The following is an edited and revised transcript of an open forum sponsored by the Ocotillo Classes without Classes Committee. The forum was the first in a projected series of four forums which will address issues issues related to the subject of distance learning. The purpose of this forum was to address issues related to the logistics of distance learning, and all members of the District family were invited to participate.The forum was held on Friday, December 1, 1995, in the Maricopa Room of the District Support Services Center. The Forum began at about 2:30 p.m. and ended at 4:00 p.m. Richard Felnagle, a faculty member in the English Department at Mesa Community College, is the Chair of the Classes without Classes Committee, and he acted as the discussion leader.
| Richard Felnagle | Let me start by saying that I believe we are standing on the threshold of some very big changes in the way we do business in this district. And the nature of those changes can be summed up in two words: distance learning.
I do not believe, nor do I think anyone else in the district believes, that distance learning is going to eclipse classroom-based instruction completely...but I do think that within the next couple of years that all of us who are faculty are going to be doing some form of distance learning, or it's going to impact on all of us to some extent... It's coming for three reasons: The first one is technology...What technology makes possible has a way of happening. The second reason has to do with the market...When students, particularly adult students--and they are our primary market--are given an opportunity to do distance learning, they seem to be reaching toward it. There's no reason to think they really want to come and sit in a classroom if they can possibly work at home or something else of that sort. But there's a third reason why distance learning is coming, and this is the one we as faculty don't like to talk about all that much...the realization that the classroom really isn't all that great anyway! Research suggests that when we seat students in rows and we preach at them for an hour, they actually may get very little out of it...Many faculty are dissatisfied with the classroom and looking for alternatives....And yet, we're worried about what those alternatives may mean for us. We have anxieties. We know these changes are coming, but we didn't ask for them, so we fear they're going to be forced on us... Under the circumstances, we need to get our fears out of the closet, bring them into the middle of the room, put some light on them, and talk about them...You all know how you've worried about something, but then you talk about it, and suddenly it doesn't seem quite so frightening anymore. Well, a lot of people are worried about distance learning, and we'd like to get the questions out in the open and talk about them to see if we can't get those fears under control. Today, we plan to talk about logistics, the nuts and bolts of actually running a distance learning program. Sticky questions like who should teach these courses? Should they be full-time faculty, should they be part-time faculty, or should they be a combination of both? How are these faculty going to be selected for these courses? Aare they going to select themselves? What courses should be offered by distance learning? How are the faculty to be trained, and how are they to be supported this endeavor? How are students to be advised? What kind of support is going to be offered to students? How are course materials to be moved around? ...That's the end of my opening, and I'm ready to pass the tape recorder. This is a Quaker meeting: When the spirit moves you, speak. |
| John Arle | [For my environmental biology class], I'm taking what we would do in the classroom with a real-time audience and trying to come as close to that as I possibly can with the distance people. Presently, what I have put together are five labs that can be done at home. I send out materials, or they could be field projects since it's an environmental biology class. There's quite a bit that can be done just simply by going out and doing assessment of nature. I'm going to bring in the students for five in-person labs, so that part's not distance at all, but those labs are for things I think are essential, i.e., use of the microscope--there's no way that I can do it...without just bringing them in. And then we'll have three field trip projects that will be standardized--that we'll go out as faculty with them and work on a specific project. They'll have to show up for that. I'll actually have five scheduled field projects, and they will pick three of them, so there are some options. That's what I'm working on right now. Whether it's going to float or not, I'll find out this summer...
