, we describe the planning, designing, implementation and assessment of the first pilot of our concurrent learning/teaching model. [For the full proceedings, see ED575713.]