Heidi Schweizer

Addressing health disparities in middle school students' nutrition and exercise.

Those with low income, especially women of African American and Hispanic heritage have the greatest risk of inactivity and obesity. A 4-session (Internet and video) intervention with healthy snack and gym labs was tested in 2 (gym lab in 1) urban low-middle-income middle schools to improve low fat diet and moderate and vigorous physical activity.1 The gym lab was particularly beneficial (p = .002). Fat in diet decreased with each Internet session in which students participated. Percentage of fat in food was reduced significantly p = .018 for Black, White, and Black/Native American girls in the intervention group. Interventions delivered through Internet and video may enable reduction of health disparities in students by encouraging those most at risk to consume 30% or less calories from fat and to engage in moderate and vigorous physical activity.

E-Learning in Business

e-Learning is replacing face-to-face classroom instruction in a growing number of businesses, but what is the prospect for the continued proliferation of e-learning in business? On one hand, the quality of instruction, the cost-effectiveness of new technology, a supportive e-learning educational culture, an expansion of the Internet, an increase in online courses, shorter business cycles, mergers, and increasing competition encourage business use of e-learning. On the other hand, employee reticence in using learning technologies, insufficient corporate investment, lack of business-relevant university courses, narrow bandwidth, and Internet access issues are constricting the business use of these technologies.

Quality Control in Online Courses: Using a Social Constructivist Framework

SUMMARY There has recently been increased interest in the quality of online courses. Faculty from the School of Education at Marquette University suggest using social constructivist theories in the design and development of online courses and in the training and pedagogy of online instructors to ensure quality in online courses. Quality can be designed into online courses by focusing on complex tasks, using multiple perspectives, establishing a learning community, encouraging the social negotiation of meaning and providing assistance for learners at various levels. While good design can go a long way to ensure quality in online courses, the quality of the instructor is equally critical. Training instructors to establish a supportive climate, provide constructive feedback, and ask critical and probing questions leads to high quality online instruction.

Student Satisfaction and Performance in an Online Teacher Certification Program

D istance education continues to expand, from a reported 1.6 million students enrolled in distance education courses in 1998 (NCES, 1999) to 3.2 million in 2005 (Sloan Consortium, 2006) . As online education has come to dominate all types of courses taught at a distance, and constitutes a greater proportion of overall enrollment in higher education, researchers have increasingly investigated a host of questions regarding its viability as an alternative to traditional on-campus education. Consistently, this research has found online education equals or surpasses on-campus instruction in terms of student learning, student perceptions, and student satisfaction (Neuhauser, 2002; Thirunanrayanan &Perez-Prado, 2002; Russell, 2001; Arbaugh, 2000), thus supporting its viability and continued development. Online delivery of teacher education courses is well established, with practicing teachers taking courses online for faculty development, graduate degrees, and professional specializations, such as special education and the teaching of reading (Watson, 2006; Qian & Tao, 2005; Glenn & Lozar, 2001 ; Saunders, 2001; Turbill, 2001) . Caywood and Duckett (2003) and Neuhauser (2002) find online delivery effective for teacher education, with opportunities for online in-service programs proliferating. However, teacher education programs have been slower to provide online courses to pre-service teachers and slower still to develop teacher certification programs with coursework delivered entirely at a distance. This is despite online teacher preparation being a major funding area of the Preparing Tomorrows Teachers to Use Technology (PT3) grant program (U.S. Department of Education, 2005). Zirkle (2002) suggests that this lack of progress may be largely due to concerns about providing:

Engaging students through collaboration: how Project FUN works.

Students from three disciplines designed, developed, and implemented exercise and nutrition interventions, online modules and videos, to benefit low-income middle school students. The process used to incorporate the scholarship of teaching into a collaborative college-level application of learning is described.