With the lecture part of the course, they're going to be working, getting the basic material out of the textbook and the associated work book. I've written up what I call my perspective on the topics for each chapter, and so those would be the things that I would be saying to them in the class--that's going to be sent home print-based...The text that we adopted has video case studies that are just wonderful, and so I'm going to use those video case studies for analysis as well as magazine and newspaper articles that I send home. The basic assignments will be the text and the workbook, and then the things that they'll really dislike will be the applications and the analysis of the videos and the articles that they have to turn in... |
| Richard Felnagle | I'd like to know a bit more about the boxes the students are going to get. This is the "experiment in a box" idea, right? Can you tell us a bit more about those? What kinds of experiments? |
| John Arle | The first one on scientific method is just taking an organism--you can take something as simple as a potato bug, sow bug, rolly-polly--you set up an experiment [to determine] where do these things go? What kind of environment do they like? dislike? I use that for scientific method. I'm not at all interested in where these things want to go, but I am interested in what kind of experiment [the student is] going to design, so they learn scientific methodology and practices. They'll have to set it up, assess their data, try to repeat the data, and so on an so forth.
We're also going to be doing a seed study lab on tropical rain forest seeds and that [experiment] is going to be paired with a seed dispersal. They'll set up an experiment, make observations, and record the outcomes. Then I have a set of study questions and some concept applications, so there's a whole lab report...the same lab report they'd be doing if they were in class...[This process] is the exact same, real-time lab or distance. I'm trying to parallel them as much as possible. |
| >Richard Felnagle | And then they have to come in to the campus for four labs on campus, is that correct? |
| John Arle | Well, I'm Rio, we don't have a campus...they will come in to a site somewhere. |
| Richard Felnagle | Do you have to be there at the site with them? Do they all do this at the same item? |
| John Arle | Yes. With this pilot group of...40, I'll have to divide them in to two groups, but yeah, they'll come in to one place at one time. The one lab I want to make sure I get done with these people is a paramecium population lab, and they have to use the microscopes to do it. I may start that lab in the first lab session very early...I'm going to try to meet with them three times, once early, once in the middle, and then once late. I didn't mention I'm also going to have a phone teleconference. I'm going to teleconference with them for the discussion of the labs. They will be in one of two teleconference sessions with me each week, and my topic is going to be discussing the lab that they worked on that week--what kind of data are they getting--and I just want to make sure that they're getting at what I want them to get at while working at home. It's mandatory participation in those teleconferences. |
| Richard Felnagle | Charlcey, could you tell us a little about the logistics--how this class works? How have the students been advised? How is the material going to get moved around? How do they know where they're supposed to be?--that sort of thing. Have they already been enrolled? |
| Charlcey Brabec | In his particular class...no, because we're not going to do it until the summer, but in the schedule that we do, if a course has an orientation--particularly with the science classes--we typically say that they are mandatory, but we know that there are always going to be exceptions that we're going to have to deliver...[We say] that the students need to come to that orientation to get the kit and know how to work with those kits. |
| Tim Florschuetz | ...Why should some labs be done at home, some in a classroom or in a lab setting? Why aren't all the labs done at the same setting? If they have to come in for four, why not six? Why the break-up with the at-home labs, and so on? Is it true distance learning with the labs coming in and things like that?... |
| Charlcey Brabec | When I first approached John about Environmental Biology, I asked him instructionally can this be done via distance? Is it feasible? What parts can and what parts cannot. So you really look at it instructionally, but also from the point of view of what the students can do--they're not going to be handling dangerous chemicals, we're not going to be mailing microscopes out--so, in other words those things that they can do with table salt at home, they can do at home; those things that require an instructor or require special equipment, we will have to try to bring in the students. |
| Tim Florschuetz | And what are the benefits of that, of having them do the salt at home? Should some of these classes possibly be looked at and possibly not offered to distance learning? |
