In "Trapped in the Virtual Classroom" (July 9, 2015 issue of the New York Review of Books: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/jul/09/trapped-virtual-classroom/) David Bromwich, an English Professor from Yale, argues forcefully against (purely) online education. Many of his points are worth noting, e.g., the business model as the drive, authoritarian dispensation of knowledge, the threat to the intellectual art of teaching, and a comparison to anti-MOOC stand to that of Luddites. What struck me most is what he says about the value of being in a physical classroom:
"Can one describe what it's like to be in a classroom that is working well? It isn't like any other conversation or any other human encounter. When you listen to the exchange of well-formulated thoughts in a discussion of a complex work of art or thought - a human document concerning human actions - you learn a good deal that can't be quantified, packaged or transmitted by an efficient impersonal medium, no matter how up-to-date, no matter how well-engineered.
... Will it be quite the same without the actual person in the actual room? It our intuitions tell us that something is missed in such encounters, if ... the online professor fails to capture a certain human dimension,we ought to ask what else is missing from the picture of progress that we are being urged to follow simply because it calls itself by the name of progress."
Are you still tossing up the pros and cons on this issue of MOOCs, webinars, and digital degrees? Where do you stand?
VR
P.S. "Let us use it [technology] and not let it use us" (D.Bromwich)
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/jul/09/trapped-virtual-classroom/
Without reading the book, and only drawing from your review of it, and the questions you pose, I might suggest the following:
- Distance education dating back to online courses facilitated asynchronous instructor-led (top-down) discourse moving us beyond primarily readings and individual projects, which dominated prior correspondence courses, and both espoused the promise of providing access to learning for those that would otherwise would not have it in their local physical environment.
- Those with a strong internal drive and self-regulation did well, while others under the misconception of online being “easier” than onsite, failed to complete courses, generating higher than normal non-completion rates (some drop-out rates as high as 70%). This helped fuel and generate a strong body of research on computer-mediated communication (CMC), and how to better structure learner-learner and learner-instructor interaction in primarily text-based asynchronous dialog.
- The affordances of allowing learners control of place, pace, and time were touted as early benefits in distance-based environments for many adult learners earning degrees while also fully employed. Strategies such as forming critical web buddies, structuring online discussion session starters and wrappers, and research on the immediacy, length, and type of the instructor-learner communications helped extend and enhance the online learning. Some tout the asynchronous learning environment as richer than face-to-face, allowing time for more reflective discourse and giving voice to those less likely to “speak-up” in traditional class structures.
- As social media increased user control, bottom-up and co-created knowledge infused course design (wikis, blogs), and massive online role-playing games and immersive environments increased “community” between online participants. Minecraft is still immensely popular where users create their own environments as they interact with each other.
- MOOCs (for the large part) as currently deployed, seem to be an extension of open educational resources for perhaps more informal learning opportunities, where learner-learner interaction is the focus as compared learner-instructor interaction as one goes to scale with hundreds, thousands even tens of thousands of students.
I was at one online learning summit where the discussion was not online versus onsite, but with the technology you could NOW do face-to-face online. A meta-analysis by the US Dept. of Education in 2010 found significantly higher learning in blended environments that combined online and onsite learning as compared to online or onsite alone (https://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/tech/evidence-based-practices/finalreport.pdf).
Others are looking at the data exhaust generated in these large and massive online learning environments, using the topology of data: volume, velocity, veracity, and variability, and how it might be used to inform and enhance learning.
I might suggest that it is not an either or proposition. Technology adoption across time seems to be more an additive process whereby we take and keep what is good, incorporate it into the an innovation that may prove to be disruptive (e.g., digital video in smaller chunks, crowd-sourced, and searchable via the Internet-YouTube or the Khan Academy, or smaller text messages with a subscriber broadcast model-Twitter).
Indeed, many onsite courses now have online components, so the comparison of online versus onsite learning is one that might move more towards the questions like: Which affordances of various media/mode/instructional method might be aligned to enhance learning, how might big data inform their design and impact, and how might more open environments recognize, attribute and document learning and user contribution across these communities or platforms via micro-credentialing (social networking and learning analytics)?
I'm curious how these trends you mention, Martina, might alter the dynamics of the workforce as well as the perceptions of how reliable the transferred knowledge is.
It also seems that to restore some bits of the interpersonal dimension both parties in the online education (instructors and students) have to fight through what seems like layers of "digital fog", i.e., obscuring or lack of clear social cues (e.g., eye contact and facial features, if any visible at all) and the uncertainty of language or rushed telegraphic communication.
VR
P.S. Just wanted to add that this is by no means my area of expertise, as you can see from my ResearchGate profile, but we all in academia seem to be in this predicament, and have to take a stand at one point. Hope experts and "witnesses" could simply weigh in on this argument.
