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Threads on Asynchronous
Learning
Bob Jensen
at Trinity University
Last Revised on October 31, 2000
Before reading this, you should read about asynchronous
learning at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asynchronous_learning
Introductory Quotations:
We are particularly interested in new outcomes that may be
possible through ALN. Asynchronous computer networks have the potential to improve contact with faculty, perhaps making self-paced learning a realizable goal for some off-
and on-campus students. For example, a motivated student could progress more rapidly
toward a degree. Students who are motivated but find they cannot keep up the pace, may be
able to slow down and take longer to complete a degree, and not just drop out in
frustration. So we are interested in what impact ALN will have on outcomes such as
time-to-degree and student retention. There are many opportunities where ALN may
contribute to another outcome: lowering the cost of education, e.g., by naturally
introducing new values for old measures such as student-faculty ratios. A different kind
of outcome for learners who are juggling work and family responsibilities, would be to be
able to earn a degree or certification at home. This latter is a special focus for us.
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Program in
Learning Outside the Classroom at
http://w3.scale.uiuc.edu/scale/
It may well be that some of our universities
will decide that their comparative advantage lies in operating highly personal, mediated,
residential teaching experiences. If so, no doubt a whole new series of
postsecondary learning opportunities will emerge from the commercial sector of our
economy. These new entrants would likely be characterized by the use of information
technology to help deliver learning experiences were learners want them, when they want
them, and at a cost they find acceptable.
Robert C. Heterick, Jr.
The Three Rs
Fathom users will have the opportunity to interact and
collaborate with the leading experts in their field. Fathom's unique
architecture will provide a powerful "search and explore capability"
that will allow users to follow their interests, independently or with expert
guidance, across the widest possible range of subjects.
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/00/04/fathom.html
For more about knowledge portals, go to http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/portals.htm
Eight years ago the accounting faculty at Baylor University tore down
the stovepipes between traditional accounting core classes (financial
accounting, managerial accounting, taxation, accounting information systems,
and auditing) to achieve integrated coverage across a three-semester
sequence. Projects and case studies are used to link relational topics in
each of the five subject areas.
From Accounting Education News, June 9, 2005 ---
http://accountingeducation.com/news/news6250.html
Title: BAYLOR CPA EXAM SCORES BEAT OUT OTHER
TEXAS SCHOOLS
Source: PR Newswire
Country: United States
Date: 09 June 2005
Contributor: Andrew Priest Web:
http://www.newswise.com/
When it comes to the Certified Public
Accountant (CPA) exam, Baylor University's Accounting graduates
out-scored their counterparts at other Texas schools, according to data
released by the Texas State Board of Public Accountancy detailing the
results of the January-March 2005 exam. Further comment from Baylor in
our full news item.
"When you look at the programs that had more
than 20 people sit for the exam, Baylor leads the pack with a combined
average 65.3% pass rate across the test sections," said Terry Maness,
Dean of Baylor's Hankamer School of Business. The CPA exam consists of
four sections.
Eight years ago the accounting faculty at
Baylor University tore down the stovepipes between traditional
accounting core classes (financial accounting, managerial accounting,
taxation, accounting information systems, and auditing) to achieve
integrated coverage across a three-semester sequence. Projects and case
studies are used to link relational topics in each of the five subject
areas.
"These results demonstrate the quality of our
program," said Dr. Charles Davis, chair of the Accounting & Business Law
department. "Our grads have consistently earned the distinction of being
in the list of top ten scorers on the CPA exam historically. I'm very
proud of them."
"Asynchronous and Synchronous E-Learning: A study of
asynchronous and synchronous e-learning methods discovered that each
supports different purposes," by Stefan Hrastinski, Educause
Quarterly, October-December 2008 ---
http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Quarterly/AsynchronousandSynchronou/47683
If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't
thinking.
George S. Patton
"The Secret to Learning Anything: Albert Einstein's Advice to His
Son," by Maria Popova, Brain Pickings, June ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/06/14/einstein-letter-to-son/
Table of
Contents
Introduction
Why Top
Universities Will Be ALN Course "Vendors"
Why All
Universities May Be ALN Course "Customers"
The Wandering Path from Knowledge
Portals to MOOCs
Flipped
Classroom and Flipped Teaching
Bridging the
Gaps
Flipped
Classrooms
Explosion
of Corporate/University Partnerships
The Controversial
Ernst&Young and PriceWaterhouse Coopers Free Masters Degree Programs
Deere Contracts
With Indiana University for Online MBA Degrees in Finance
Tools and Innovations in
ALN Technologies
MUD, MOO, and MUSH
Extensions
Types of ALN
Contracting
The Myth of
Lower Faculty Cost: Network Bridges May Be Cheap Shots or
Very Costly to Deliver
How to Reduce
Messaging Costs in ALN Courses
Components of
ALN (Asynchronous Learning Networks)
Components
of SLN (Synchronous Learning Networks)
Will Higher
Education Adopt Business Strategies?
ALN vs Self-Directed
Learning (SDL)
A Comment
Regarding Intranet versus Internet Courses
Concerns About
the Explosion of ALN in Education
Concerns About
Residency Living & Learning on Campus
Concerns About
Impersonality and Becoming Irrevocably Orwellian
Concerns About Making ALN
Learning Too Easy
Concerns About Making ALN
Learning Too Hard
Concerns About
Corporate Influences on Traditional Missions
Concerns About
Library Services
Concerns About
Academic Standards and Student Ethics
Concerns About
Messaging Overload
Concerns About Faculty
Efficiency and Burnout
Concerns
About Misleading and Fraudulent Web Sites
Concerns
About CyberPsychology
Concerns
About Computer Services and Network Reliability
Concerns
About Faculty Resistance to Change
Concerns
About Effectiveness of Learning Technologies in Large Classes
Concerns About Attrition and Drop Out
Rates from Online Courses
Other
Concerns
A Message
from Peter Kenyon on November 18, 1999
Performance
Evaluations and Program Assessments
Student
Evaluations and Learning Styles
The Noteworthy
Success of Variable Speed Video at BYU
Evaluation of
ALN Experiments at the University of Illinois
Update on August 12, 2000
Outcomes assessment of the
multi-million dollar, multi-year experiments on campus at the University of Illinois
regarding the efficiency and effectiveness of asynchronous learning classes vis-a-vis
traditional classes. (Listen to Dan Stone's
audio and download his Powerpoint Presentation). http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/000cpe/00start.htm
Evaluation
of ALN Programs at the University of North Texas
Evaluation of
ALN Experiments at the New Jersey Institute of Technology
Evaluation of Audit
Education in NYU's Virtual College
Conclusion
Advice
to New Faculty and Bob Jensen's Letter to The Wall Street Journal
Fostering Deeper Learning:
Risks of Teaching More Than You Know
Appendix 1:
Links to Some Key Web Sites
Appendix 2: Messages About ALN
Courses
An Online Course From the Harvard Law School
An ALN Online Course Sponsored by the American Chemical Society
Online Biology at the University of Colorado at Denver
The Amazing Way Children Can Organize to Teach
Each Other
Appendix 3:
Onsite versus Online Universities in the 21st Century
Appendix 4:
Virtual University Gazette
Appendix 5: Public
Policy Implications and the Digital Future
Appendix 7: Michael
Zatrocky PowerPoint File on Trends and Issues for the 21st Century
Appendix 8: University of
Phoenix
Appendix
9: Gender Differences
Helpers for Writers
and Users of Cases
From Emory University
Study Skills Tip Sheets & Advice ---
http://www.college.emory.edu/home/academic/learning/studyskillsconsultations/tips.html
"Asynchronous and Synchronous E-Learning: A study of asynchronous and
synchronous e-learning methods discovered that each supports different purposes,"
by Stefan Hrastinski, Educause Quarterly, October-December 2008 ---
http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Quarterly/AsynchronousandSynchronou/47683
Click
Here to View Working Paper 265 on Metacognition
Concerns in Designs and Evaluations of
Computer Aided Education and Training:
Are We Misleading Ourselves About Measures of Success?
Click
Here to View Working Paper 290 on Course Authoring
History and Future of Course Authoring Technologies
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/290wp/290wp.htm
Introduction
Before reading this, you should read about asynchronous learning at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asynchronous_learning
Some futurists predict that our physical campuses will decay and
crumble as higher education alternatives explode on the web. I do not agree! Most of our
campuses will thrive and prosper if we learn how to bridge our curriculum gaps with
the web and still maintain some of the best of what we traditionally accomplish in classes
and other face-to-face encounters with our students. Also, some of our traditional
courses perhaps should no longer meet in regularly scheduled class periods even if these
courses are only made available to resident students. There may, however, be a shift in
emphasis from the awarding of traditional degrees to the awarding of education and
training certifications across disciplines. In On the Horizon, May/June
1997, James Morrison contends that by the Year 1004 leading-edge educational
institutions will use competency-based certification multimedia learning modules and
virual learning environments. The article cited below is one of many articles and
speeches from leading educators who consider diplomas and degrees obsolete:
A seamless, cradle -to-grave
educational system is within our reach, if we muster the courage and will to create it.
"Diplomas and Degrees are Obsolete," D.N.
Langenberg, The Chancellor of the University System of Maryland, The Chronicle of
Higher Education, September 12, 1997, Page A64.
This does not necessarily mean that institutions granting diplomas
and degrees will crumble and fall as households become linked to the web around the world.
On-campus courses will be available for certifications across a wide variety of
educational accomplishments.
As network education opportunities increase, traditional
universities will have to add more course choices to curricula in order to keep pace with
their old and newer competitors. It is tempting to contemplate adding courses by
contracting for networked courses developed by and possibly distributed from other
universities. However, if high quality pedagogy is to be maintained, there are some
significant costs that are being discovered in early experiences with
asynchronous networked learning (ALN). ALN appears to be more like the old
days where great teachers spent a lot of time with students outside of class. ALN
implicitly assumes computer networking and/or CD-ROM hypertext
and hypermedia. Producing good ALN materials
entails significant training of faculty and reconsideration of reward structures for
learning materials development of college faculty.
Results show that network (distributed education) courses will be
labor intensive in terms of dealing with student messaging and evaluation of student work.
Faculty or teaching assistants must be online to evaluate student written and oral
communications. Studies have shown that messaging explodes exponentially if asynchronous
network courses are to maximize learning effectiveness. Whether or not the
"labor" (faculty, graduate students, or hired guns) will be provided by the
"vendor" (say MIT) or the "customer" (say Trinity University) is a
matter of conjecture. Most likely, the cost of an imported course will be less than
cranking up a traditional or ALN course on campus. However, the cost of
"faculty" may not be significantly reduced for reasons discussed in this paper.
Do you recall the praise that I lavished on the
ethics website of a Carnegie-Mellon University Philosophy Professor named Robert
Cavalier in my March 22, 000 edition of New Bookmarks? See http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book00q1.htm#032200
Robert Cavalier now has an article entitled
"Cases, Narratives, and Interactive Multimedia," in Syllabus,
May 2000. pp. 20-22. The online version of the Syllabus article is not yet
posted, but will eventually be available at http://www.syllabus.com/
The purpose of our evaluation
of A Right to Die? The Case of Dax Cowart was to see if learning
outcomes for case studies could be enhanced with the use of interactive
multimedia. My Introduction to Ethics class was divided into three
groups: Text, Film, and CD-ROM. Equal distribution was achieved by
using student scores on previous exams plus their Verbal SAT scores.
Two graders were trained
and achieved more than 90 percent in grader variabilility. The results
of the students' performance were put through statistical analysis and the
null hypothesis was rejected for the CD/Film and CD/Text groups. Significant
statistical difference was demonstrated in favor of interactive multimedia.
"Study: Little Difference in Learning in Online and In-Class Science
Courses," Inside Higher Ed, October 22, 2012 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2012/10/22/study-little-difference-learning-online-and-class-science-courses
A
study in Colorado has found little difference in
the learning of students in online or in-person introductory science
courses. The study tracked community college students who took science
courses online and in traditional classes, and who then went on to four-year
universities in the state. Upon transferring, the students in the two groups
performed equally well. Some science faculty members have expressed
skepticism about the ability of online students in science, due to the lack
of group laboratory opportunities, but the programs in Colorado work with
companies to provide home kits so that online students can have a lab
experience.