| Laura Helminski | I think we have to be careful about the mental models or assumptions we're using--phrases like "true distance learning" and so on. Quite frankly, everything is just blurring...And I think if you look at books like Work Habits For a Radically Changing Workforce talking about the kinds of things students need, I think we're talking about a platform, a smorgasbord, a buffet, where students can choose and get options and get vehicles so that they can learn the kinds of things they need to meet their goals...When I was at Educom in the beginning of November, it was intriguing to me to see one college where the teachers were distance and the students weren't...This particular class had the students at one college, the students had to be there at 9:00 in the morning, and they had a teacher there and the other half of the class was in another state, in another time-zone, and it met at whatever time, 10:00. And it was billed as a distance-learning class. The teachers team-taught, or sometimes only one teacher was present, so half of the students had the teacher real-time, half didn't. But the intriguing thing was they were in student teams and half of their teammates had to be in the other state. And they had [interactive video] and electronic-mail and stuff like that to do the teamwork. And the intriguing thing, I think, was the kind of learning the students said they were able to do. Could they have had similar experiences in a real-time classroom? Absolutely. Did it add something to it to have students with a different point of view, in a different state, different resources? Absolutely. So, as to the number of labs that you do at home, or whatever, to me a lot of the issues become larger issues. Are we giving the students the skills and the knowledge that they need to function? |
| Tim Florschuetz | There are some assumptions that are underneath this. One of them is the idea that learning can only occur when, to be crass, your butt's in a seat and [the teacher's] in front of you. But the other assumption that quickly follows that is that certain disciplines cannot be taught via distance learning. That's an interesting discussion because if we're comparing distance learning to the traditional lecture in the classroom--and with everything else with business and technology and everything else like that--those assumptions might not hold up. And I think all the research is showing that they don't necessarily hold up. |
| Unknown speaker | ...I think that one of the things that we have to realize in this transitional phase is that this is all "leash learning." We're really not distance yet. Maybe a few people are out there, but until we really change our concepts and our approach to teaching, we're not going to be able allow students to have more control over how they learn and what package they learn from. Aas teachers, we may have to offer a package where the student will pick up--perhaps at any given time--a particular part that we will walk them through. And I also feel that...[maybe] everything can be done distance. I think that it can be, even the lab work...I know that the new Kirksville Physical Therapy School at Grand Canyon University...in a couple of years if not sooner, they're going to be doing their anatomy, dissection--everything--on computer. ...And we're going to see more and more software packages be developed where your kit is not going to be a hands-on thing. So as we are in the midst of transition, all of us may be involved in actually developing packages of that sort, software type packages which will truly free us from the classroom. |
| Richard Felnagle | Well, perhaps free us from the lab environment.
Unknown speaker My opinion is that the lab, and whether or not we can do the lab, so far has only been limited by our access to technology. We have not had fast modems, we have not had state-of-the-art hardware/software, any of that...I think in the next five years, the technology will be there, and we'll be able to offer any course as long as it's well developed, and we have a lot of expertise in this district on how to do [develop courses well]. I think that any course will be appropriate in a non-classroom setting, and I don't know that I want to use distance learning at this point because it's such a misunderstood term. But I think we need to get together as a district and decide how we're going to make these methods available. Well, with the cable, I'm on the channel 20 governing board myself, but fiber optics we're getting in the district, and that can be connected to a cable system. I know that COX Cable is laying new fiber cable all over, so do we want to be able to connect to that cable and send stuff to people's TVs or do we want to use modems and send it over the telephone lines? |
| General consensus | Both. |
| Kent Duffy | Because not everybody is going to have a modem, but let's say I'm getting it on my television set, how do I get back to you? That was my experience at U of A. What just drove me nuts as a distance learning student was I couldn't get in contact with the instructor. I'm paying $100 a credit to a person I can't talk to. I can't get at them. The idea of an instructor is that their knowledge and their experience and everything is valuable. That's what I'm buying. And if I have no access to that instructor, the faculty aren't going to be out of business, they're going to be overworked! |
| General consensus | "That's a concrete statement that you can put down!" |