Debra,
I like the idea of using multimedia in layers - sparse images, explanatory texts, and coherent audios - which is what I think the 6 principles you suggest seem to boil down to. The article you point out seems to deal with the case scenario of "smooth learning" primarily. Mainly, there are no misunderstandings, and no verification of comprehension, no backtracking, no opportunities to go off track to respond to the identified gaps or noticed misconceptions. Those are the 'aha' moments I'm typically after in my classes, and I dread to loose such teaching moments in "the digital fog". Perhaps, I'm totally off and I should just be happy to fill in the role of the, what did you call it, "information agent"...
As far as students "pulling" and not having information "shoved" at them, that's all good. But is there a real chance to respond to all those pulls? What's your expert opinion on how many directions could one instructor be "pulled" in a teaching session (say, 3 hrs of online teaching)? In other words, what's the threshold for productive/effective individual responses or how many students could you "cater to" (not my preferred term!) in response to "pulling"? What about "massive" formats - MOOCs or gigantic intro classes? Mind-boggling, isn't it?
The best instructional design process is to determine outcome goals first, then determine what instructional activities will achieve those outcomes, and THEN select to technology that can facilitate some or all of those instructional activities. My linked paper addresses this in the context of language learning.
I think that online instruction often does not provide learning activities that rival classroom activities, but it all comes down to the way the instructional design is formulated, and the way the technology is used.
So the real questions should be "can this technology provide the learning environment we need for this course content?" and "are the online learning activities formulated so as to allow the students to reach to required outcomes?"
Victoria:
In the move from "push" to "pull", you use technology to give students choices, and you design the online learning so that they can move along in an interactive way but with the help of a "pedagogical agent" to guide them. You would only have to respond when the student wants to do something that is not included in the scenario you designed. Here's a link to how you do it without having to respond to several pulls individually:
http://blogs.articulate.com/rapid-elearning/how-to-create-interactive-e-learning/
Best regards,
Debra
Online education helps in bringing education to people's door stop. It has also been used to assist those with financial challenges to access quality education in some countries. More so, a blended learning approach where students are taught in traditional face-to-face settings and online is reported to be beneficial to students in this modern age. So, the use of technologies to facilitate, manage and regulate students' learning is very important and should be taken seriously by all institutions across the globe.
I think online education gives learner's the choice of keep developing there education while staying at their own country.
My short answer to your rather complex question is; it depends. It depends a.o. on business context, target group, generation, geography and quality requirements. From a personal learning perspective I still remember being very engaged listening to profs and discuss with other students. But I also experience flow when looking for information via Google, or using DVD lessons for my guitar practicing (enjoying instructors I will never meet in another way). All aspects one could use in the design of a digital curriculum. The perceived value of digital degrees in the market place is probably another discussion?
THE WAY FORWARD: ONLINE AND DISTANCE LEARNING
Online and distance learning is the frontier of a new wave of growth in Education. A wave which can only be best supported by digital technology, and only if we as practitioners choose to learn! The gap between technology and current pedagogy needs to be bridged by a hybridization as both sectors have to work with each other in order to achieve what is going to be a revolution in synergy.
Systems designers, curriculum designers, software programmers, teachers in institutions, students, and internal & external stakeholders, need to be engaged in the design of new relationships and pathways of interaction. Only then will the use of digital technology adequately bridge the gap between the current flat line of educational effectiveness and the need to engage an 'astronomically' growing population of intending enrollees with a need to work while schooling.
The theoretical answer to this need, is an improved online and distance learning, while the practical solution is an excellence in the hybridization of computers and scholar practitioner professionalism through an enhanced digital pedagogy.
Hello Victoria,
Some considerations: a) pleases me very much the idea of an individual learning pathway where everyone does their progress from what interests you and the realization of individual learning projects. I think that freedom of learning comes closest to our cognitive functioning. Go from one place to another (an object of knowledge to another) according to my interests is something that has always attracted me (and it often made me not like school - including levels of higher education); b) on the other hand I do not like completely exclude interpersonal relationships (face-to-face) which is a process that also value a lot as a way of learning; c) in some cases the very need to "push" the choice of models of teaching and learning online. I work in a public school (Belo Horizonte, Brazil) which has 12,000 teachers. Then offer proposals for classroom training for as many teachers it requires costs and difficult logistics to achieve without the use of the advantages of online courses; d) as other colleagues have said I think a very viable solution is a hybrid form that combines face meetings (face-to-face moments) with on-line education; e) finally, I think the technology as an educational resource has a huge contribution to make to education, but I also think that some values and principles (what we really want to build in the people, the social function of education, and especially the type of people who want to form) must - always - be the focus of our attention when designing an online course.
Greetings everyone,
S.
PS: Some thoughts: do everything we want to teach online is possible to be learned online? Or rather: do all we can teach online should be taught online (or just on-line)? What, indeed, should mean the face-to-face processes in teaching and learning processes?
Without reading the book, and only drawing from your review of it, and the questions you pose, I might suggest the following:
- Distance education dating back to online courses facilitated asynchronous instructor-led (top-down) discourse moving us beyond primarily readings and individual projects, which dominated prior correspondence courses, and both espoused the promise of providing access to learning for those that would otherwise would not have it in their local physical environment.
