Considerations in designing an online phonetics course for a diverse student population

The University of New Mexico is unusual among major research universities in having a majority-minority student population. Students in the Introduction to Phonetics course are also diverse in other ways: in age (many are returning to school after years away), in major (the course serves Linguistics and Speech & Hearing), and in preparation (there are no prerequisites, but many students have some related coursework). The focus of this paper is how this student population affects how I teach phonetics online. Design goals for the course include the needs to challenge students intellectually, but still meet them “where they are” in terms of background, knowledge and interests; to balance the desire for flexibility against the need for forward progress through the course content; to combat the isolation that can affect online students; and to implement “best practices” in instruction, interaction, assessment, and evaluation.The key strategy that was adopted is to provide numerous options for learning the con...