| Linda Sullivan | ...I teach "distance learning," and I've taught it a couple of different ways, and I've been an administrator in distance learning settings, so I see it a little bit differently, too. Laura was talking about a faculty at a distance, I taught a course where they were all together and I was somewhere else. You know, distance learning brings up a whole lot of faculty development issues, communication issues, and that's a whole other ball of wax. I just think we need to be open-minded to the possibility that there's more than one way to do distance learning. And we need to be mindful that if we decide to do distance learning, we should be doing it to promote learning for students who can't necessarily or who aren't willing to fit into the traditional framework. And we have to look outside of those lines. |
| Julie Bertch | ...I think that one of the things that we all have to do is explore the number of different ways we can reach our students. I mean, our voice-mail system where the student can call anytime, where we can all leave a message for all the students at any time we would want to, the computer conferencing software where they can dial up and leave a message at any time--the key to the thing is that your students need to be able to talk to you when you aren't there, and you have to be able to talk to them when they aren't there. Any distance class has got to have an easy mode for communication so you never feel you can't get in touch with somebody. But it's so easy to do--all it takes is dedication by the faculty member that he/she will indeed respond. |
| Kent Duffy | You have to have coordination. And that's the problem that U of A had: They jumped into it before they had addressed those problems. They started offering classes before they had worked out the logistics, which is why we're here. |
| Unknown speaker | One thing I have learned, that we have learned, is that distance learning takes a great deal of support. You can't do it alone. |
| Gil Gonzales | [The issue of support also involves the questions of how much support and what kind of support an institution can provide.]...When the English department finds the Internet, they scare the heck out of those of us who are worrying about mundane things like disk space, and network capacities, and those silly things. In many ways, that's the kind of scaling question that really challenges people who have to deal with those issues to think much more broadly, to think much differently. And just as much as those of you sitting at this table are being asked to think differently, those who have historically offered [technology services] have to think differently. And they're even more resistant than you are to change...These are scale issues we have to put on the table early as we vie for new systems. And we need to continue to instill confidence that in fact systems will work, and reliability, and to focus on the basics. Those few things are not simple when you have the kind of change that this group is placing on the table for staff to respond to... |
| Unknown speaker | Two comments: Communications is an issue for those of us in math and science because [we often communicate] with graphics, tables, and numbers, and so there needs to be an easy way to communicate that so we get back a screen capture or something of the work that the student has done. Another problem I see is trying to combine the idea of distance learning with the idea of "do it at your own rate." I think if we can do one of these at a time--maybe everybody does the course work at the same time but in different places, first, 'til we see how that goes--then, we let everybody work at their own rate, so we have two students on chapter one and two students on chapter ten... |
| Richard Felnagle | I'm not sure we can separate them though...if you're going to let them work on their own, they're going to work at their own pace, aren't they? |
| Unknown speaker | Well, that's my concern. In the sciences, again from my background, the labs fall at certain positions in the course, and so if you're going to do a group lab, they all have to have learned enough to do the lab and benefit from it, and I was going to ask you [John Arle] what you've done with that. |
| John Arle | Well, I've got a schedule set up. Obviously, once you send that out, somebody could work right through everything and just be waiting and mailing in the assignments for you...What difference does that make? |
| Unknown speaker | It doesn't unless you're doing the lab that requires everybody in the same place, using the microscope ... |
| John Arle | Actually, the way I structure my labs is that the lecture follows the lab. I introduce topics with the lab and then I teach out from those. In the distance learning class, it would be more difficult for them to move on to the next unit if they had not yet done the field work with the class. And if they tried, the work would be of poor quality, I would expect |
| Richard Felnagle | Laura, I think you used the word "smorgasbord," did you not? People start talking about a smorgasbord of different ways in which students can access courses...so part of that just scares the heck out of me because I keep coming back to logistical questions--how are faculty going to be loaded? I mean, are we being told we're teaching one course, but we have to do four different versions of it? |