- Those with a strong internal drive and self-regulation did well, while others under the misconception of online being “easier” than onsite, failed to complete courses, generating higher than normal non-completion rates (some drop-out rates as high as 70%). This helped fuel and generate a strong body of research on computer-mediated communication (CMC), and how to better structure learner-learner and learner-instructor interaction in primarily text-based asynchronous dialog.
- The affordances of allowing learners control of place, pace, and time were touted as early benefits in distance-based environments for many adult learners earning degrees while also fully employed. Strategies such as forming critical web buddies, structuring online discussion session starters and wrappers, and research on the immediacy, length, and type of the instructor-learner communications helped extend and enhance the online learning. Some tout the asynchronous learning environment as richer than face-to-face, allowing time for more reflective discourse and giving voice to those less likely to “speak-up” in traditional class structures.
- As social media increased user control, bottom-up and co-created knowledge infused course design (wikis, blogs), and massive online role-playing games and immersive environments increased “community” between online participants. Minecraft is still immensely popular where users create their own environments as they interact with each other.
- MOOCs (for the large part) as currently deployed, seem to be an extension of open educational resources for perhaps more informal learning opportunities, where learner-learner interaction is the focus as compared learner-instructor interaction as one goes to scale with hundreds, thousands even tens of thousands of students.
I was at one online learning summit where the discussion was not online versus onsite, but with the technology you could NOW do face-to-face online. A meta-analysis by the US Dept. of Education in 2010 found significantly higher learning in blended environments that combined online and onsite learning as compared to online or onsite alone (https://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/tech/evidence-based-practices/finalreport.pdf).
Others are looking at the data exhaust generated in these large and massive online learning environments, using the topology of data: volume, velocity, veracity, and variability, and how it might be used to inform and enhance learning.
I might suggest that it is not an either or proposition. Technology adoption across time seems to be more an additive process whereby we take and keep what is good, incorporate it into the an innovation that may prove to be disruptive (e.g., digital video in smaller chunks, crowd-sourced, and searchable via the Internet-YouTube or the Khan Academy, or smaller text messages with a subscriber broadcast model-Twitter).
Indeed, many onsite courses now have online components, so the comparison of online versus onsite learning is one that might move more towards the questions like: Which affordances of various media/mode/instructional method might be aligned to enhance learning, how might big data inform their design and impact, and how might more open environments recognize, attribute and document learning and user contribution across these communities or platforms via micro-credentialing (social networking and learning analytics)?
Some skills are not well taught or assessed thru distance media. More of a challenge, some students do not have the disposition and or self-discipline to persist without a face-to-face goad or pat on the back. I have probably missed more pro's and con's in 11 years of on-line instruction on both sides of the fence.
One of the dangers of on-line learning is that whatever is supposed to be learned has to compete with all the other stuff in the online environment. Students generally don't do one thing at a time, they do all kinds of stuff that distracts them from what they might be learning. Some of the answers above alluded to this when talking about self-regulation and control. In any case, there are reasons to make sure students have meaningful interaction with instructors and other students, and that probably means some face-to-face time.
First, pieces of degrees have been on-line for a long time, and many of those are well-integrated with existing courses. I have no problem with them. From pieces, we have moved to whole courses on-line, whether as part of traditional degree programs, MOOCs the credit for which may or may not be accepted in fulfillment of degree requirements, to de facto industry certifications, designed and delivered either by or on behalf of specific industries. Some of these have basically anonymous sources and delivery systems that eliminate critical human interaction. Some are mechanically driven by 3rd party examinations (for the record, I have taken---and flunked---three such exams in the IT environment, and should have passed SQL 7 'cause it's only symbolic logic), so come across as part of the on-line gaming territory. All are isolated pieces of learning, with no connection to anything else. You want to play? Fine! It's your choice. But recognize that there is no integration, no cross-cutting proficiencies that are explicitly stated with operational verbs (such as the proficiency statements in The Degree Qualifications Profile), nothing, in fact, that is degree-qualifying as opposed to isolated course-qualifying (and even then, the learning outcome statements, if offered at all, are dreadful.
Why is it that "delivery" is what everyone is interested in while nobody seems to care about "what" is being delivered? Judging from the quality of printed textbooks, that would seem to be a major oversight.
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@Demeritt I don't know how we deal with that and all I can say is how I deal with that namely I write my own and put it online under a GNU FDL.
I totally agree with Alain with regards to focusing on delivery as opposed to what is being delivered,. since the student segment that you are addressing in online education is higher, most of the content has to be watered down to compensate for disparate backgrounds.
From what I understood from the initial conception of the MOOCs(from which most of the current fuzz is about) it was intended to:
1)Be a source of opening knowledge to people who could not afford it.
2) As means of covering basic material for those engaging in courses at those universities and focusing on advanced topics and research in what would be the actual course.
3) Do massive data mining to find problem areas of learning.