Jensen Comment
Firstly, note that online courses are not necessarily mass education (MOOC)
styled courses. The student-student and student-faculty interactions can be
greater online than onsite. For example, my daughter's introductory chemistry
class at the University of Texas had over 600 students. On the date of the final
examination he'd never met her and had zero control over her final grade. On the
other hand, her microbiology instructor in a graduate course at the University
of Maine became her husband over 20 years ago.
Another factor is networking. For example, Harvard Business School students
meeting face-to-face in courses bond in life-long networks that may be stronger
than for students who've never established networks via classes, dining halls,
volley ball games, softball games, rowing on the Charles River, etc. There's
more to lerning than is typically tested in competency examinations.
My point is that there are many externalities to both onsite and online
learning. And concluding that there's "little difference in learning" depends
upon what you mean by learning. The SCALE experiments at the University of
Illinois found that students having the same instructor tended to do slightly
better than onsite students. This is partly because there are fewer logistical
time wasters in online learning. The effect becomes larger for off-campus
students where commuting time (as in Mexico City) can take hours going to and
from campus.
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on assessment are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Assess.htm
The Cambridge Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning ---
Click Here
The Miniature Guide To Critical Thinking Concepts & Tools ---
Click Here
"Critical Thinking: Why It's So Hard to Teach," by Daniel T.
Willingham ---
http://www.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/issues/summer07/Crit_Thinking.pdf
Also see Simorleon Sense ---
http://www.simoleonsense.com/critical-thinking-why-is-it-so-hard-to-teach/
“Critical thinking is not a set of
skills that can be deployed at any time, in any context. It is a type of
thought that even 3-year-olds can engage in—and even trained scientists
can fail in.”
“Knowing that one should think
critically is not the same as being able to do so. That requires domain
knowledge and practice.”
So, Why Is Thinking Critically So
Hard?
Educators have long noted that school attendance and even academic
success are no guarantee that a student will graduate an effective
thinker in all situations. There is an odd tendency for rigorous
thinking to cling to particular examples or types of problems. Thus, a
student may have learned to estimate the answer to a math problem before
beginning calculations as a way of checking the accuracy of his answer,
but in the chemistry lab, the same student calculates the components of
a compound without noticing that his estimates sum to more than 100
percent. And a student who has learned to thoughtfully discuss the
causes of the American Revolution from both the British and American
perspectives doesn’t even think to question how the Germans viewed World
War II. Why are students able to think critically in one situation, but
not in another? The brief answer is: Thought processes are intertwined
with what is being thought about. Let’s explore this in depth by looking
at a particular kind of critical thinking that has been studied
extensively: problem solving.
Imagine a seventh-grade math class immersed in
word problems. How is it that students will be able to answer one
problem, but not the next, even though mathematically both word problems
are the same, that is, they rely on the same mathematical knowledge?
Typically, the students are focusing on the scenario that the word
problem describes (its surface structure) instead of on the mathematics
required to solve it (its deep structure). So even though students have
been taught how to solve a particular type of word problem, when the
teacher or textbook changes the scenario, students still struggle to
apply the solution because they don’t recognize that the problems are
mathematically the same.
Thinking Tends to Focus on a Problem’s
“Surface Structure”
To understand why the surface structure of a problem is so distracting
and, as a result, why it’s so hard to apply familiar solutions to
problems that appear new, let’s first consider how you understand what’s
being asked when you are given a problem. Anything you hear or read is
automatically interpreted in light of what you already know about
similar subjects. For example, suppose you read these two sentences:
“After years of pressure from the film and television industry, the
President has filed a formal complaint with China over what U.S. firms
say is copyright infringement. These firms assert that the Chinese
government sets stringent trade restrictions for U.S. entertainment
products, even as it turns a blind eye to Chinese companies that copy
American movies and television shows and sell them on the black market.”
With Deep Knowledge, Thinking Can
Penetrate Beyond Surface Structure
If knowledge of how to solve a problem never transferred to problems
with new surface structures, schooling would be inefficient or even
futile—but of course, such transfer does occur. When and why is
complex,5 but two factors are especially relevant for educators:
familiarity with a problem’s deep structure and the knowledge that one
should look for a deep structure. I’ll address each in turn. When one is
very familiar with a problem’s deep-structure, knowledge about how to
solve it transfers well. That familiarity can come from long-term,
repeated experience with one problem, or with various manifestations of
one type of problem (i.e., many problems that have different surface
structures, but the same deep structure). After repeated exposure to
either or both, the subject simply perceives the deep structure as part
of the problem description.
The Cambridge Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning
---
Click Here
The Miniature Guide To Critical Thinking Concepts & Tools ---
Click Here
I must be psychic, because I've been saying this all along ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm
So has Amy Dunbar ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/002cpe/Dunbar2002.htm
"The Medium is Not the Message," by Jonathan Kaplan, Inside Higher Ed,
August 11, 2009 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2009/08/11/kaplan
A few weeks ago, the U.S. Department of Education
released a report that looked at 12 years' worth of education studies, and
found that online learning has clear advantages over face-to-face
instruction.
The study, "An Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A
Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies," stated that “students
who took all or part of their class online performed better, on average,
than those taking the same course through traditional face-to-face
instruction.”
Except for one article,
on this Web site,
you probably didn’t hear about it -- and neither did anyone else.
But imagine for a moment that the report came to the opposite conclusion.
I’m sure that if the U.S. Department of Education had published a report
showing that students in online learning environments performed worse,
there would have been a major outcry in higher education with calls to shut
down distance-learning programs and close virtual campuses.
I believe the reason that the recent study elicited so little commentary is
due to the fact that it flies in the face of the biases held by some across
the higher education landscape. Yet this study confirms what those of us
working in distance education have witnessed for years: Good teaching helps
students achieve, and good teaching comes in many forms.
We know that online learning requires devout attention on the part of both
the professor and the student -- and a collaboration between the two -- in a
different way from that of a face-to-face classroom. These critical aspects
of online education are worth particular mention:
- Greater student engagement: In an
online classroom, there is no back row and nowhere for students to hide.
Every student participates in class.
- Increased faculty attention: In most
online classes, the faculty’s role is focused on mentoring students and
fostering discussion. Interestingly, many faculty members choose to
teach online because they want more student interaction.
- Constant access: The Internet is open
24/7, so students can share ideas and “sit in class” whenever they have
time or when an idea strikes -- whether it be the dead of night or
during lunch. Online learning occurs on the student’s time, making it
more accessible, convenient, and attainable.
At Walden University, where
I am president, we have been holding ourselves accountable for years, as
have many other online universities, regarding assessment. All universities
must ensure that students are meeting program outcomes and learning what
they need for their jobs. To that end, universities should be better able to
demonstrate -- quantitatively and qualitatively -- the employability and
success of their students and graduates.
Recently, we examined the
successes of Walden graduates who are teachers in the Tacoma, Wash., public
school system, and found that students in Walden teachers’ classes tested
with higher literacy rates than did students taught by teachers who earned
their master’s from other universities. There could be many reasons for
this, but, especially in light of the U.S. Department of Education study, it
seems that online learning has contributed meaningfully to their becoming
better teachers.
In higher education, there
is still too much debate about how we are delivering content: Is it online
education, face-to-face teaching, or hybrid instruction? It’s time for us to
stop categorizing higher education by the medium of delivery and start
focusing on its impact and outcomes.
Recently, President Obama remarked, “I think there’s a possibility that
online education can provide, especially for people who are already in the
workforce and want to retrain, the chance to upgrade their skills without
having to quit their job.” As the U.S. Department of Education study
concluded, online education can do that and much more.
But Kaplan above ignores some of the dark side aspects of distance education and
education technology in general ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm
The biggest hurdle, in my opinion, is that if distance education is done
correctly with intensive online communications, instructors soon become burned
out. In an effort to avoid burn out, much of the learning effectiveness is lost.
Hence the distance education paradox.
Kaplan also ignores some of the strong empirical support for online learning,
especially the enlightening SCALE experiments at the University of Illinois ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm#Illinois
August 28, 2009 reply from Bob Jensen
One of the most successful distance education programs in the world, in
my viewpoint, is the masters degree program headquartered in Vancouver
called the Chartered Accountancy School of Business ---
http://www.casb.com/
If you live in Western Canada, you obtain your
CA designation by enrolling in the CA School of Business. The CASB
program is flexible, combining the successful completion of a series of
online modules with a three-year term of professional experience. Find
out more about our program.
Some years back I was one of the outside reviewers brought in to examine
CASB. I was impressed by the quality of this degree program and the tough
standards of the program.
CASB is one of the few competency-based graduate programs in the world.
By competency-based I mean that instructors have inputs in designing
examinations for all students in the program, but at the same time, have no
input in grading individual students. There can be no instructor-option
subjective factors when assigning grades, which means no changes in grade
for effort and interpersonal relationships.
The success of the CASB program, however, is a bit biased as is the
success of the ADEPT Masters of Engineering distance education program in
Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. Firstly, students admitted to
these programs were top undergraduate students majoring in very difficult
concentrations. Secondly, in the case of the CASB, the students are all
employed full time in Chartered Accountancy firms and are under heavy
pressure to do well at all stages of the three year program.
Students do meet face-to-face on some weekends (monthly?) for some live
classes --- case studies and examinations..
One other competency-based distance education program that has been
booming in recent years is Western Governors University in the U.S. ---
http://www.wgu.edu/
Most other distance education programs allow instructors more latitude in
assigning grades.
Bob Jensen
The one thing to keep in mind is that there is no one pedagogy that is best
in all circumstances. And our best students are probably going to get A grades
under any pedagogy ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#AssessmentIssues
The failing of distance education lies more in the instructors than the
students. If done well, distance education tends to burn out instructors and
takes an extraordinary amount of time relative to teaching onsite. If done
poorly, the culprit is most likely the tendency to assign part-time or otherwise
non-tenured instructors to the distance education courses. At the other extreme
we have the dregs of the tenured faculty assigned to the distance education
division.
The really bright spots in distance education are the times when the
practicing professionals who are really good at their craft take on a distance
education course either as a public service or as an experiment to see how they
like teaching. The University of Phoenix has been good at attracting some top
professionals.
The
Chronicle of Higher Education
has extensively studied performance of distance education
One such study was conducted by senior editor Blumenstyk
The Chronicle's Goldie Blumenstyk has covered distance education for more
than a decade, and during that time she's written stories about
the economics of for-profit education,
the ways that online institutions
market themselves, and the demise
of
the 50-percent rule. About the
only thing she hadn't done, it seemed, was to take a course from an online
university. But this spring she finally took the plunge, and now she has
completed a class in government and nonprofit accounting through the University
of Phoenix. She shares tales from the cy ber-classroom -- and her final grade --
in a podcast with Paul Fain, a
Chronicle reporter.
Chronicle of Higher Education, June 11, 2008 (Audio) ---
http://chronicle.com/media/audio/v54/i40/cyber_classroom/
·
All course materials (including textbooks) online; No additional
textbooks to purchase
·
$1,600 fee for the course and materials
·
Woman instructor with respectable academic credentials and
professional experience in course content
·
Instructor had good communications with students and between
students
·
Total of 14 quite dedicated online students in course, most of
whom were mature with full-time day jobs
·
30% of grade from team projects
·
Many unassigned online helper tutorials that were not fully
utilized by Goldie
·
Goldie earned a 92 (A-)
·
She gave a positive evaluation to the course and would gladly take
other courses if she had the time
·
She considered the course to have a
heavy workload
August 11, 2009 reply from Steve Markoff
[smarkoff@KIMSTARR.ORG]
Bob:
I've always believed that the
role of the teacher is one of FACILITATOR. My role in the classroom is
making it EASIER for information to move from one place to another - from
point A to point B. This could be from textbook to student, it could be
from the outside world to the student, from another student to the student,
from the student him or herself to that same student AND from teacher to
student (me to them). In defining the word 'teaching', I think many people
overemphasize the last transition that I mentioned, thinking that the
primary movement of information is from them(the teacher) to the students.