| Laura Helminski | ...To a degree, we don't have any choice--the students lead [we have to follow]--we don't have any choice. On the other hand, I'm intrigued by the kind of learning that I find occurring with distance students, and I see a lot of real benefit just because it fits their lives better. So, I guess I don't mind, I mean I'm not one of the people necessarily who have to deal with the logistical realities like Charlcey does, bless you Charlcey. I don't find that is something that occupies a lot of my time as a faculty member. I really just trust my system and that I can go in and negotiate with my dean--"Let's pilot it, let's see what's going to happen when we register for flex distance learning classes"--and I trust that it's going to wash out, and I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it. I have to spend much more time figuring out what an assignment's going to mean. For example when we went to flex, I didn't find it difficult at all when I had students working in chapter two and chapter twelve because in a real-time classroom, they're behind me and ahead of me, anyway. And again, I don't have that lab component, but I guess I feel I should be [grateful] that the people who need to deal with the logistics work on them and discuss them with me and we make decisions together. I just don't let those problems take up a lot of my time. |
| Richard Felnagle | Well I think it's very nice that you're in that kind of environment. But I'm going to suggest a scenario to you, and my scenario is one day a dean comes to you, whoever "you" is, and says you're going to do this distance learning and we're going to give you 30 students because that's your normal load, and then you start teaching those 30 students by distance and discover that's three times as much work a normal classroom because there's two realities of distance learning which I'm not sure that everybody here that's promoting distance learning wants to admit: One is that distance learning is horribly inefficient--it's a great deal more work to teach the students by distance--and the other is that you can't do it by yourself...When you do distance, you need an army of people to help you to go with it depending on what you're doing. |
| Julie Bertch | Well, first of all, the extra time that it takes to teach distance is the time that you spend responding to students. Because in order to be effective in a distance course, it must be designed and prepared completely before you start. There's no winging it. You've got a course set up with competencies, with activities, with assignments, hopefully with as many options as possible for students. But this is ready before you start your semester. |
| Richard Felnagle | Everything, from top to bottom. |
| Julie Bertch | Yes, everything. The tests are done, everything is ready. |
| Richard Felnagle | You can't go into the fifth week and change directions, spontaneously. |
| Julie Bertch | No. And you know there are some very distinct advantages because you do a lot more thinking and planning and drawing on your experience of what works. And the first time you do it, you'll think, "Why did I think I could do that?" And then you will tweak it, and you'll get it so it works just fine. And then, your time is spent coaching individual students through the materials. But as you do it, you learn techniques, and I think they're only learned hands-on, don't you agree Laura? |
| Laura Helminski | Yes, they're all hands-on. |
| Julie Bertch | Yes, and you learn how to deal with it. Now I will never say it doesn't take more time, because it does, but it doesn't take that much more time. It's not a matter of tripling your load because you're teaching a distance course, truly it isn't. |
| Laura Helminski | I also think that...I have some Pollyanna genes...but I don't think [these logistical issues are] impossible...the reality is that people change at different rates...you know the faculty may change because they're experiencing distance learning or not...people, you're talking about a dean of instruction...when you're in the conversation together, it's...there's more of 'this is the budget I'm dealing with, this is the time you're dealing with, how can we come together on this?' And I think there's evidence across this district of people willing to have those conversations, and looking at accountability, and loading, and what the semester term means. In different ways, Richard, we may not have turned the tide, but I don't think it's an impossible situation. |
| Richard Felnagle | I think you're right. Distance learning probably takes more time but not that much more time--when you've been doing it for 10 years. But I think when you're starting this thing up, you're going to be overwhelmed. And I think that's a logistical issue too, when faculty want to start doing distance learning... |
| Laura Helminski | Richard, how is that different than a faculty member who's starting collaborative learning? [Take the example of a] faculty member who's been trained in activated learning and collaborative learning. The first time they're using TQM in the classroom--the first time they're using this stuff--what do we hear? [They require extended prep time, and so the problem is] not unique to distance learning as an issue. That's all I'm trying to bring up. |
| Angela Ambrosia | [Another issue.] Right now, we have a certain number of students in a classroom by virtue of location and space. With distance learning, we'll have to face the issue how many we have in a class... |
| Richard Felnagle | ...Yes. The issue will be what is the load. |