This is not necessarily the objective of distance learning which from my perspective should focus on degree conferral based on:
a) Providing a structured sequence of progression and increasing level of adaptation to more complex subject matter. While 1) may be said to provide this I have found the enforcement of prerequisites lacking in open MOOC's due to this openness
b) Provide an equivalent experience to traditional courses. Again, from my understanding of MOOC's, this is not necessarily the objective.
Points which I feel very strong with regards to online courses are:
1)The lack of appropriate level of knowledge measuring techniques on which to confer a grade(either MOOC's or more traditional distance learning). This is a problem with traditional on campus courses, it is more so with online sources.
2) Time the student spends in the subject matter. Again, a big problem with on campus, more so with online courses.
The mind needs time to digest complex material,while we may focus on delivery to facilitate material, in the end it depends on proper guidance(which cannot be done by having thousands of students) and hard work on the part of the student(that needs proper corrections and clarification on the part of the professor).
Just a thought
What is your point of view on online education and the use of technologies for digital degrees?
Online Education:
Digital degrees:
Using technology in teaching and learning is going to develop very fast; as we could see from using cassettes and cassettes recorders developed to using CDs many years ago, today coming to use mp3 plays, online learning and teaching, and mobile learning is the latest device which is used for learning these days; as we know it is the facility that is available all over the world and easy reaching for all individuals. So, education online and getting degree is the novel method of education which the learners can save their time and any time they are free, in any place of the universe can contact with trainers and getting degree. Therefore, It is a kind of platform to fire our knowledge all around the globe.
While I believe there is evidence that online education brings new problems and shortcomings, it's also important to recognize HOW it is conducted. Online courses can include videoconferencing and social media spaces
Hi Victoria,
I have addressed the issues of moving courses online from the perspective of Transactional Distance Theory - which in essence suggests that regardless of mode, face to face, blended, fully online - there is always a transactional distance between teacher and learner. In some physical classrooms the proximity between teachers and students is close; however, the learning distance might be quite large and vice versa. I address this issue in the following publication.
Cheers, Kevin.
Larkin, K. & Jamieson-Proctor, R. (2015). Using Transactional Distance Theory to redesign an Online Mathematics Education Course for Pre-Service Primary Teachers. Mathematics Teacher Education and Development (MTED).
http://www.merga.net.au/ojs/index.php/mted/article/view/193
As an online learning specialist, wonder about the questions. Are these the right questions to ask? Are the old issues of 'online' vs f2f being rehashed in the light of some big name universities getting into MOOCs?
the excerpt provided for stimulus is:
"Can one describe what it's like to be in a classroom that is working well? It isn't like any other conversation or any other human encounter. When you listen to the exchange of well-formulated thoughts in a discussion of a complex work of art or thought - a human document concerning human actions - you learn a good deal that can't be quantified, packaged or transmitted by an efficient impersonal medium, no matter how up-to-date, no matter how well-engineered."
I don't disagree with these statements, but my definition of 'in a classroom' might be more in keeping with the phrase 'in a learning environment' or 'as part of and exchange of ideas between learners'...extolling the virtues of the product of work 'in a classroom' is all fine...but the conclusion that these things don't or can't happen in online learning is not. I have witnessed these outcomes in online learning environments in my career more often that face-to-face ones...and so my main point:
I have experience with very good online learning. I have experiences with good f2f learning too...to compare them or to label one as inherently superior doesnt' make sense to me...
My experiences as an on campus student (undergraduate and gradate) were certainly 'mixed' but not generally not nearly as engaging and productive as the graduate program I completed online (wholly online, with no on campus component)...but I don't attribute that the the mode of delivery...as much as I attribute it to the quality of the design and teaching of the course...
So, perhaps one of the problems is that there simply has not been enough 'good' online education and not enough of us who have experienced the benefits of an excellent online course...so, to quote the excerpt, we trust our 'intuition'...and made judgements based on a combination of bad experiences and no experience to concludes that online learning/education could not be good...or IS not good.
But doesn't that ignore the evidence and experiences of those who have been successful and even excelled with online learning...?
Hi Victoria,
Unfortunately,the place where I am working does not provide me with a chance to have knowledge ,whether theoretical or practical, about such an up-to-date issue.But On line Learning is undoubtedly included in that future propaganda of mine.So what I am suggesting below depends on an eagle's eye view relying on some references I have come across here and there.
"What is your point of view on online education and the use of technologies for digital degrees?" is a promising question which opens doors for investigating different issues in education.Still ,I feel your question is too wide.I am thinking of the following points :
- If thinking of online teaching , you may consider teacher's experience and the way they judge teaching process via technology.In this respect,one may think of teaching methodology , as a case in point .So a sort of comparison between teaching in normal physical class and teaching via technology is expected.
- On the other hand , if you aim at tackling the issue from the learner's perspectives , you may investigate learning problems.Here we may think of activities ,drills ,participation in the learning process ,and the teacher's assessment.
- ''Digital degrees'' sounds vague.It would be better to specify the scientific field plus the grade where online education is practiced .
- I guess that even the nationality of both teachers and learners could be one of the factors that supports your study.
