ASSESSMENT OF COLLABORATIVE APPROACHES TO TEACHING AN UNDERGRADUATE ENVIRONMENTAL-MANAGEMENT COURSE

An advanced-level, undergraduate course in applied shoreline managemen t was offered for three successive years in one of three different for ms, including a traditional lecture format, a hybrid half-lecture half -collaborative format, and a fully collaborative format to determine t he advantages of each. The two collaborative formats required students to produce a technical report based on field research. Student evalua tions indicated that a course that has the elements of lectures and co llaborative research is less successful than a course devoted solely t o collaborative work. Lower student evaluations of collaborative cours es on questions related to the role of the instructor occur because st udents are the primary educators in a collaborative project. Students considered the field work of great value in the collaborative project, but they showed a reluctance to read about their subject and relate t heir work back to the literature. They also had difficulty coordinatin g their activities with fellow students outside class. Collaborative p rojects are well suited to environmental management courses because th ey can make use of research teams with different expertise to examine complex problems, and the collaborative structure is less contrived th an it would be in a more fact-oriented course. The value of collaborat ive courses can be improved by making them fully complementary to lect ure courses.