| Angela Ambrosia | ...Yes, well right now, the maximum number of students you can have is how many chairs you have in a room. OK. And so, distance learning brings up an issue: What is the optimum student size/student load? Can we teach 120 students as effectively as we teach 30 students distantly? And I think that is something we need to look at. |
| Jill Seymour | I've noticed in working with the VCN students, and I suspect that Rio has found this repeatedly also, is that there are some students that do exceptionally well in this environment, and there are some students who shouldn't be there. |
| General comment | ....that's right... |
| Jill Seymour | And I think that another logistical question is how do you really, fairly direct them, advise them, steer them into a successful situation for them? I don't have an answer. From what I've seen of some of our classes, some students absolutely are doing superbly, and others really need the 'touching' of a traditional environment. I don't know how to really deal with that issue. Certainly, I think students do some self-selection after they've had some experience. But I think what we're looking for from distance learning is, ideally, success all the way along. And how do we [help them to achieve that success?] |
| Unknown speaker | One-third of the students who take distance learning courses shouldn't be there...because they're not disciplined. They don't have the skills necessary to get through class, and we determined that a long time ago. Yet, they're there. But now that I'm working and teaching on a campus, I'm finding that it's probably about the same statistic! One-third of our students shouldn't bother to drive and park their cars and pay their tuition! Because they can't come to class, can't do the homework, can't pass the test. So it's kind of the same issue. Another comment is that whenever we do evaluations for the courses, the one thing that the students love most is the fact that they don't have to meet with an instructor--and that is also the thing that they hate. "It was great because it was so convenient and I could work on my own." "It was terrible because I couldn't do it and I needed help." |
| Unknown speaker | I think the key is orientation. It's so important that students realize distance learning is not an easy way to go to class. One of the important messages is that students need to realize up-front that this is more work. I tell mine: "It is always your turn to answer. You can't sit back and let somebody else respond to the teacher's question. So don't go into this thinking it's easy. Go into it thinking that you're responsible for your own behavior. You've got to be a self-directed learner. You've got to be the one to sit down and do it." And for the people who are looking for an easy way out, distance learning usually scares them off, and they realize it doesn't fit them. Distance learning doesn't fit everybody. It was never intended to fit everybody, and it never will. |
| Beatriz Cohen | Well, as a counselor, I'm thinking one issue that [must] offer a support system to these students...like Rio to does for the regular students...Advisement is a very important issue, assessment. We do it with the other students, and [we need] to see also what other ways [there are] to deliver the support system. Because we have been delivering the counseling, the advising, the tutoring, etc., in the traditional way. But if we are delivering the instruction a different way, we have to think of how we are going to deliver the support...and that's what I have been doing: counseling students through the computer, with computer conferencing, and I think it works. And also, I have some questionnaires that we can use also for assessment. |
| Jill Seymour | I was interested in your comment about the advisement, assessment. ...Maybe it works well when it's an open-entry/open-exit environment, but I'm thinking of the student who has signed up for this class that's now meeting, and they discover it's not right for them. They can't then get into the traditional class and they have now lost a semester of their life. [Let's say they've signed up for] a course that they need for their program in order to proceed in a sequence. In September, they thought that they could do that. They go to the orientation and find, "You're right! I just can't cope with this! I need to move myself into a traditional environment.' And I think that's one of the benefits that Rio has is that their sequence is a little bit off the traditional. The student then says, "I have to move into another environment," and all of the other semester classes in the traditional environment have already begun. The student can't then get into that traditional class and so has to wait until the following semester. And, I guess from a student perspective, that's a significant chunk of their life to loose in terms of their development because most of our students are there because they're looking for a job, they're already behind when they come to us. |
| Gil Gonzales | Well, one of the questions that we talk "around" as opposed to "to" is that we aren't the only show in town. Jill, your point is absolutely wonderful in the context of Maricopa, but as we ask the question of Levard(?), or International Community College, or U of A, or ASU East, you talk about a comprehensive four-year program that gets into distance learning, students can take a course that is offered from Levard(?) and get in synch. I think what I'm suggesting is the framing of the question with which we started this discussion: "What are the questions?" The framing of the questions here isn't what Maricopa does...You have to ask what everybody else is doing.... We aren't alone. Students with cable connections, students with modems in-home, snail mail, can get North Central accredited courses delivered to their home, or to their offices, or the public library, or the community center... |