- In some online teaching atmospheres,there could a group of learners ; and in some other cases ,it could be just one.This presupposes an additional factor that is to be verified.
- I think an online questionnaire or face -to - face interviews would be a good tool for your study.
But ''Are we done with education in normal physical atmosphere ? The research is certainly ongoing.For me ,the two questions are moving side by side and it would very interesting to focus on points of divergence or even the similarities where one could show or fill the gap between the two.
Best
Hi Victoria
I think students want more blended learning - MOOCS etc. and some on-line work plus face-to-face interactions with tutors and other students. Perhaps from our own experiences we can remember that you needed the full university experience and you could learn a lot in the coffee lounge or pub/bar from the other students.. Also ideally MOOCS should be free (as the original inventors wanted) and could help widening participation although you could charge a fee for a certificate at the end if people wanted one. Of course one of the challenges of MOOCS is to make student discussion groups manageable and tutor feedback regular. I love the idea of MOOCS and of sharing knowledge universally and hopefully of helping to nurture a World of critical thinkers but we have to remember that not everyone has access to computers, smart phones and ipads, and we need to encourage potential students to make use of library, school, and community centre computer suites. I am for harnessing some technology and we do but when and for what educational purpose we decide. Perhaps we should also learn from Paulo Freire, that the best teachers are often also the best learners.
With best wishes, Barry
I agree with most of the reservations against online learning. First and foremost is the social risk and interaction that comes with being face to face.
Secondly, we have studied face-to-face instruction for probably 200 years, and are only recently getting a handle on that. (See the literature of Dr. Lillian McDermott, Hesteness . . . ) It is truly arrogant of the online folk, who, as teaching strategies, often search for their keys under the lamp post because they can see, rather than in the parking lot where they lost them. I have heard a big name in Physics Education Research declare that online learning is "Death to conceptual understanding."
Lastly, online will at some point do some things better than face-to face. I just doubt that we understand it well enough to know what.
I do follow some lessons online, and these have many differences with the ones I follow at University. What it can give is playback. Same explanations, but a second chance or a third to get it. Viewable more than once. You can also ask questions but have to wait for an answer. You must be proactive to raise your understanding by additional research on the web, have a meta-eye on yourself and create coherence in your knowledge. You must go further than the raw content. You need the drive to learn.
On the other hand, no real live interaction (non-verbal, etc.), no real relation with the teacher and the other students. No real discussion for a social building of knowledge.
I guess all the approaches give something and make you lose something else. May depend on your learning tastes. Like in this example, you can get traditional teaching via the machine if you like the way, but a lot of responsibility lie in the hands of the learner, anyway. I heard that you can sometimes learn more if you have a bad teacher (a way to say that the job is really yours),
So, I would say that I don't see online learning possible or efficient for young and immature pupils, Their lack of critical mind and culture of learning could even be bad for them. But for mature and critical persons, this is one more resource.
(excuse my English!)
Christian Boissinotte’s Contribution
My two cents
Well done contribution.
A tactic I encourage my students to use is to tape class proceedings on their cell. They can then replay the recording as desired. At times, I may ask one of them to replay for group review. Yes, you do miss the visual cues and illustrations.
My limited experience suggests that disposition trumps maturity in some cases. There still generations out there who prefer to be taught in a manner to they were successful with.
The essence of this discussion question is not an all-or-nothing choice: each of classroom learning and distance learning modalities has advantages relative to the other. In 2012 I announced constructive heuristics to the United States Distance Learning Association in a presentation attended mostly by instructional designers. Some of them were instrumental in bringing me back at the USDLA's 2015 national conference where we discussed deployment of these techniques, observed in both on-campus and on-line courses. We identified advantages on both sides of the line between them. Although some of the objections to distance learning posted earlier in this discussion are exaggerated (for example, the claim of "death to conceptual understanding" in distance learning), there are some unique challenges to learning in the asynchronous environment.
One of them is that in distance learning the students usually miss out on the opportunity to learn by presenting their research to a live audience and then encountering interactive feedback. Socratic dialogue in the on-line forum is also more of a challenge in the relative difficulty the discussion leader faces in keeping the content of postings building on earlier content and aimed squarely at the learning objective of the discussion -- this is easier in the live environment.
On the other hand, it should not be overlooked that the asynchronous on-line format allows anyone composing a responsive posting to review the exact text of all the earlier postings and to take time to think deeply about those responses while composing them; this review-and-think-through format affords a great advantage over the fast-paced live dialogue in which the "think time" between stimulus and response tends to be shortened. In asynchronous on-line presentations, it is also the case that arguments are evaluated solely or mainly on their content, without being subject to influence by the arguer's visual personality, charm, appearance, or skill at oral presentation.
There is research which I would highly recommend for anyone engaged in online teaching and learning. This was an award winning paper at eLearn 2013 in Las Vegas, and the citation is Wright, R., Jones, G. & D'Alba, A. (2013). Person over pedagogy: Rapport-building traits of online instructors. In T. Bastiaens & G. Marks (Eds.), Proceedings of E-Learn: World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education 2013 (pp. 1603-1612). Chesapeake, VA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE).