In fact, it constitutes a minority of total facilitated information flow in
a college classroom. I think this misunderstanding leads many to
underestimate the value of other sources in the education process other than
themselves. Online content is just one of many alternative sources.
Unfortunately, online formats do
allow certain professors to hide behind the electronic cloak and
politely excuse themselves from the equation, which greatly hurts the
student. Also, online formats can be fertile ground for professors who lack
not only the desire to 'teach' but the ability and thus become mere
administrators versus teachers.
steve
Hi John and Pat and Others,
I would not say that out loud to Amy Dunbar or Denny Beresford that they’re
easy graders ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/002cpe/02start.htm
I would not say that out loud to the graduates of two principles of
accounting weed out courses year after year at Brigham Young
University where classes meet on relatively rare occasion for inspiration
about accountancy but not technical learning ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#BYUvideo
Try to tell the graduates of Stanford University’s ADEPT Masters of
Electrical Engineering program that they had an easier time of it because
the entire program was online.
There’s an interesting article entitled how researchers misconstrue
causality:
Like elaborately plumed birds … we preen and strut and display our
t-values.” That was Edward Leamer’s uncharitable description of his
profession in 1983.
“Cause and Effect: Instrumental variable help to isolate causal
relationships, but they can be taken too far,” The Economist, August
15-21, 20098 Page 68.
It is often the case that distance education courses are taught by
non-tenured instructors, and non-tenured instructors may be easier with
respect to grading than tenured faculty because they are even more in need
of strong teaching evaluations --- so as to not lose their jobs. The problem
may have nothing whatsoever to do with online versus onsite education ---
ergo misconstrued causality.
I think it’s very rewarding to look at grading in formal studies
using the same full-time faculty teaching sections of online versus onsite
students. By formal study, I mean using the same instructors, the same
materials, and essentially the same examinations. The major five-year,
multimillion dollar study that first caught my eye was the SCALE experiments
on the campus of the University of Illinois where 30 courses from various
disciplines were examined over a five year experiment.
Yes the SCALE experiments showed that some students got higher grades
online, notably B students who became A students and C students who became A
students. The online pedagogy tended to have no effect on D and F students
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm#Illinois
Listen to Dan Stone’s audio about the SCALE Experiments ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/000cpe/00start.htm
But keep in mind that in the SCALE experiments, the same instructor of a
course was grading both the online and onsite sections of the same course.
The reason was not likely to be that online sections were easier. The SCALE
experiments collected a lot of data pointing to more intense communications
with instructors and more efficient use of student’s time that is often
wasted in going to classes.
The students in the experiment were full time on campus students, such that
the confounding problems of having adult part-time students was not a factor
in the SCALE experiments of online, asynchronous learning.
A Statement About Why the SCALE Experiments Were Funded
ALN = Asynchronous Learning
We are particularly interested in new
outcomes that may be possible through ALN. Asynchronous computer networks
have the potential to
improve contact with faculty,
perhaps making self-paced learning a realizable goal for some off- and
on-campus students. For example, a motivated student could progress more
rapidly toward a degree. Students who are motivated but find they cannot
keep up the pace, may be able to slow down and take longer to complete a
degree, and not just drop out in frustration. So we are interested in what
impact ALN will have on outcomes such as time-to-degree and student
retention. There are many opportunities where ALN may contribute to another
outcome: lowering the cost of education, e.g., by naturally introducing new
values for old measures such as student-faculty ratios. A different kind of
outcome for learners who are juggling work and family responsibilities,
would be to be able to earn a degree or certification at home. This latter
is a special focus for us.
Alfred P. Sloan
Foundation's Program in
Learning Outside the Classroom at
http://w3.scale.uiuc.edu/scale/
Another study that I love to point to was funded by the Chronicle of
Higher Education. Read about when one of the Chronicle’s senior
editors took a Governmental Accounting Course at the University of Phoenix
during which the instructor of the course had not idea that Goldie
Blumenstyk
was assessing how difficult or how easy the course was for students in
general. I think Goldie’s audio report of her experience is still available
from the Chronicle of Higher Education. Goldie came away from the
course exhausted.
The Chronicle's Goldie Blumenstyk has covered
distance education for more than a decade, and during that time she's
written stories about
the economics of for-profit education, the ways that online institutions
market themselves, and the demise of
the 50-percent rule. About the only thing she hadn't done, it seemed,
was to take a course from an online university. But this spring she finally
took the plunge, and now she has completed a class in government and
nonprofit accounting through the University of Phoenix. She shares tales
from the cy ber-classroom -- and her final grade --
in a podcast with Paul Fain, a Chronicle reporter.
Chronicle of Higher Education, June 11, 2008 (Audio) ---
http://chronicle.com/media/audio/v54/i40/cyber_classroom/
· All course
materials (including textbooks) online; No additional textbooks to purchase
· $1,600 fee for the
course and materials
· Woman instructor
with respectable academic credentials and experience in course content
· Instructor had
good communications with students and between students
· Total of 14 quite
dedicated online students in course, most of whom were mature with full-time
day jobs
· 30% of grade from
team projects
· Many unassigned
online helper tutorials that were not fully utilized by Goldie
· Goldie earned a 92
(A-)
· She gave a
positive evaluation to the course and would gladly take other courses if she
had the time
·
She considered the course to have a heavy workload
"U. of Phoenix Reports on Its Students' Academic
Achievement," by Goldie Blumenstyk, Chronicle of Higher Education,
June 5, 2008 ---
http://chronicle.com/daily/2008/06/3115n.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
The 2006 National Survey of Student Engagement, released November 13,
2006, for the first time offers a close look at distance education, offering
provocative new data suggesting that e-learners report higher levels of
engagement, satisfaction and academic challenge than their on-campus peers
---
http://nsse.iub.edu/NSSE_2006_Annual_Report/index.cfm
"The Engaged E-Learner," by Elizabeth Redden, Inside Higher Ed,
November 13, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/11/13/nsse
September 4, 2009 message from Carolyn Kotlas
[kotlas@email.unc.edu]
REPORT ON ONLINE EDUCATION
STUDY
"More than one-third of public
university faculty have taught an online course while more than one-half
have recommended an online course to students . . . . In addition, nearly 64
percent of faculty said it takes 'somewhat more' or 'a lot more' effort to
teach online compared to a face-to-face course. However, a large majority of
faculty cited student needs as a primary motivator for teaching online, most
commonly citing 'meet student needs for flexible access' or the 'best way to
reach particular students' as the reason they choose to teach online
courses."
The two-part report, "Online
Learning as a Strategic Asset," published by the Association of Public and
Land-grant Universities (APLU) and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation,
summarizes the results of the APLU-Sloan National Commission on Online
Learning Benchmarking Study conducted in
2008 and 2009 that surveyed 45
public institutions across the U.S. The study was "designed to illuminate
how public institutions develop and implement the key organizational
strategies, processes, and procedures that contribute to successful and
robust online learning initiatives."
Volume I:
"A Resource for Campus Leaders" reports the results of
231 interviews conducted with administrators,
faculty, and students on online learning programs and initiatives.
http://www.aplu.org/NetCommunity/Document.Doc?id=1877
Volume II:
"The Paradox of Faculty Voices: Views and Experiences with Online Learning"
reports on the results of a survey of over
10,700 faculty respondents which included a
mix of tenure and non-tenure track, full- and part-time, and those who have
and those who have not taught online.
http://www.aplu.org/NetCommunity/Document.Doc?id=1879
The Association of Public and
Land-Grant Universities (APLU), formerly the National Association of State
Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC), was founded in 1887 and
represents 186 public research universities in the United States. For more
information, contact: APLU,
1307 New York Avenue, NW,
Suite 400, Washington, DC 20005-4722 USA;
tel: 202-478-6040; fax:
202-478-6046; Web:
http://www.aplu.org/
Articles providing an overview
and summary of the study:
"Strong Faculty Engagement in
Online Learning APLU Reports"
A PUBLIC VOICE: APLU'S ONLINE
NEWSLETTER, August 31, 2009
http://www.aplu.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=1347
"Going For Distance"
INSIDE HIGHER ED, August 31,
2009
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/08/31/survey
"Professors Embrace Online
Courses Despite Qualms About Quality"
THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER
EDUCATION, August 31, 2009
http://chronicle.com/article/Professors-Embrace-Online/48235/
......................................................................
FUTURE OF SCHOLARLY
PUBLISHING
In 2006, the National
Humanities Alliance (NHA) created a task force to assist in "exploring
issues related to scholarly journal publishing in [U.S.] humanities and
social science (HSS) associations." Each of the eight collaborating
associations selected a representative journal for detailed review. Among
the study's findings was that "a shift to an entirely new funding model in
the pure form of Open Access (author/producer pays) in which the costs of
publishing research articles in journals are paid for by authors or a
funding agency, and readers have access free online, is not currently a
sustainable option for any of this group of journals based on the costs
provided."
The report of the study, "The
Future of Scholarly Journals Publishing Among Social Science and Humanities
Associations," is available at
http://www.nhalliance.org/bm~doc/hssreport.pdf
Founded in 1981, the National
Humanities Alliance is a non-profit organization to "advance national
humanities policy in the areas of research, education, preservation and
public programs." For more information, contact: National Humanities
Alliance, 21 Dupont Circle NW, Suite 800, Washington, DC 20036 USA; tel:
202-296-4994; fax:
202-872-0884; Web:
http://www.nhalliance.org/
See also:
"Reinventing Academic
Publishing Online. Part I: Rigor, Relevance and Practice"
by Brian Whitworth and Rob
Friedman
FIRST MONDAY, vol. 14, no. 8,
August 3, 2009
http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/2609/2248
"While current computing
practice abounds with innovations like online auctions, blogs, wikis,
twitter, social networks and online social games, few if any genuinely new
theories have taken root in the corresponding 'top' academic journals. Those
creating computing progress increasingly see these journals as unreadable,
outdated and irrelevant. Yet as technology practice creates, technology
theory is if anything becoming even more conforming and less relevant. We
attribute this to the erroneous assumption that research rigor is
excellence, a myth contradicted by the scientific method itself. Excess
rigor supports the demands of appointment, grant and promotion committees,
but is drying up the wells of academic inspiration."
......................................................................
RECOMMENDED READING
"Recommended Reading" lists
items that have been recommended to me or that Infobits readers have found
particularly interesting and/or useful, including books, articles, and
websites published by Infobits subscribers. Send your recommendations to
carolyn_kotlas@unc.edu for possible inclusion in
this column.
"Perishing Without Publishing"
By Rob Weir
INSIDE HIGHER ED, August 12,
2009
http://www.insidehighered.com/advice/instant_mentor/weir11
"As one who has served (and is
serving) as an associate editor for actual paper journals, let me share some
bad practice observations that could sandbag your career -- and this advice
almost all applies to any online peer-reviewed journal too."
-- Rob Weir
"How to Generate Reader
Interest in What You Write"
By Philip Yaffe
UBIQUITY, June 23 - 29, 2009
http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/volume_10/v10i7_yaffe.html
" Unfortunately, most would-be
authors cling to the myth that if they just put in enough effort, people
will automatically want to read what they write."
-- Philip Yaffe
Bob Jensen's threads on the dark side are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm
My threads on education technology in general are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm
Why Top
Universities Will Be ALN Course "Vendors"
Before reading this section, you may want to take a brief look at The Web of Asynchronous Learning
Networks.
The following quotation from a high-level Massachusetts Institute of
Technology EVAT committee report says it all in terms of why top universities will offer
networked courses and programs.
Risks and Opportunities. MIT could easily misjudge
the impact of advanced technologies if we are not prepared. If distance education becomes
well understood by other universities but not us, we are at risk of losing our reputation
as leaders in education. We might find ourselves competing on price with other
universities in courses like our freshman subjects. Or, on the other hand, we might
overlook the opportunity to capitalize on MIT's name recognition to market education
programs for the large number of students who are qualified for MIT but whom we cannot
admit for lack of space.