| Jake Jacobson | Getting back to "What are the questions?" the one question that hasn't been asked, that I think is probably the most important question in my experience, is, "What are the measurements?" You asked, "How are faculty members loaded?"--Do faculty get paid for performance now? Or do they get paid for how many classes? Do they get paid less because they have more drop-outs? I realize I'm opening up a lot of worms here, but that's the measurement of the performance of the person delivering the instruction. Then there's the measurement of the student. Do we measure people by [their] expectations? We always used "objectives," "performance objectives." I wish I'd have thought of that word; that's a better word. When I go in to learn something, what do I as a student expect? When I'm teaching a class, what do I as a faculty expect? Now, everybody has this problem 'cause we don't have good measurement. If you could lay down in your syllabus what the expectations were, and everybody gives lip service to this, but I'll have to write objectives and things. But they're usually not very good and they're phony; it's only because somebody told you you have to do it. But if you're a responsible person, and if you're what I would call a performance person, then you would be wanting to know. First, a student comes in, 'what can you do now that I don't have to teach you? And what is it that I [instructor] will expect you [student] to do when you leave here?' Now if you know that, then the rest is all delivery. OK, you take everything by a task, and you know there are some things you can deliver with audio, you know there are some things you can deliver with the written word, there's some things you have to have a lab. OK, well what's the lab for an airline pilot? They have expensive simulators because they can't afford to give everybody a 747 to try out. Well maybe it's the same thing with dangerous chemicals, maybe you have to build an expensive simulator that you deliver somehow. But those are all specific issues once you decide the first issue, and that is what the expectations are. |
| Unknown speaker | Well, when you're talking competency-based education, you've got to have real skills. You've got to be serious about how you state them and how you measure them so that you can make your expectations perfectly clear. It can't be a case where you're writing objectives because somebody said you had to do it. You've got to seriously decide what you want your students to know and be able to do by the time they finish the course and aim the course at that and measure for it. So I don't think that's really an issue. |
| Jake Jacobson | But how do you know whether a classroom-based course is better than a distance learning course or vice versa? Unless you have the same measurements, you would have no way of knowing. |
| Unknown speaker | Exactly, so if you have the same competencies for both kinds of classes, you can measure the student's performance--what would the difference be? |
| Yvonne Zeka | ...It depends upon the student. For one particular student, distance learning is going to be better, but for another student, as you mentioned, a traditional classroom is better. So that's not a relevant question. So the question becomes 'do you decide whether you're going to offer options for your students.' |
| Richard Felnagle | Personally, I get kind of worried when I hear faculty talking, forgive me Joanna, I get worried when I hear people saying they're going to develop a course "for the Internet," or they're going to develop a course for "modem," or they're going to develop any course for a particular means of delivery. We get new options so fast around here it's kind of scary. For the Internet, you know, in five minutes it's going to be passé. It will be yesterday's news, and I think you're right...Fiber optics are going to blindside us, the telephone companies--they want to get into this. There'll be some whizbang thing here tomorrow that probably none of us are thinking about today...I think the desktop conferencing thing is going to make an impact...the see-you-see-me thing when that finally arrives...go ahead... |
| Unknown speaker | But the development is the difference. Otherwise, you're traditional, stand-up-in-front-of-the-class-and-lecture-to-your-group now quote works just well with your distance students and that's not so. You have to change the way you do your own delivery to your distance students because they don't have the advantage of saying 'excuse me, wait a minute, I don't understand that' or what have you. Or they may not have the communication base, or they may not be a good distance student learner. They may be taking the class because they have no other alternative. They are stuck in Mazula somewhere and that's the only way they're going to get your class. Now they need some special attention as far as the way you develop your curriculum...your lesson plan. And so just to make it the same...so I actually appreciate the idea she says she's going to develop for the Internet because it's not the same as the classroom. True/false? |