In addition, a highly cited paper is Sun, P., Tsai, R.J., Finger, G., Chen, Y., & Yeh, D. (2008). What drives a successful e-Learning? An empirical investigation of the critical factors influencing learner satisfaction. Computers and Education. Elsevier. Vol. 50, Issue 4, pp. 1103-1586.
Both assist in my response, that is, that the principles underpinning online design and teaching are critically important in ensuring that there is a social presence, enjoyable interaction and a sense of personal connection for the learner. There is now sufficient research which can help us with design by understanding the conditions for success for institutions, educators and learners.
Glenn
I appreciate the citations you provided and downloaded the Rapport-building traits of online instructors. It was informative. Thank you for sharing.
It reminded me of a prior piece of research by Lowes et al. (2007) that looked at different methodologies to analyze online course discourse between learner-learner and learner-instructor, and also the types of interaction that fostered richer online dialog.
Citation: Lowes, S.; Peiyi, L.; Yan, W. (2007). "Studying the effectiveness of the discussion forum in online professional development courses." Journal of Interactive Online Learning 6(3): 181-210.
In this piece the researchers compared the following constructs in analyzing online discourse:
- Density: The number of connections between contributors as a percent of all possible connections. A density of 100% would mean that everyone talked to everyone else at least once—all the squares in the matrix would be filled in.
- Network centralization: A measure of the extent to which the network centers on one person or is dispersed among all the participants. A centralization of 100 % would mean that all the participants talked to only one person.
- Share: The percentage of each participant’s contributions to the total of all contributions.
- Reciprocity: This is a measure that we calculated for the number of contributors who got responses from the contributors they posted to.
My Take-Aways:
- Immediacy of response is critically important (briefer and sooner versus later and longer instructor responses stimulate better learner engagement)
- "Cheer leading" alone responses alone stifle conversation
- Responses that provide encouragement along with new information to extend/enhance the learner discourse are better
- As rapport builds over time between the learners and online instructor, responses that couple new information and that question/challenge the learners on problems, applications, theories, strategies are better.
- The instructor (obviously) should not remain central to all the discussions.
Hi Victoria,
My two cents on virtual classroom.
Have a good summer!
Loredana
Data Cartelli vanin castelli pepe addimando
Distance learning can not be applied with all the competence, as for example the competence or physical education lessons that needs to laboratories...
I think that online learning is an efficient educational method because that is able to link teachers with students around the world and stimulate the interest from both.
Speaking about my field I also believe that an effective management of a specific topic requires proactive and effective collaboration between health practitioners from a variety of health disciplines, with interactive materials.
For this reasons the best solution, in my personal opinion is to combine face to face activities with online activities when is possible.
In designing totally online courses, such as MOOCs, there are important question about quality which can inform the design and implementation. Quality Matters is helpful.
Attached is some relevant research.
In general acquiring education has become a costly affair world over. And in some parts of the world the demand for education has surpassed, to a great extent, the capacity of educational institutions. Under such circumstances, online education system can be handy, as such a system has inherent capability to cater to a large number of people, beyond boundaries of countries.
In addition to this above mentioned point, online education can also cater to sectors like short / short-term specialised courses / training programs which may not be suitable for or do not come under the purview of university systems.
Ashis, you have flagged the most important reason we should invest in understanding online education.
I think that the biggest mistake made in online education is that we expect that we will quickly be successful with out paying the price.
Online education is still a relatively new field of study. I believe that the consequence of this is that there are some spectacular successes and failures, and we don't always know why. I know of an introductory computer programming course taught online from our campus which is at least as good as the face-to-face course. Many students see no reason for it to be ever taught face-to-face. Indeed it is the only way the course is taught. Similarly an introductory art course (drawing) is taught online with solid success.
The flip side shows when I was asked to run an online physics course, and to quote the person who developed it, "I pretend to teach students, and they pretend to learn," A noted physics education researcher described online physics courses as "death to conceptual understanding. Sure, some students do just fine. You can also lock some students in a closet with a book and they do just fine.." I just don't think that the tools are there yet for accomplishing the change in student's misconceptions in physics which we need. It may take 20 years to find them, and it may be never.
I think that the biggest mistake made in online education is that we will be successful with it without investing large amounts of resources studying it. We have been pointedly studying face-to-face education in physics for at least 60 years.
I saw a gentleman give a paper 10-15 years ago on teaching a Special Relativity course for non majors through email only! It was a resounding success, with far better results than the face-to-face course. He closed his talk saying that no one would ever be able to persuade him to ever do that again. The cost was to soak up all of his personal time in moderating email traffic effectively.
The business model that online must be cheaper, and cheaper must be better, provides a deadly bias to online education. Perhaps we may do something that changes student expectations and behaviors in an online course which will change the world, but it may be foolish to expect it quickly.
I currently use the McDermott "Tutorials in Introductory Physics" in my face-to-face course starting on about the first day of class. They set expectations for independent understanding, student ownership, and the kinds and levels of thinking which make class so productive for students. I have been searching in vain for something to accomplish this online.