As quoted from the Long Range Recommendations
at http://www-evat.mit.edu/report/long.html
In the Executive Summary of that same EVAT Committee Report it is
stated that
Of all the possible futures for MIT, the most disturbing is
the one in which others find out how to offer distance education using advanced
technologies, and MIT either does not learn how, or elects not to offer it. The economic
strength of MIT could be seriously undercut by competition as a result.
Competitors will not just come from traditional colleges and
universities. Junk bond king Michael Milken is putting together a virtual education
training empire known as Knowledge Universe. To date, Knowledge Universe has
invested multimillions of dollars to acquire and build an online educational empire that
will challenge schools ranging from local elementary schools to Ivy League universities.
The goal, according to Milken, is to use computers and networking technologies to
make education and training available virtually anywhere in the world. It is too
soon to predict when and how fast accredited programs will be online, but traditional
colleges and universities are not waiting for the business world to take over market
shares.
A message about an online course from the Harvard Law School is
provided in Appendix 2.
Another reason universities may one day be vendors of networked
courses is that grants have been provided to a significant number of universities to
develop asynchronous networked courses. Once these courses are networked on a given
campus, it becomes profitable to distribute ALN courses to other universities. The
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Program in Learning Outside the Classroom has issued a number
of Asynchronous Learning Network (ALN ) grants including a $500,000 grant to the new
virtual Western Governors University and similar (larger and smaller) grants to Brown
University, Cornell University, Virginia Tech, University of Minnesota, Penn State, NYU,
UC Berkeley, Stanford University, and many others listed at
http://www.sloan.org/Education/ALN.new.html#grants. Also see http://w3.scale.uiuc.edu/scale/
for a description of the program.
Yet another reason for distributing networked ALN courses is they
appear to be more effective than traditional pedagogy if they are developed and
administered properly. Readers interested in asynchronous learning experiments may want to
track the ALN experiments at the University of Illinois (under a $2.1 million Sloan ALN
grant for 25 classes in varying disciplines as described at http://ftp.cs.uiuc.edu/CS_INFO_SERVER/ALUMNI_INFO/newsletter/v1n6/sloan.html). experiments at
the University of Illinois are discussed at http://w3.scale.uiuc.edu/scale/
From: lanny arvan
[SMTP:l-arvan@uiuc.edu]
Sent:
Sunday, February 15, 1998 10:20 AM
Dear Prof. Jensen
Andy Bailey just sent
an e-mail alerting me to your site. I appreciate all the mention of SCALE's work. I also
appreciate your discussion of some of my in-house papers on ALN.
For your information,
the server that houses these essays is at http://www.cba.uiuc.edu/~larvan/ALNessays/ALN1.html
Also, you may find the
following of interest: http://www.cba.uiuc.edu/~larvan/ALNessays/ALN5.html
This material is all
from 1996, though essay 5 was written a bit later than the earlier essays.
We are working on some
some more recent evaluation material involving the SCALE efficiency projects. If you are
interested, I'll be happy to send it to you (or give you the url) when it is available.
Lanny Arvan l-arvan@uiuc.edu
SCALE, phone:
217-333-7054, fax: 217-333-7427
Department of
Economics, phone: 217-333-4587, fax: 217-244-6678
An example course description is noted below:
INTERMEDIATE MICROECONOMICS: I have been teaching my
undergraduate course using Asynchronous Learning Networks (ALN) to enhance instruction. We
have been using a conferencing program called FirstClass to have students interact with
each other, me, and on-line undergraduate TAs. We have used FirstClass to have the written
homework submitted and graded electronically. This semester we will also be using the Web
software "Mallard" for having the students do quizzes online. Click here to go
to the Mallard home page of Econ 300. This site is password protected. You can get course
information which is not password protected by following this link Course Information.
From there you can access some other interesting links.
From Lanny Arvan in the Department of
Economics http://www.cba.uiuc.edu/system/faculty/profiles/arvan.html
I must be psychic, because I've been saying this all along ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm
So has Amy Dunbar ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/002cpe/Dunbar2002.htm
"The Medium is Not the Message," by Jonathan Kaplan, Inside Higher Ed,
August 11, 2009 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2009/08/11/kaplan
A few weeks ago, the U.S. Department of Education
released a report that looked at 12 years' worth of education studies, and
found that online learning has clear advantages over face-to-face
instruction.
The study, "An Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A
Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies," stated that “students
who took all or part of their class online performed better, on average,
than those taking the same course through traditional face-to-face
instruction.”
Except for one article,
on this Web site, you
probably didn’t hear about it -- and neither did anyone else.
But imagine for a moment that the report came to the opposite conclusion.
I’m sure that if the U.S. Department of Education had published a report
showing that students in online learning environments performed worse,
there would have been a major outcry in higher education with calls to shut
down distance-learning programs and close virtual campuses.
I believe the reason that the recent study elicited so little commentary is
due to the fact that it flies in the face of the biases held by some across
the higher education landscape. Yet this study confirms what those of us
working in distance education have witnessed for years: Good teaching helps
students achieve, and good teaching comes in many forms.
We know that online learning requires devout attention on the part of both
the professor and the student -- and a collaboration between the two -- in a
different way from that of a face-to-face classroom. These critical aspects
of online education are worth particular mention:
- Greater student engagement: In an
online classroom, there is no back row and nowhere for students to hide.
Every student participates in class.
- Increased faculty attention: In most
online classes, the faculty’s role is focused on mentoring students and
fostering discussion. Interestingly, many faculty members choose to
teach online because they want more student interaction.
- Constant access: The Internet is open
24/7, so students can share ideas and “sit in class” whenever they have
time or when an idea strikes -- whether it be the dead of night or
during lunch. Online learning occurs on the student’s time, making it
more accessible, convenient, and attainable.
At Walden University, where
I am president, we have been holding ourselves accountable for years, as
have many other online universities, regarding assessment. All universities
must ensure that students are meeting program outcomes and learning what
they need for their jobs. To that end, universities should be better able to
demonstrate -- quantitatively and qualitatively -- the employability and
success of their students and graduates.
Recently, we examined the
successes of Walden graduates who are teachers in the Tacoma, Wash., public
school system, and found that students in Walden teachers’ classes tested
with higher literacy rates than did students taught by teachers who earned
their master’s from other universities. There could be many reasons for
this, but, especially in light of the U.S. Department of Education study, it
seems that online learning has contributed meaningfully to their becoming
better teachers.
In higher education, there
is still too much debate about how we are delivering content: Is it online
education, face-to-face teaching, or hybrid instruction? It’s time for us to
stop categorizing higher education by the medium of delivery and start
focusing on its impact and outcomes.
Recently, President Obama remarked, “I think there’s a possibility that
online education can provide, especially for people who are already in the
workforce and want to retrain, the chance to upgrade their skills without
having to quit their job.” As the U.S. Department of Education study
concluded, online education can do that and much more.
But Kaplan above ignores some of the dark side aspects of distance education and
education technology in general ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm
The biggest hurdle, in my opinion, is that if distance education is done
correctly with intensive online communications, instructors soon become burned
out. In an effort to avoid burn out, much of the learning effectiveness is lost.
Hence the distance education paradox.
Kaplan also ignores some of the strong empirical support for online learning,
especially the enlightening SCALE experiments at the University of Illinois ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm#Illinois
So
much learning now takes place online, including faculty office hours, study
groups, and lectures.
What extra value are you going to need to offer to bring the students of the
future to your college?
Read the new report, "The College of 2020: Students," from Chronicle Research
Services.
"THE COLLEGE OF 2020: STUDENTS," The Chronicle of Higher Education,
June 2009 ---
http://research.chronicle.com/asset/TheCollegeof2020ExecutiveSummary.pdf?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
This is the first Chronicle Research Services
report in a three-part series on what higher education will look like in the
year 2020. It is based on reviews of research and data on trends in higher
education, interviews with experts who are shaping the future of colleges,
and the results of a poll of members of a Chronicle Research Services panel
of admissions officials.
To buy the full, data-rich 50-page report, see the
links at the end of this Executive Summary. Later reports in this series
will look at college technology and facilities in 2020, and the faculty of
the future.
"The Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital Age," by Jane
Park, Creative Commons, June 26th, 2009 ---
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/15522
HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology
Advanced Collaboratory) announced a new report called, “The
Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital Age,”
now available at MIT Press. The report is in response to our changing times,
and addresses what traditional educational institutions must know to keep
up. From the
announcement,
“Cathy N. Davidson and David Theo Goldberg in
an abridged version of their book-in-progress, The Future of Thinking:
Learning Institutions in a Digital Age, argue that traditional
institutions must adapt or risk a growing mismatch between how they
teach and how this new generation learns. Forms and models of learning
have evolved quickly and in fundamentally new directions. Yet how we
teach, where we teach, who teaches, and who administers and serves have
changed only around the edges. This report was made possible by a grant
from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in connection
with its grant making initiative on Digital Media and Learning.”
A central finding was that “Universities must
recognize this new way of learning and adapt or risk becoming obsolete. The
university model of teaching and learning relies on a hierarchy of
expertise, disciplinary divides, restricted admission to those considered
worthy, and a focused, solitary area of expertise. However, with
participatory learning and digital media, these conventional modes of
authority break down.”
Not coincidentally, one of the ten principles for
redesigning learning institutions was open source education: “Traditional
learning environments convey knowledge via overwhelmingly
copyright-protected publications. Networked learning, contrastingly, is an
“open source” culture that seeks to share openly and freely in both creating
and distributing knowledge and products.”
The report is available in
PDF via
CC BY-NC-ND.
http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/chapters/Future_of_Learning.pdf
Also see
http://www.convergemag.com/workforce/47240132.html
Our Compassless Colleges ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#Berkowitz
Professor Arvan provides an online essay entitled "Economics of
ALN: 1. Output Effects" at
http://www.cba.uiuc.edu/~larvan/ALNessays/ALN1.html , the lead quote reads as follows (emphasis added):
Many of us early adopters of ALN contend that "it
works," --- students do better under ALN than in the traditional approach.
This essay is intended to provide an economics framework for explaining what is going on
here, across disciplines, to suggest future directions for validating our contention, and
to aid instructors in thinking about how to use ALN in their course.
In the above essay,
Professor Arvan discusses ALN in terms of students classified as "Eager Beavers"
versus
"Drones"versus "Sluggos."
He
contends that ALN approaches should differ for each type of student. Another essay of
interest by him is an ALN time management essay given at http://www.cba.uiuc.edu/~larvan/ALNessays/ALN5.html
One of the most complete listing of asynchronous advantages and
disadvantages can be found by using the search engine at the University of Illinois home
page at http://www.uiuc.edu/ On February 12, 1998 this
search engine generated 1,494 documents on asynchronous learning topics at the University
of Illinois. experiments at the
University of Illinois are discussed at http://w3.scale.uiuc.edu/scale/
Click on http://www.trinity.edu/~rjensen/slide01.htm
to see Professor Oakley's PowerPoint slide on grade impacts in the course ECE 270. Early evidence indicates that students do as well or better in
acynchronous courses that do not meet in classrooms. Another
PowerPoint slide on the same page shows substantial
increases in communication between a student and the instructor(s) and other students.
"New
Book by Pollster John Zogby Says Online Education Is Rapidly Gaining Acceptance,"
Chronicle of Higher Education, August 12, 23008 ---
http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=3236&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
John Zogby, president & CEO
of the polling company Zogby International, says that American students are
quickly warming up to the idea of taking classes online, just as consumers
have taken to the idea of renting movies via Netflix and buying microbrewed
beer.
In a new book by Mr. Zogby released today, he said
that polls show a sharp increase in acceptance of online education in the
past year. For more on the story, see
a free article in today’s Chronicle.
National surveys show that a majority
of Americans think online universities offer a lower quality of
education than do traditional institutions. But a prominent pollster,
John Zogby, says in a book being released today that it won't be long
before American society takes to distance education as warmly as it has
embraced game-changing innovations like microbrewed beers, Flexcars, and
"the simple miracle of Netflix."