| Richard Felnagle | I'm not sure, I don't know. I think, if you're asking me what I think, I think teaching comes down to certain basic fundamental processes: One is the transmission of information. One is the opportunity for the student to get feedback. A student does an exercise, a lab, a report, whatever it is, and gets feedback, and there's some dynamics that go on. And I get nervous when I hear people developing a way of teaching a particular course that is dependent upon a technology. How many people in the district have developed programs in BASIC to be used in courses, and what's happened to them? They aren't here anymore. You see what I mean? Whereas, it seems to me that we should be thinking about the appropriate way to accomplish each one of those objectives. If we have some ideas, then, presumably, whatever technology comes along we can find a way of working. I'm wondering if we need to think always that transmittal of information always needs to be the classroom. I'm wondering if that isn't where this real revolution is coming. I don't think the classroom is ever going away, but I've some serious questions whether students are ever going to be sitting for 16 weeks in a classroom every again...Wouldn't it be enough to cut these classes to 8 weeks like we do in the summer and let them go on their own? What do we need 16 weeks for? Then what happens to your load? What happens to my load? |
| Unknown speaker | You know, whether it's 16 weeks or 8 is a whole different issue. That takes a different kind of course design. So I think we're getting pretty muddy when we start, you know, interchanging those things. We can do that. We do it in the summer time, we do that on a regular basis, but it doesn't have anything to do with the issue that you were talking about. Some things you could do better on a video and just give it to them and you can do something else during that class time. I truly believe that a class discussion...you can have an hour with thirty people, or you can split it into fifteen minutes in a teleconference session and only have a fourth of them at a time. You can get more out of the students because you get the ones who wouldn't talk if there were 30 in the room. I don't like the idea either of what you were saying of designing a class for just one thing because I've truly come to believe the more you mix the media, the more you can accomplish with different students and different topics. |
| Gil Gonzales | I guess one of the questions for me is talking about the teacher-student relationship...If students can access information of all kinds of places that aren't tied to where they're at locally, and maybe even also communicate with people synchronously/asynchronously, who are, I know there aren't many like them, but maybe know a little bit more about music theory at that one time, and just listed information that is somehow relevant based on getting tools that can do that in robotic ways, and manual ways, and all kind of stuff--does that change how the student views this activity that we're...either accomplish the base activity or what have you? Because the student is no longer reliant in the model we've talked to, perhaps, in some cases.... |
| Unknown speaker | What I'm seeing is, we've been in a factory mode of education, and we're getting toward an individually orientated type of education where we're going toward what that audience wants and needs. Whether it's eight weeks, six weeks, sixteen weeks--some can do it in eight weeks--there's fast and slow learners. What our audience wants, I guess. |
| Richard Felnagle | I agree, this is a market-driven thing, and I think students want faster classes. I don't think given a free choice in the matter any student would want a class for 16 weeks. Honestly, you offer a choice, you can have 16, 12, 10, 8, or 4. What would you like? I bet 16 would be your last choice! And I think distance learning is empowering students; we're letting them tell us what they want...and University of Phoenix is not going to add longer classes. They're going with the shorter ones. I do not think the movement is toward 16 week classes. I think that's part of the dynamic of this whole thing that's going on. |
| Unknown speaker | Some may still hang on to them though. It's the same point that Betsy made...Yeah, they'll go for it, but there's going to be a huge selection factor against some of them. One of my students the other night said, "Geez, you want to shorten anatomy and physiology? I think what we need to do is double the length...can we take 201 over two semesters?" That's a request by one student, obviously. Yeah we could, and you'd be the only one that would enroll. |
| Jill Suydam | That's not true, I offered chemistry that way, One option was a semester and a half, and I got quite a few enrolled in it. |
| Jake Jacobson | I don't think we give anybody a chance to do a pretest, to sit down and say, "If I can tell you all I know about it, will you give me a degree tomorrow? If I know all the answers?" No, nobody will do that. |
| Richard Felnagle | It's more or less close to 4:00, maybe we should just go ahead and end here. This was, I thought, a very good discussion. I appreciate everybody participating. We did a good job of laying out some very significant questions here...We'll resume again in February. So again, thank you all very much! |
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