Regards
--schremmer
I like Alain's answers. The reference to Hestenes stirs up an idea. Is that the same Hestenes who developed the Force Concept Inventory(FCI) with Halloun? That is actually a precedent-setting litmus test of sorts for evaluation student conceptual understanding of Newton's laws in Physics, and thus teaching methods. It is not exhaustive, but started us physics teachers in the right direction.
The interview method used by the Physics Education Group at the University of Washington is a deeper, but more time consuming method of assessing learning.
http://freemathtexts.org/CCP/161/161Downloads/161EXAM3.pdf
Some students have the disposition to sit at their computer at any hour of the day or night and successfully work through MOCC segments. Others require the discipline of scheduled face-to-face instructor directed delivery. We have yet to develop the means of helping students select themselves into the most suitable mode. The retention and completion numbers suggest that students find it very easy to self-select themselves out once in a MOCC experience counter to their learning disposition.
William, I agree that self-propelled studying is a challenge, assuming that's how students see MOOCs and other online courses. Perhaps, the "delivery" (as Alain S. calls it) is there, but nobody's "home" to take it in. With all the thought put into course content, design, implementation and student engagement strategies, the onus is on the students to engage in learning. Or, is it not?
@Leonard. Aside from enabling students "to sit at any hour of the day or night", a real plus, an onscreen text could have an immense advantage, namely that the text could be "foldable". More precisely, say that you need several lines of computation to establish a result. Not all lines are necessary to all readers and the computation could be presented with a "skeleton" with intermediate lines unfoldable/foldable on demand by the reader. The point is that the trees are necessart but there comes a time where they hide the forest. Pop up boxes are only a poor substitute. I do not know of any example but I was able to convince one of my grandsons to get on the---not easy---problem.
@Rubin. The onus is on the student, yes, but most of the students I encounter (In a Community College) are so badly maimed by their high school years that they have no idea that education could be anything other than a contract with the teacher: "I attend your class, you pass me." At best, the contract is "I jump your hoops, you pass me." And so, if you want the students to learn rather than memorize "skills and facts", the onus is really on the teacher.
And indeed, at least some of these students can be brought to consider issues and to start thinking about how they might deal with a "problem". Here is an example in so-called "Developmental Math". When the data set is counting numbers, x
In my opinion on-line education is a new frontier in the process of education in the new millennium. Our model contains 3 step approach - E-Textbook, Videopresentations and MCQs -"with a key" type .For more detailed view have a look at the
WWW.TEST.AECP.AM
There's a noticeable tendency nowadays towards a BLENDED MODE that would include advantages of both online mode and face-to-face mode. I like the argument that TECHNOLOGY doesn't teach; it's the way how we employ it that makes the difference. That's why - in my reckoning - academics have recently started to talk more about LITERACY and NEW LITERACIES (e.g. digital literacies) to communicate to people the idea that TECHNOLOGY has become part of our daily literacy practices.
Victoria, there are really two questions here, the one that you quoted from Bromwich and the one that you appended to this quote. Bromwich asks: "Will it be quite the same without the actual person in the actual room?" You ask "Where do you stand" [on "pros and cons on this issue of MOOCs, webinars, and digital degrees?"]. Much can be said about the latter that is independent of the former, hence I confine my remarks to the first question. Following an industrial career in which I worked in an environment similar to that for which I now prepare students, I taught for 8 years in the classroom and for 7 years in an on-line environment, finding that the disembodied collaboration of the latter environment places a higher demand on instructors to involve students in Galilean-Socratic dialogue, except that the dialogue in this case had to be asynchronous.
By "higher demand", I refer to the need for keeping a discussion on target, without unnecessarily cutting short useful digressions, but always returning to the path of reaching a relevant and substantiated conclusion after any digressions. This is true because the asynchronous online environment is missing the spontaneity and visual cues that attend dialogue in a classroom. On the other hand, the asynchronous online environment records the whole written history of the dialogue and permits the interlocutors to consider that entire thought-flow before adding new points to the discussion. While this is an advantage, this environment does deprive students of important practice of public speaking, of advancing the dialogue toward its target conclusion by presenting their thoughts in an organized, coherent, and compelling way to the others. (More in my profile posting regarding "constructive heuristics"). Each of these modes of expression listed in your conclusion have unique advantages and disadvantages, so the the educator needs to make an intelligent audience-sensitive choice of learning environment, aware of its limitations so as to attempt to offset them.
Albert, you've made so many excellent points: the visual and spontaneous nature of an in-class dialogue is certainly hard to replicate online; the art of speaking publicly is endangered, while posting remarks (an in general written form) is good for record keeping and allows asynchronous access for later reflection and commentary, if you wish. What a conundrum we are all in!
I would like to second Victoria's praise for Albert's contribution to these questions.