The factor that will close that
"enthusiasm gap" is the growing use of distance education by
well-respected universities, Mr. Zogby predicts in the book, The Way
We'll Be: The Zogby Report on the Transformation of the American Dream
(Random House).
The book, which is based on Zogby
International polls and other studies, also touches on public attitudes
toward politics, consumer habits, spirituality, and international
affairs, and on what men and women really do want from each other. Mr.
Zogby says polls detect signs of society's emerging resistance to big
institutions, and its de-emphasis on things and places. "We're
redefining geography and space," he says—and a widening acceptance of
online education is part of the trend.
Today there is still a "cultural lag"
between the public's desire for flexible ways to take college courses
and what the most-established players offer, Mr. Zogby said in an
interview with The Chronicle on Monday. "There's a sense that
those who define the standard haven't caught on yet," he said.
But Mr. Zogby writes that polling by
his organization shows that attitudes about online education are
changing fast. His polling also points to other challenges that colleges
will face as they race to serve a worldwise generation of
18-to-29-year-olds that Mr. Zogby calls "First Globals."
In one 2007 poll of more 5,000 adults,
Zogby International found that 30 percent of respondents were taking or
had taken an online course, and another 50 percent said they would
consider taking one. He says the numbers might skew a little high
because this poll was conducted online and the definition of an online
course was broad, including certificate programs or training modules
offered by employers.
Only 27 percent of respondents agreed
that "online universities and colleges provide the same quality of
education" as traditional institutions. Among those 18 to 24 years old,
only 23 percent agreed.
An even greater proportion of those
polled said it was their perception that employers and academic
professionals thought more highly of traditional institutions than
online ones.
Rapid Shift in Attitude
Yet in another national poll in
December 2007, conducted for Excelsior College, 45 percent of the 1,004
adults surveyed believed "an online class carries the same value as a
traditional-classroom class," and 43 percent of 1,545 chief executives
and small-business owners agreed that a degree earned by distance
learning "is as credible" as one from a traditional campus-based
program.
Mr. Zogby said that differing
attitudes in two polls within a year show that "the gap was closing"—and
he said that wasn't as surprising as it might seem. As with changing
perceptions about other cultural phenomena, "these paradigm shifts
really are moving at lightning speed."
That, says Mr. Zogby, is why he writes
about online universities in a chapter—"Dematerializing the
Paradigm"—that discusses the rise of car-sharing companies like Flexcar
(now merged with Zipcar), the emergence of Internet blogs as a source of
news and information, and the popularity of microbrewed beer.
And while it may be true that
microbrews and Zipcars, at least, are still very much niche products,
Mr. Zogby says they are signs of transcendent change—just like the
distance-education courses that are being offered by more and more
institutions across the country. "When you add up all the niche
products, it's a market unto itself," he says.
In the book, Mr. Zogby also highlights
the emerging influence of the First Globals, whom his book calls "the
most outward-looking and accepting generation in American history."
First Globals, he says, are more socially tolerant and internationally
aware.
It is these First Globals, he writes,
who are shaping what he says is nothing short of a "fundamental
reorientation of the American character away from wanton consumption and
toward a new global citizenry in an age of limited resources."
Higher education, he said in the
interview, needs to take notice and adapt. These days, he said, students
are much more likely to have experienced other cultures firsthand,
either as tourists or because they have immigrated from someplace else.
Whether college for them is a traditional complex of buildings or an
interactive online message board, said Mr. Zogby, "there is a different
student on campus."
Bob Jensen's threads on distance education are at the following sites:
"The Great Debate: Effectiveness of Technology in Education," by
Patricia Deubel, T.H.E. Journal, November 2007 ---
http://www.thejournal.com/articles/21544
According to Robert Kuhn (2000), an expert in brain
research, few people understand the complexity of that change. Technology is
creating new thinking that is "at once creative and innovative, volatile and
turbulent" and "nothing less than a shift in worldview." The change in
mental process has been brought about because "(1) information is freely
available, and therefore interdisciplinary ideas and cross-cultural
communication are widely accessible; (2) time is compressed, and therefore
reflection is condensed and decision-making is compacted; (3) individuals
are empowered, and therefore private choice and reach are strengthened and
one person can have the presence of an institution" (sec: Concluding
Remarks).
If we consider thinking as both individual
(internal) and social (external), as Rupert Wegerif (2000) suggests, then "[t]echnology,
in various forms from language to the internet, carries the external form of
thinking. Technology therefore has a role to play through supporting
improved social thinking (e.g. providing systems to mediate decision making
and collective reasoning) and also through providing tools to help
individuals externalize their thinking and so to shape their own social
worlds" (p. 15).
The new tools for communication that have become
part of the 21st century no doubt contribute to thinking. Thus, in a debate
on effectiveness or on implementation of a particular tool, we must also
consider the potential for creativity, innovation, volatility, and
turbulence that Kuhn (2000) indicates.
Continued in article
Bob Jensen's threads on education technology are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on assessment are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm
Why All
Universities May Be ALN Course "Customers"
Before reading this section, you may want to take a brief look at The Web of Asynchronous Learning
Networks.
Synchronous education in a scheduled sequence of classes will face
serious new competition of asynchronous education distributed on networks where students
learn and communicate most any day and most any time of day and study at their own paces.
An example is the new online Western Governors University at http://www.wgu.edu/
. Now all western states are part of WGU and some states
east of the Mississippi River (e.g., Indiana) are investigating how to join up.
Another example is California Virtual University. Sherri Moore sent me the following
message:
July 22, 1998
Please consider adding a link from your Web site to the California Virtual University at http://www.california.edu
The CVU integrates into one site on the Internet the online and
technology-mediated classes of 92 accredited California colleges and universities,
including Stanford, UCLA, UC Berkeley and USC. In total, more than 1,600 courses are
available.
Visitors to the CVU Web site can register to be notified by
e-mail when new courses are added by accredited California campuses. The course
notification system can be personalized to match specific interest areas. The CVU is a
tremendous resource for anyone seeking education online.
Thank you for considering this request
Moore, Sherri [SMoore@VUDesign.ca.gov]
Update in April 1999
California Virtual University will cease operations as
an independent distance-education institution, following reluctance on the part of the
ventures partnersthe states three public-college systems and the
association of independent collegesto put up $1 million a year for the next three
years to cover operating costs. CVU will retain its searchable Web site <http://www.california.edu>, which lists available
courses at more than 100 participating colleges and universities. Funding already received
by CVU, including $250,000 from the Alfred P. Sloan foundation and $375,000 from corporate
sponsorships, has already been spent, in part on developing the Web site. CEO Stanley
Chodorow said in a mid-March e-mail message that "We just did not have enough fuel to
get up to takeoff speed." (Chronicle of Higher Education 2 Apr 99)
Ideally, faculty or other expert help is available online to both
help students and evaluate student work and ideas. In addition, asynchronous courses may
schedule synchronous virtual online meetings of subsets of students or entire classes of
students. Networked courses may thus be synchronous and asynchronous, although the
technical learning components are largely asynchronous.
The largest growth opportunities in learning and education lie in
networked courses and programs. Everybody expects high-prestige "vendor"
universities and corporations to invest in ALN courses and market them based upon vendor
name recognition (e.g., MIT or AT&T). Eventually, all universities may become
"customers" for ALN courses developed at other universities. Even
universities that sell an ALN course in one discipline may contract to purchase an ALN
course in another discipline. The main reason will be the need to fill gaps in
curricula with more courses than can be feasibly developed and delivered by resident
faculty. Current gaps will be more visible as online education opportunities become more
popular due to a wide array of specialty courses not presently found in most traditional
curricula.
Although US News and World Report and Money Magazine
have both given Trinity University the distinction of being Number 1 in its classification
(Western Region), there are gaps in the teeth of its curriculum. There are gaps in the
curriculum of literally every university, and the gaps are more serious in smaller
universities that try to live up to coverage across multiple disciplines implied by the
term "university."
For example, the Business Administration program at Trinity
University needs to introduce curriculum coverage of newer business technology courses
that are not feasible to develop and administer with existing faculty. We especially need
to add elective courses in specialized areas. Examples of the types of specialties are
listed later on in this paper. Adding new faculty and course coverage in an array of
varied specialties is not deemed an option in the foreseeable future.
A factor in ALN use is hardware, software, and instructor abilities
to handle ALN. Potential advantages of ALN in existing courses are so monumental that most
campuses are experimenting with ALN at the moment and contemplating more widespread
deployment for existing courses. Advantages and disadvantages of doing so are discussed in
http://www.trinity.edu/~rjensen/245ch02.htm#Asynchronous1.
Advantages include the following and are elaborated for computer
aided learning (CAL) at http://www.trinity.edu/~rjensen/245ch02.htm#Advantages4:
- The main advantages of asynchronous CAL are that student
learning is self-paced and interactive.
- Educators can experiment in creative ways using unique and
intriguing WWW sites.
- Other advantages are remote delivery of cost-efficient and
conveniently distributed "virtual" courses.
- Cross-cultural and cross-functional teams of students can be
formed in virtual education and research.
- Networked learning combines fun and education for students
as they surf the Internet in teams or on their own.
- Colleges are expanding their markets with CAL in lifelong
learning programs.
- Both better student performance and higher evaluations of
instructors can result.
- You must ultimately adopt new learning technologies in your
courses and program curricula..
- You can experiment with paperless courses.
- You can become a part of a world wide movement of
researchers experimenting with new and creative ways to utilize modern technology in
education.
- Accounting educators can react to appeals of the Accounting
Education Change Commission.
- You will find funding sources for technology research and
application increasing at a much faster rate in the future.
- You may discover that new technology can lead to more
cross-discipline research and applications.
- You can avoid teaching toward obsolescence.
- You can play a greater part in developing and sharing
learning materials with professors and students in foreign nations, notably underdeveloped
nations.
Ways to Avoid the Disadvantages of Asynchronous Modules and
Courses are listed below for computer aided learning (CAL) and elaborated upon in greater
detail at http://www.trinity.edu/~rjensen/245ch02.htm#Ways2
- Try to resist temptations to dehumanize some courses by eliminating
face-to-face encounters.
- Asynchronous CAL can be extremely effective for learning technical
material before coming to class. However, be reasonable about the time expected for
network learning outside of class.
- Delete as well as add material with each revision (or create optional
rather than required links to material of less importance in the course).
- Obtain student feedback on CAL modules.
- Avoid requiring rote memorization of CAL online material.
- Try to avoid getting the image of being a computer hacker more interested
in the machines per se than what they can do for your teaching and research.
- Remember that it is usually more important to inspire students to want to
learn than it is to have them learn technical content in any particular course.
- Remember the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) rule.
- Try to attain face-to-face socialization benefits in virtual
universities.
- There are risks of obvious and not-so-obvious copyright violations even
in uncontrolled distributions on CDs, intranets, and the WWW.
- There are risks of copyright violations due to uncertainties in Education
Fair Use Laws covering new technologies.
- Research on effectiveness of CAL is often futile due to the pace of
technological change, the variation in learning ingredients, and Hawthorne effects.
Results of some experiments in virtual learning at Texas Christian
University are reported at http://zeta.is.tcu.edu/~blobert/vle/project.html.
When ALN becomes more widely deployed in existing courses, it
becomes much easier to expand the curriulum by "buying into" selected off-campus
ALN courses from other colleges and universities.
The Wandering Path From Knowledge Portals to MOOCs
You can read about the early knowledge portal experiment at Columbia
University that offered great hopes by failed early on.
Fathom was one of the early on initiatives to create an academic knowledge
portal somewhat similar to Wikipedia, although Columbia and its prestigious
university partners were taking on responsibility for content rather than users.
Fathom was not a Wiki.
Bob Jensen's threads on Fathom and Other Knowledge Portals ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/portals.htm
Note that this page was written before Columbia and its partners abandoned
the costly effort.
