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GlossaryCLASS™ courses provide an online glossary link from words that students might not know to a database providing a definition and sometimes a graphic or even audio file. Words in the course are underlined to show that they are included in the glossary.
The glossary terms are stored in a database that has a search function so students can also look up terms.
The glossary has had several different variations in different courses. In Health 1, the glossary served the function of teaching many of the course’s concepts.
Some courses include “rollover” short definitions that come up as students roll their mouse over the underlined terms. Clicking on the term brings up a longer, more in-depth definition.
It was difficult to standardize the rollover and long definitions for all courses. Some definitions were very hard to condense into a few words that made sense and conveyed an accurate meaning for the term. Some definitions required a few words; it didn’t seem to make sense to try to expound on them to make a long definition. Although it was a way to “standardize” the look and information presented in a course, this was a place where people had to stretch too much to fit the standard. The long definition of “anthropologist” above was actually exactly like the short rollover. Students would click on the word and see the same thing! All the CLASS™ courses have glossary terms. However, in some courses, the terms are used to convey information necessary for the course—to teach terms and concepts that are necessary for comprehension of the subject matter. These are terms that students need to know in order to be successful in the course. (This is true in psychology, health, science, etc.) In other courses (English, for example), glossary terms could be those words that “someone” decided “might” not be in the students’ working vocabulary. They are words that a student should probably know and could look up in a dictionary if they didn’t. This seems to be a case where standardization controlled too much the content. It was somewhat confusing to students whether a glossary term was a term to be memorized as part of the course content or just a term defined so they would understand the rest of the sentence! Plus, it was anyone’s guess as to which terms a student might need defined and which ones they would know. There needs to be some research done on how much students use glossary
terms, how helpful they find the short and long definitions to be, and
whether the time spent in writing definitions and the technology time required
to insert the glossary terms enhances learning enough to be worth the effort
in all courses. Copyright 2004 - University of Nebraska Board of Regents - All Rights Reserved |
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Clicking
on the term, “elements,” brings up the following definition. 