His comments triggered a memory of a concern voiced by a colleague who similarly returned to academia after working 20 years as a systems engineer. He is concerned about developing the professional social skills in the online environment. For a student who struggles picking up the visual (and other) cues Albert refers to could be severely handicapped without other experiences to address this deficit. Similar concerns about public speaking might need similar remedy. For an entirely online program, that is a challenge.
Victoria and Ryan, thanks for adding your observations on mine. Yes, the choice of forum does present a conundrum, though one might just as well think of these modern alternative methods not only as presenting a decision problem but also as solving the need for a growing range of options that potentially fit a variety of audiences and learning objectives. The keen observation Ryan reported from a colleague, seeing the classroom as a nursery for "professional social skills" points certainly to a candidate learning objective. These considerations touch on Victoria's wider question about MOOCs, webinars, and digital degrees. The MOOC, for example, is probably not the learning method of choice for developing social skills, and such skills are difficult to practice or develop in webinars. But digital degrees can and arguably should target them. Without extensive preliminary practice in the richly engaging dialogue that tracks a well defended conclusion, how might we ever expect anything but bedlam in the boardroom?
Dear Contributors.
The Online media is going to stay. The experience of flipped class room is encouraging. As rightly said, we must be able to use the technology rather than technology using us !.
The new format is basically a digital disruption and we as educators must be comfortable in handling this digital revolution to embrace the life long learner.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/digital-disruptions-education-sanjeev-deshmukh?trk=pulse_spock-articles
Er... When a student has a question, who will answer it? Should s/he embark on a web search? Nothing wrong with that in itself, but should it be the only way to get an answer?
I don't believe in distant learning education. It is hard to control and evaluate performance. In class and taught classes are more transparent
Thank you all for sustaining the conversation. Frankly, it surprises me that it keep going, but interesting nuances keep coming up and it's hard to ignore them.
S G Deshmukh, you said "The experience of flipped class room is encouraging". Could you please elaborate a bit? Is this an anti-authoritarian stand? Where is the flip? And, what's positive about it please? Thanks, VR
"Flipped classroom is an instructional strategy and a type of blended learning that reverses the traditional educational arrangement by delivering instructional content, often online, outside of the classroom. It moves activities, including those that may have traditionally been considered homework, into the classroom. In a flipped classroom, students watch online lectures, collaborate in online discussions, or carry out research at home and engage in concepts in the classroom with the guidance of the instructor."
The above model, though, requires students to be somewhatmore committed than I find most students to be. So, I practice a minimally flipped classroom in that I wrote "the lecture notes" and make them available online---but require the students to have a hard copy. The students are then supposed to read a chapter and do a homework for each class according to a given calendar. This model is thus as close as possible to what students are used to. But even so it can cause problems.
I say "supposed" because of course, for instance, some students will do the homework while a discussion is going on about ... the homework. Still, it allows the instructor to respond to certain students' questions at length and or in some depth without having to worry about not "covering" the rest of the chapter.
Here is the page where my precalculus students have to go.
http://freemathtexts.org/CCP/161/materials.php
Alain, in an earlier post you raised the concern about looking up help online. I have grave reservations about that.
In my discipline, we have come far in teaching physics in the last 20 years, but little of that has made it to the web. In terms of process and conceptual underpinnings the web so easily decays to the lowest common denominator. The answer first. A "formula" second, Process and understanding? -sometimes. There is no requirement for any mechanism to teach the peer review of problem solving when they refer to the web. A student has to be more motivated than most to look for that on the web, even when the expectations are set in class.
Thinking is hard work, and they are so used to memorizing, or copying sometimes.
I absolutely agree of course. Even in Wikipedia the exposition of mathematics is not perfect. But then the job of Wikipedia is not to help learning. (By the way, I forgot to attribute the above quote to Wikipedia.). The problem, though, would seem to be two-fold.
1. The whole of academia is now, in John Holt's term, "answer oriented" and driven.
2. For people who want only to make money on the web from MOOC et al, it is a lot cheaper to be "answer oriented".
However, as I mentioned a while ago, there are things that can be done on a web page that cannot be done on paper. For instance, folding/unfolding to prevent the trees from hiding the forest and pop-up windows as a way to remind one of a defintion or a theorem. But, eventually, students have to learn how to read a printed text pencil-in-hand if only because, at least for the time being, that is where most of knowledge still is.
We must appreciate the importance of technology in revolutionising education in the 21st century. Distance education has enabled many busy people to access education and add to their development. What is important is that standards must be maintained and quality must not be compromised. However, the education should be complemented by other strategies including some provisions for tutoring and interaction with other students and teachers.
Titus, I like your comment about maintaining the standards. The provisions for tutoring are the rub. In face-to-face classes in physics I use curriculum materials which model and practice effective questioning strategies. My experience trying to reap those benefits online has been so slow and ungainly as to generally discourage students rather than encourage them. I would be glad for a model which works. Do you have any ideas? Our online folk at my institution tell me no such instrument exists, when they finally understand my question.
Hey Ryan, Of course any strategy has pros and cons. I have no idea of such instruments. But perhaps you could find out online. One way of interacting with online students could be through webinars etc.
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