Fathom Partners
- Columbia University
- London School of Economics and Political Science
- Cambridge University Press
- The British Library
- Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History
- The New York Public Library University of Chicago
- American Film Institute
- RAND
- Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
"A Pioneer in Online Education Tries a MOOC," by Ann Kirschner,
Chronicle of Higher Ed, October 1, 2012 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/A-Pioneer-in-Online-Education/134662/?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
MOOOOOOOOC! Surely "massive open online course" has
one of the ugliest acronyms of recent years, lacking the deliberate
playfulness of Yahoo (Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle) or the
droll shoulder shrug suggested by the word "snafu" (Situation Normal, All
Fouled Up).
I'm not a complete neophyte to online learning.
Back in 1999, I led the start-up team for Fathom, one of the earliest
knowledge networks, in partnership with Columbia University and other
institutions here and abroad, and I'm a board member of the Apollo Group. So
I was understandably curious about these MOOC's. With fond memories of a
thrilling virtual trip a dozen years ago to Ephesus, Turkey, via a
multimedia-rich, self-paced course created by a professor at the University
of Michigan at Ann Arbor, I decided to check out a MOOC for myself.
Coursera, a new company that offers free online
courses through some of the world's best-known universities, had the widest
and most impressive selection. I blocked my ears to the siren call of
science fiction, poetry, and history and opted for something sober: "Health
Policy and the Affordable Care Act." It's taught by the Emanuel brother who
isn't the Chicago mayor or the Hollywood superagent—Ezekiel Emanuel, an M.D.
and Ph.D. who teaches at the University of Pennsylvania. For the next eight
weeks, I was part of a noisy, active, earnest, often contentious, and
usually interesting group of students. There didn't seem to be any way to
gauge the number enrolled, but I learned about the students from a
discussion group. There were quite a few lawyers, doctors, and other
health-care professionals. Some were struggling with personal health
disasters and wanted tools to predict how the health-care act would affect
their futures. Some were international researchers doing comparative
studies. Others were higher-education folks like me, testing the MOOC
waters.
The quality and format of the discussions were
immediate disappointments. A teaching assistant provided some adult
supervision, but too many of the postings were at the dismal level of most
anonymous Internet comments: nasty, brutish, and long. The reliance on
old-fashioned threaded message groups made it impossible to distinguish
online jerks from potential geniuses. I kept wishing for a way to break the
large group into small cohorts self-selected by background or
interests—health-care professionals, for instance, or those particularly
interested in the economics of health care. There was no way to build a
discussion, no equivalent to the hush that comes over the classroom when the
smart kid raises his or her hand.
If you believe the sage's advice that we learn much
from our teachers and colleagues but most of all from our students, MOOC's
will be far more effective when we are able to learn from one another.
Not surprisingly, enterprising MOOCsters are
already organizing themselves outside the online classroom, using
social-media tools like Google Hangouts and Facebook. In New York, students
schedule meetings in Starbucks; in Katmandu, a group relies on Meetup to get
together. Some course providers are facilitating external interaction:
Udacity has offered Global Meetup Day with Sebastian Thrun, the Stanford
University computer scientist (and Udacity co-founder) known for his course
on artificial intelligence. Coursera threw a giant barbecue in Menlo Park,
Calif., complete with volleyball and beanbag tossing.
Of course, peer learning takes you only so far: At
some point, somebody has to know something about the subject. Professor
Emanuel was a presence only in videos, but these were uniformly excellent.
The cameras caught him walking briskly around an actual lecture hall, and I
liked the presence of shadowy classmates sitting in Philadelphia, as if this
were happening in real time. The videos were pleasantly peppered with pop-up
quizzes. No embarrassment for the wrong answer, and I was ridiculously
pleased at correctly guessing that the proportion of health-care costs in
the United States that goes to prescription drugs is only 10 percent. For
those in a rush, watching at twice normal speed is sort of fun— don't you
secretly wish you could sit through some meetings at double speed?
I was a faithful student for a few weeks, until I
fell prey to my worst undergraduate habit, procrastination—only now my
excuses were far more sophisticated. I have to finish a manuscript! I have a
board meeting! I have to meet my mother's new cardiologist!
In a MOOC, nobody can hear you scream.
I might have abandoned the charming Professor
Emanuel altogether had the Supreme Court's decision to uphold President
Obama's health-care program not injected the spice of real-time action into
the discussion and refreshed my interest.
Somewhere between the videos and the readings and
the occasional dip into the discussion groups, I found myself actually
learning. I was particularly interested in how malpractice contributes to
health-care costs but was instructed by my professor that the potential
savings there amounted to mere "pencil dust." And who knew about the
proposed National Medical Error Disclosure and Compensation Act of 2005,
which would have reduced the number of malpractice cases, accelerated their
resolution, and lowered costs by two-thirds?
To earn a certificate, I would have had to submit
several essays for a grade, and I stopped short of that (see excuses above).
Essays are peer-graded, and it won't surprise anybody who has ever taught
undergraduates to hear that the student evaluations can be fierce. On the
discussion boards, there was considerable discussion of grade deflation,
plagiarism, and cheating. Alas, academic sins do follow us into the land of
MOOC's, despite a nicely written honor code. Bad behavior in any classroom,
real or virtual, should be no more surprising than gambling in
Casablanca. In fact, brace yourself for a breathtaking new form of
voluntary identity sharing: Your
fake student avatar, now available for a small
fee, will take your class for you.
Looking back, I suppose Fathom was a proto-MOOC,
and I confess to some surprise that the Coursera format has evolved little
beyond our pioneering effort of a decade ago. Yet when it came time to
assess the course, I found myself rating it pretty highly, and concluded
that aside from the format, the failings were mostly mine, for lack of
focus. Like many MOOC students, I didn't completely "finish" the course.
However, the final evaluations seemed mostly enthusiastic. From the
comments, most of the students seemed to find the course long on substance:
"comprehensive," "a good balance between the law, policy, and economics,"
"rich with multiple perspectives on health-policy issues."
Now, I could have read a book or done this on my
own. But you could say the same thing about most education. A course is not
a book but a journey, led by an expert, and taken in the company of fellow
travelers on a common quest for knowledge. My MOOC had those elements,
albeit in a pretty crude form.
You'd have to live under a rock not to know that
crushing student debt, declining state support, and disruptive technologies
have made it imperative to look at new models for teaching. The competitive
landscape for higher education is changing every day. China recently
declared the goal of bringing half a million foreign students to its shores
by 2020, and is investing in programs friendly to Americans and other
international students. American MOOC's may point the way to retaining the
best students and faculty in the world, while adding the lively and
collaborative components of technology-enhanced teaching and learning.
It is true that nobody yet has a reasonable
business plan for these courses, and there is concern over completion rates
and whether colleges are "giving away the farm," as a recent MIT
alumni-magazine article put it. It is not hard to anticipate the end of free
and the start of the next stage: fee-based certificate programs built around
MOOC's. But for now, the colleges leading those efforts are making
relatively modest—and rare—investments in research and development. Their
faculty members are excited about the opportunity to experiment. Let's give
this explosion of pent-up innovation in higher education a chance to mature
before we rush to the bottom line.
Continued in article
"What You Need to Know About MOOC's," Chronicle of Higher Education,
August 20, 2012 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/What-You-Need-to-Know-About/133475/
. . .
Who are the major players?
Several start-up companies are working with
universities and professors to offer MOOC's. Meanwhile, some colleges are
starting their own efforts, and some individual professors are offering
their courses to the world. Right now four names are the ones to know:
edX
A nonprofit effort run jointly by
MIT, Harvard, and Berkeley.
Leaders of the group say they intend to slowly add
other university partners over time. edX plans to freely give away the
software platform it is building to offer the free courses, so that anyone
can use it to run MOOC’s.
Coursera
A for-profit company founded by two computer-science
professors from Stanford.
The company’s model is to sign contracts with colleges that agree to use
the platform to offer free courses and to get a percentage of any revenue.
More than a dozen high-profile institutions, including Princeton and the U.
of Virginia, have joined.
Udacity
Another for-profit company founded
by a Stanford computer-science professor.
The company, which works with individual professors
rather than institutions, has attracted a range of well-known scholars.
Unlike other providers of MOOC’s, it has said it will focus all of its
courses on computer science and related fields.
Udemy
A for-profit platform that lets
anyone set up a course.
The company encourages its instructors to charge a
small fee, with the revenue split between instructor and company. Authors
themselves, more than a few of them with no academic affiliation, teach many
of the courses.
The Big List of 530 Free Online Courses from Top Universities (New
Additions) ---
Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2012/09/new_additions_to_our_list_of_530_free_online_courses_from_top_universities_.html
"The Future Is Now?" by Joe Hoyle, Teaching Blog, August 13,
2012 ---
http://joehoyle-teaching.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-future-is-now.html
Bob Jensen's threads on MOOCs, MITx, and Courses from Prestigious
Universities ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
Bob Jensen's threads on distance education and training alternatives in
general ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on higher education controversies ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on MOOCs and other free courses, videos, tutorials,
and course materials from prestigious universities ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
Bob Jensen's threads on asynchronous learning ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm
Flipped Classroom (Flipped Teaching) ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flipped_Classroom
"Study Measures Benefits of a ‘Flipped’ Pharmacy Course'," Chronicle of
Higher Education, December 5, 2013 ---
Click Here
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/study-measures-benefits-of-a-flipped-pharmacy-course/48749?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
A study comparing
traditional and “flipped” versions of a pharmacy-school course at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found that students much
preferred the flipped course and got better grades on the final
examination. The flipped course replaced in-class lectures with videos
that the students watched before they came to class to take part in a
series of activities—assessments, presentations, discussions, quizzes,
and “microlectures.”
The study is to be published in February in Academic
Medicine, the journal of the Association of American Medical
Colleges, but it is
available online now (it can be downloaded
using the “Article as PDF” tool). It reports on the 2011 and 2012
versions of a first-year course for graduate students, “Basic
Pharmaceutics II.”
In 2011 the course
relied on 75-minute lectures two days a week—a total of 29 hours’
worth—plus occasional quizzes. In 2012 instructors “offloaded all
in-class lectures to self-paced online videos”—averaging around 35
minutes each and totaling under 15 hours—that students could pause and
review as necessary. Class sessions were “devoted to student-centered
learning exercises designed to assess their knowledge, promote critical
thinking, and stimulate discussion.”
Following the 2012
course, only about 15 percent of the 162 students said they would have
preferred a traditional lecture-style classroom experience. Others wrote
comments such as “It was different, but I enjoyed coming to class more
and I also feel that I will retain the information for longer. It helped
make learning ‘fun’ again and not just endless hours of lectures and
PowerPoints.”
The study’s authors said
that, on the final exam, scores for the flipped class were five points
higher on a 200-point scale than scores for the traditional version had
been the year before.
Bob Jensen's threads on Tools and Tricks of the Trade ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm
Bridging
the Gaps
At a recent Department of Business Administration faculty meeting
considering how to add more technology courses, I suggested that we look into contracting
for ALN courses emerging in other universities, business corporations, and public
accounting firms. My suggestion was met with extreme skepticism by faculty at the present
time. However, I predict that by Year 2010 a significant proportion of required and
elective courses will be globally networked by universities and business firms. Vendors
having solid gold name recognition for quality will probably have a competitive advantage
in distributing ALN courses.
Delivery will not be in the form of the dying synchronous distance
education classes transmitted to remote sites by television. Instead it will be in the
form of largely asynchronous networked courses on the Internet or intranets. Many of those
networked courses will have such prestige "brand names" of Stanford University,
MIT, Harvard University, Princeton University, Northwestern University, University of
Michigan, University of Texas, University of Illinois, etc. Of course, organizations with
less brand recognition may offer selected ALN courses of outstanding quality. Some
Internet courses may be given by television networks who face a shrinking market as
viewers move to the web. Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) television networking of adult
education and degree programs is now moving to the web (see http://www.pbs.org/learn/). Still other courses are available from prominent consulting and accounting
firms such as EDS, Andersen Consulting, Arthur D. Little, Price Waterhouse, Ernst &
Young, PriceWaterhouse Coopers, Deloitte and Touche, etc. There are now over 1,600
corporate colleges and universities, most of which are gearing up for online delivery and
full accreditation of their courses and degree programs. A rising number of these
corporate universities already have brand recognition like General Electric, Motorola,
AT&T, etc.
