STUDENTS DID NOT WANT “JUST ANOTHER ONLINE CLASS”
Dr. Benton’s first conversation was with the dean of the College of Education, Dr. Glenn Good. Dr. Good, a psychologist, enthusiastically embraced the idea and offered to help using the large, public university’s Creative e-Learning Lab. During the next year, Dr. Benton, the College of Education instructional designers and programmers, and the counseling center’s IT, web, and counseling staff began to develop the program. The development team produced materials and gathered formative feedback from students. Students did not want “just another online class”- they have enough of those already! They wanted engaging, realistic content with plenty of examples with which they could relate. The team developed online education modules with high-production quality, including animations and scenes with actors portraying highly relatable situations interspersed with highly thought-provoking interactive exercises. The higher production quality materials better captured and maintained students’ attention. The team added positive, encouraging, and personalized text-message reminders to remind students about what they should accomplish and moved homework to an app on smartphones. Throughout the treatment development process, the relationship with the counselor was always the cornerstone of the treatment program.