TEACHING THEORIES

This work is in response to a request by the co- directors of the Institute for Study of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ISADR), to evaluate and possibly redesign their current, Theories & Methods of Alternative Dispute Resolution course offered online. In order to accomplish this task of evaluation and redesigning of the Theories & Methods of alternative Dispute Resolution course, I synthesized current literature on the subject of online education and its affects on student learning outcomes, in conjunction with interviewing fourteen experts on the subject of online education and/or mediation training. Consequently, this work consists of two parts. Part one is the theoretical portion of this thesis/project, which primarily addresses whether internet-based courses have the same, or better, student learning outcomes as onventional classroom courses. Part two is the practical application of this thesis/project, which consists of an assessment and subsequent redesign of the existing online course offered through (ISADR) at Humboldt State University, based on the theoretical part of this work.