Junk bond king Michael Milken is putting together a virtual
education training empire known as Knowledge Universe. To date, Knowledge Universe
has invested multimillions of dollars to acquire and build an online educational empire
that will challenge schools ranging from local elementary schools to Ivy League
universities. The goal, according to Milken, is to use computers and networking
technologies to make education and training available virtually anywhere in the world.
Corporate universities are not a new idea. However, their explosive
growth in the networking technology paradigm shift is a new phenomenon that makes it
possible for traditional universities to bridge curricula gaps. Corporate university
programs will increasingly compete with traditional universities for entire degree
programs. The McGraw-Hill giant publishing conglomerate has launched its online
McGraw-Hill World University described at http://www.mhcec.com/.
Before long MHWU intends to network fully accredited degree programs in higher education.
The firm of Arthur D. Little is one of the most prestigious and well
known consulting firms in the world. One of its profit centers is the Arthur D. Little
(ADL) School of Management described below:
Since 1964, more than 3,200 professionals from over 115
countries have participated in the School of Management's (SOM) Programs. Chartered in
1971, SOM received accreditation in 1971 from the New England Association of Schools and
Colleges, Inc., and is currently a pre-candidate for accreditation from the American
Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB).
Introductory statement at http://www.arthurdlittle.com/default.htm
Although not yet available for network distribution, ADL may one day
make it possible for Trinity University students to take some of its courses in specialty
areas such as the selected courses shown below that are in the present ADL School of
Management curriculum:
Management Information Systems
Multinational Management Simulation
National Strategies and the Global Economy
Industry and Competitive Analysis Project
Management of Technology
Strategy Implementation
Systems Thinking Simulation
Business Process Reengineering (BPR)
Creating a Learning Organization
Project Management
Total Quality Management
Transnational Negotiation Skills
Strategic Management of Information Systems
For particular training specialties, many corporations now use
asynchronous "Self paced Professional Training" network courses from the
University of Phoenix at http://www.uophx.edu/. These include
many management topics and selected FASB standards. The prestigious Executive Education
Network (EXEN) uses name recognition universities to deliver a wide array of courses,
including the following courses listed at http://www.exen.com/evaluations.html:
Carnegie-Mellon University
604 Manufacturing Excellence
Center for Creative Leadership
617 Creative Leadership
618 Women as Leadership
619 Assessing Leadership
Harvard Business School Publishing
614 Managing in the Marketspace
Pennsylvania State University
609 Human Resource Management Program
620 Program for Strategic Leadership
Southern Methodist University
606 Mid-Management Program
625 First Line Management Program
University of Massachusetts at Amherst
611 How to Make Successful Presentations
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
605 Leadership into the 21st Century
615 International Business Leadership
University of Southern California
608 Leading Through Change
616 Managing the Global Workforce
626 Implementing Change
University of Texas at Austin, IC2 Institute
621 Corporate Entrepreneurship
Sylvan Learning Systems, Inc., at http://www.educate.com/learningcenters/aboutsylvan.html is a leading provider of global education services to families, schools and
industry. Recently, Sylvan formed a noteworthy joint subsidiary company with MCI called
Caliber Learning Network that is distributed with latest high quality technology. Sylvan
also has partnerships in distributed learning with the following organizations:
The National Geographic Society
Johns Hopkins University
Educational Testing Service
The National Association of Secondary School Principals
Children and Adults With Attention Disorder Deficits
One of the best known global Internet education systems with the
latest technologies is UCLAs The Home Education Network (THEN) at http://www.then.com/. Current online programs include the following:
Award in General Business Studies (9 course program)
Cross-Cultural Language and Academic Development
(CLAD) Program (5 courses)
Program in Online Teaching (6 course program)
Pre-MBA Skills and Test Preparation Program (9 course
program)
All eyes are now on the Western Governors University ( http://www.wgu.edu ) that is cranking up fully
accredited degree programs on the Internet. What is unique about WGU is that its
curriculum is comprised of many course offerings from leading colleges and universities in
states west of the Mississippi River and as far away as Western Samoa. Some states
east of the Mississippi are now seeking to join WGU. Sally Johnstone and Dennis
Jones report in (On the
Horizon, November/December 1997) that faculty reward structures at WGU will place
great emphasis on curriculum design and learning materials development.
Update on the Roaring Online Nonprofit Western Governors University (WGU)
founded in 1997 by the governors of 19 states
A competency-based university where instructors don't assign the grades ---
grades are based upon competency testing
WGU does not admit foreign students
WGU now has over 30,000 students from sponsoring states for this nonprofit,
private university
Western Governors University (WGU) ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WGU
Competency-Based Learning ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Assess.htm#ConceptKnowledge
The article below is about WGU-Texas which was "founded" in 2011 when Texas
joined the WGU system
"Reflections on the First Year of a New-Model University," by Mark David
Milliron, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 1, 2012 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Reflections-on-the-First-Year/134670/?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
Western Governors University Texas, where I am
chancellor, is not an easy institution to describe to your mother—or even
your hip sister. It just doesn't fit the profile of most traditional
universities, even the newer for-profit and online ones. It brings the work
of a national, online, nonprofit university into a state, and it embraces a
competency-based education model that is rarely found on an institutionwide
level.
Even for seasoned educators, WGU Texas feels
different. And in a year that has seen flat or declining enrollments at many
traditional colleges, reports critical of for-profit institutions, and
continuing debate over the perils and promise of online learning, our story,
and our growth, has been unique. As we hit our one-year anniversary, it's
worth taking a few moments to reflect on the ups, downs, challenges, and
champions of this newest state model. I'd offer three key reflections on
lessons we've learned:
Building a strong foundation.
Western Governors was founded as a private, multistate online university 15
years ago by governors of Western states. Texas is only the third state
model within the system, following WGU Indiana and WGU Washington. Before
our opening, leaders of Western Governors took time to make sure the idea of
this state university made sense for Texas. The intent was to add
high-quality, affordable capacity to the state's higher-education system,
particularly for adult learners, and to localize it for Texans and their
employers.
This outpost was poised to "go big" in one of the
biggest of states, offering more than 50 bachelor's and master's degrees in
high-demand fields in business, education, information technology, and
health professions. WGU's online-learning model allows students to progress
by demonstrating what they know and can do rather than by logging time in
class accumulating credit hours.
In meetings across the state, the idea of WGU Texas
gained the support of the state's political, legislative, and
higher-education leaders, as well as the Texas Workforce Commission and the
Texas Association of Community Colleges. Rushing to roll out was not the
goal; entering the education ecosystem with solid support of the model was.
I came on board as chancellor in December 2011.
Having served on WGU's Board of Trustees for six years, I knew the model,
and having graduated from and worked for the University of Texas at Austin,
I knew Texas.
In the past six months, we have hired key staff and
faculty, formed a state advisory board, opened a main office and training
center in downtown Austin, launched our first wave of student outreach,
begun working with employers in different metro regions, and started
connecting online and on the ground with students. After absorbing WGU's
1,600 existing Texas students, WGU Texas grew by more than 60 percent in
this first year, entering August 2012 with more than 3,000 students.
In about eight weeks, we'll hold our first
commencement in Austin, celebrating the graduation of more than 400
students. We're moving quickly now, but it's the firm foundation of
outreach, support, and systems that served us well as we took on the next
two challenges:
Confronting conflation. WGU Texas
is laser-focused on a student population that is typically underserved. We
see ourselves as a good fit for adult learners who need an affordable,
quality, and flexible learning model, particularly working students who want
to attend full time. We are especially focused on the more than three
million Texans who have some college and no credential—students like Jason
Franklin, a striving adult learner in a high-demand IT field who had gone as
far as he could in his career without a degree. He earned a bachelor's and a
master's degree through Western Governors, and is now working on a master's
degree from WGU Texas.
We'd like to help these students reach their goals
and get on a solid career and lifelong-learning path.
However, in offering a new model like ours, you
quickly find the conflation problem a challenge. Some assume that you're
trying to compete for the fresh-from-high-school graduates who want a campus
experience. Others assume that because you're online, you must be a
for-profit university. Still others put all online education programs in the
same bucket, not distinguishing at all between a traditional model online
and a deeply personalized, competency-based learning model.
Fighting conflation by clearly differentiating and
properly positioning our university has been essential. We've had to be
clear—and to repeat often—that our approach is designed for adult learners
who have some college and work experience. We're absolutely OK with telling
prospective students, partner colleges, and state-policy leaders that for
18- to 20-year-olds looking to embark on their first college experience, we
are probably not the right fit. In fact, first-time freshmen make up less
than 5 percent of our student population.
The for-profit conflation has been even more
interesting. Many people assume that any online university is for-profit. We
are not. And even when we assure them that our nonprofit status keeps us
deeply committed to low tuition—we have a flat-rate, six-month-term tuition
averaging less than $3,000 for full-time students, which our national parent
WGU has not raised for four years—they have a hard time getting their minds
around it.
Others are sure we are nothing more than an online
version of the traditional model, relying entirely on adjunct faculty. When
we explain our history, learning model, and reliance on full-time faculty
members who specialize in either mentoring or subject matter, it takes some
time. But once people embrace the idea of a personal faculty mentor who
takes a student from first contact to crossing the graduation stage, they
warm quickly to the model.
Synching with the state's needs.
While forming the foundation and fighting conflation are important, I'd say
the key to WGU's state-model successes is the commitment to synching with
the economic, educational, and student ecosystem of the state.
On the economic level, we've been able to work
directly with employers eager to support our university, advance our
competency-centered model, and hire our graduates. Educationally we have
been fortunate to have smart and strategic partners that have guided our
entry into the state. For example, our Finish to Go Further transfer
program, in partnership with the Texas community-college association,
motivates students to complete their associate degrees before transferring.
This strategy supports the goal of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating
Board of significantly improving postsecondary access and success in Texas.
Continued in article
Bob Jensen's threads on assessment (including competency-based assessment)
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Assess.htm
Jensen Comment
WGU is neither a traditional university nor a MOOC. It started as an experiment
to deliver a quality education without having the 19 states have to build and/or
maintain physical campuses to deliver college education to more students.
Admittedly, one of the main incentives was to expand learning opportunities
without paying for the enormous costs of building and maintaining campuses. WGU
was mostly an outreach program for non-traditional students who for one reason
or another are unable to attend onsite campuses. But the primary goal of WGU was
not and still is not confined to adult education.
WGU is not intended to take over onsite campus education alternatives. The
founders of WGU are well aware that living and learning on an onsite campus
brings many important components to education and maturation and socialization
that WGU cannot offer online. For example, young students on campus enter a new
phase of life living outside the homes and daily oversight of their parents. But
the transition is less abrupt than living on the mean streets of real life.
Students meet face-to-face on campus and are highly likely to become married or
live with students they are attracted to on campus. Campus students can
participate in athletics, music performances, theatre performances, dorm life,
chapel life, etc.
But WGU is not a MOOC where 100,000 anonymous students may be taking an
online course. Instead, WGU courses are relatively small with intimate
communications 24/7 with instructors and other students in most of the courses.
In many ways the learning communications may be much closer online in WGU than
on campus at the University of Texas where classrooms often hold hundreds of
students taking a course.
There are some types of learning that can take place in live classrooms
that are almost impossible online.
For example, an onsite case analysis class (Harvard style) takes on a life of
its own that case instructors cannot anticipate before class. Students are
forced to speak out in front of other students. A student's unexpected idea may
change the direction of the entire case discussion for the remainder of the
class. I cannot imagine teaching many Harvard Business School cases online even
though there are ways to draw out innovative ideas and discussions online.
Physical presence is part and parcel to teaching many HBS cases.
Competency-based grading has advantages and disadvantages.
Competency-based grading removes incentives to brown nose instructors for better
grades. It's unforgiving for lazy and unmotivated students. But these advantages
can also be disadvantages. Some students become more motivated by hoping that
their instructors will reward effort as well as performance. At unexpected
points in life those rewards for effort may come at critical times just before a
student is apt to give up and look for a full time McJob.
Some students are apt to become extremely bored learning about Shakespeare or
Mozart. But in attempting to please instructors with added effort, the students
may actually discover at some unexpected point something wonderful about
Shakespeare or Mozart. Mathematics in particular is one of those subjects that
can be a complete turn off until suddenly a light clicks and student discovers
that math is not only interesting --- math can be easier once you hit a key
point in the mathematics learning process. This definitely happened with me, and
the light did not shine for me until I started a doctoral program. Quite
suddenly I loved mathematics and made it the central component of my five years
of full-time doctoral studies at Stanford University.
Thus WGU and the University of Texas should not be considered competitors.
They are different alternatives that have some of the same goals (such as
competency in learning content) and some different goals (such as living with
other students and participating in extracurricular activities).
I wish WGU well and hope it thrives alongside the traditional state-supported
campuses. WGU in some ways was a precursor to MOOC education, but WGU is not a
MOOC in the sense that classes are small and can be highly interactive with
other students and with instructor. In a MOOC, students have to be more
motivated to learn on their own and master the material without much outside
help from other students or instructors.
There are many ways to teach and many ways to learn. WGU found its niche.
There's no one-size-fits-all to living and learning.
Bob Jensen's threads on higher education controversies ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm
EdX ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EdX
Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange (MITx) ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_Innovation_%26_Technology_Exchange
MIT versus MITx ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
"5 Ways That edX Could Change Education," by Marc Parry, Chronicle of
Higher Education, October 1, 2012 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/5-Ways-That-edX-Could-Change/134672/?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
Since MIT and Harvard
started edX, their joint experiment with free online courses, the venture
has attracted enormous attention for opening the ivory tower to the world.
But in the process, the world will become part of
an expensive and ambitious experiment testing some of the most
interesting—and difficult—questions in digital education.
Can community-college students benefit from a new
form of hybrid learning, based on a mix of local instruction and edX
content? Can colleges tap alumni as teaching volunteers? Can labs be
reinvented in the style of online video games?
EdX and its collaborators are developing tools and
teaching models to answer those questions. And they view the project as a
means to study even deeper problems, like understanding how people
forget—and creating strategies to prevent it.
"It's a live laboratory for studying how people
learn, how the mind works, and how to improve education, both residential
and online," says Piotr Mitros, edX's chief scientist.
That laboratory remains a work in progress. When a
Chronicle reporter visited edX's offices here, in a low-slung brick
building on the edge of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus,
the front entrance lacked even a sign, and staffers had engineered a
conference table and bookcase from empty cardboard boxes. But with a
$60-million investment announced in May and seven courses going live this
fall, things are kicking into high gear. What follows, based on interviews
with more than a dozen people affiliated with edX, is a closer look at what
that could mean for students, scholars, and other colleges.
Engaging Alumni in New Ways
Robert C. Miller had a problem.
His students were writing so much code that the
teaching staff lacked time to read it all and give fast feedback. So Mr.
Miller, an MIT associate professor who teaches software engineering and
human-computer interaction, decided to try a new tactic: crowdsourcing. His
work may help solve a challenge facing massive online courses: how to
provide human feedback to thousands of students.
Under Mr. Miller's model, Web-based software called
Caesar breaks homework submissions into chunks. A mix of teaching staff,
fellow students, and alumni volunteers evaluates the code, which is also
automatically tested by a computer. Students then revise and resubmit their
work. The human review is essential, Mr. Miller explains, because people can
detect things that computers can't, like hidden bugs or poor design.
"The future of online grading is going to be a mix
of automated approaches ... and human eyeballs," says Mr. Miller. The class
that has deployed Caesar is expected to go on edX as it expands.
His project is one of several that highlight how
technology can tap the altruism—and self-interest—of graduates. MIT alumni
"are strongly motivated to find great programming talent," Mr. Miller says.
By helping to review code, they could both spot that talent and expose
students to their companies. Caesar, used on the campus for the past year,
has attracted MIT graduates working at companies like Facebook and Google.
Across the Charles River, at Harvard's School of
Public Health, E. Francis Cook Jr. and Marcello Pagano are working on a
similar idea. The veteran professors will teach a class on epidemiology and
biostatistics this fall, one of Harvard's first on edX. Details are still
being worked out, but they hope to entice alumni to participate, possibly by
moderating online forums or, for those based abroad, leading discussions for
local students. Mr. Cook sees those graduates as an "untapped resource."
"We draw people into this program who want to
improve the health of the world," he says. "I'm hoping we'll get a huge
buy-in from our alums."
Reinventing Hybrid Teaching
In March, Tony Hyun Kim moved to the Mongolian
capital of Ulan Bator, where he spent three months teaching high-school
students a spinoff of the first edX course. The adventure made the young MIT
graduate one of the first to blend edX's content with face-to-face teaching.
His hybrid model is one that many American students may experience as edX
presses one of its toughest goals: to reimagine campus learning.
On his own initiative, Mr. Kim brought over lab
gear and mentored about 20 teenagers through the circuits-and-electronics
class, which is based on a course normally taken by MIT sophomores. The edX
version features video snippets and interactive exercises, and Mr. Kim used
the free online content to teach in a style known as the "flipped
classroom." Students watched edX content at home. At school, Mr. Kim spent
hours each day reviewing material and apprenticing them through labs and
problems.
The results were remarkable. Roughly 12 students
earned certificates of completion. One 15-year-old, Battushig, aced the
course, one of 320 students worldwide to do so. EdX ended up hiring Mr. Kim,
who hopes to start a related project at the university level in Mongolia.
EdX is now preparing a bigger experiment that is
expected to test the flipped-classroom model at a community college,
combining MOOC content with campus instruction. Two-year colleges have
struggled with insufficient funds and large demand; they also have "trouble
attracting top talent and teachers," says Anant Agarwal, who taught the
circuits class and is president of edX. The question is how MOOC's might
help community colleges, and how the courses would have to change to work
for their students.
"MOOC's have yet to prove their value from an
educational perspective," says Josh Jarrett, of the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation, which backs the community-college project. "We currently know
very little about how much learning is happening within MOOC's, particularly
for novice learners."
Gamifying Labs
As edX tries fresh teaching models, it's also
engaging the math muscle of MIT to push the boundaries of simulations.
When MIT students take the circuits class, they sit
at a lab workbench and build with tools. Lab equipment can cost a fortune:
An oscilloscope may run $20,000.
Offering a comparable experience online is an
engineering challenge. It must be fast, sufficiently open-ended, and simple
enough to use without consulting "telephone-book-size manuals," as Mr.
Agarwal puts it. Mr. Agarwal, a former director of MIT's Computer Science
and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, has worked on this problem for
years. "To me, the big hurdle to online learning was, How do we mimic the
lab experience?"
Continued in article
Gamification ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamification
"Why Gamification is Really Powerful," by Karen Lee, Stanford Graduate
School of Business, September 2012
http://stanfordbusiness.tumblr.com/post/32317645424/why-gamification-is-really-powerful
Karen Lee is the Social Web Strategist at the Stanford GSB
Bob Jensen's threads on free courses, tutorials, videos, and course materials
from prestigious universities ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
"Report: The 4 Pillars of the Flipped Classroom," by David Nagel,
T.H.E. Magazine, June 18, 2013 ---
http://thejournal.com/articles/2013/06/18/report-the-4-pillars-of-the-flipped-classroom.aspx?=THENU
Though all classrooms are different, there are four
critical elements that successful flipped classrooms have in common,
according to a new report developed by the
Flipped Learning Network,
George Mason University, and
Pearson's Center for Educator Effectiveness.
The report, "A
Review of Flipped Learning," is designed to guide
teachers and administrators through the concepts of flipped classrooms and
provide definitions and examples of flipped learning in action. Among those
concepts are four "pillars" that are required to support effective flipped
learning.
- Flexible environments: Teachers must expect
that class time will be "somewhat chaotic and noisy" and that timelines
and expectations for learning assessments will have to be flexible as
well.
- Culture shift: The classroom becomes
student-centered. According to the guide: "Students move from being the
product of teaching to the center of learning, where they are actively
involved in knowledge formation through opportunities to participate in
and evaluate their learning in a manner that is personally meaningful."
- Intentional content: Teachers are required to
evaluate what they need to teach directly so that classroom time can be
used for other methods of teaching, such as "active learning strategies,
peer instruction, problem-based learning, or mastery or Socratic
methods, depending on grade level and subject matter."
- Professional educators: The instructional
videos used for flipped classrooms cannot replace trained, professional
teachers.
The report also identified challenges and concerns
about flipped classrooms, including:
- The fear that flipped classrooms will further
standardize instruction and lead to "further the privatization of
education and the elimination of most teachers";
- Unequal access to technology among students;
and
- An inability to engage students immediately
when instruction is being delivered.
The guide provides references to research
supporting the teaching methods used in flipped classrooms and includes
three case studies focusing on flipped classrooms in action at the high
school and college level. The complete report can be downloaded in PDF form
on the
Flipped Learning Network site.
Continued in article
Bob Jensen's threads on learning and education technology ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm
Explosion
of Corporate/University Partnerships
"E-learning Demand to Double in 2005," SmartPros, January 7,
2004 --- http://www.smartpros.com/x46477.xml
Demand for online courses will almost double in 2005,
as professionals and companies realize e-learning's distinct advantages,
according to officials at RedVector.com, a Tampa-based company that offers
online courses to professionals involved in the design and construction
industries.
A recent survey of RedVector.com clients indicates
professionals and corporate leaders had different reasons for adopting online
education. Professionals cited the variety and depth of course offerings while
corporate leaders cited cost savings and relevance of courses to business
goals.
Recent research indicates the entire online
professional education industry may experience similar growth in 2005:
Spending on online continuing education passed the $9
billion mark in 2003, according to IDC Research, and grew to between $12 and
14 billion in 2004, according to Bersin and Associates. IDC predicts a 30
percent increase in yearly e-learning spending worldwide through 2008. The
number of companies using online learning to train employees will grow by 50
percent in 2005, according to Bersin and Associates. Economics has been a
driving force behind growth in online professional education. With online
courses, companies no longer have to pay travel and hotel costs and employees
can be more productive since they aren't spending time traveling.
Growth in online learning is also driven by
specialization in course offerings. According to the Distance Education and
Training Council, more than 500 companies and organizations now offer online
courses focusing on specific industries and professions.
Some universities have programs dedicated to
particular firms such as the Ernst and Young's employee masters degree programs
(University of Virginia and Notre Dame) and PwC's employee MBA program at the
University of Georgia.
When I made a presentation at the University of
Georgia on November 13, 1998 my afternoon audience was comprised of faculty members in
college of Business (including former FASB Chairman Denny Beresford) who are teaching in
the online MBA Program resulting from a partnering of the University of Georgia and
PriceWaterhouse Coopers (PWC). All students in the program take this graduate degree
program online while continuing to work for PWC (mainly in the consulting division). While
I was in Athens on November 12, Denny invited me to sit in on a session in which the
program faculty discussed such things as heavy messaging that often results from
delivering courses asynchronously.
The partnership mentioned above is one of many in a rising
trend of partnerships between corporations and universities for delivery of online and
on-campus degree programs. An excellent review of this trend is given by Jeanne C. Meister
in a book entitled Corporate Universities (McGraw Hill Companies, 1998). The book
is reviewed in T.H.E. Journal, October 1998, pp. 20-26. An online version of the
review article temporarily available at http://www.thejournal.com/magazine/current/news.asp
I suggest that you download the above file before it disappears from
the web. Among the interesting passages from Jeanne Meister is the following passage
(which she elaborates upon in the book):
"It's the way we've always done
things" must be changed to recognize that the educational process must focus less on
the adult lecturer and more on the student learner. This shift in mindset will foster
increased responsibility on the part of learners to take charge of their own learning and
hence their careers. Based upon our interviews with scores of corporate university deans
and deans of graduate business schools as well as continuing education, we have identified
four types of corporate/college partnerships as best practice examples. These include: the
development of customized executive
educational programs, the creation of customized degree programs, the
formation of a learning partner consortium and finally, in some cases, actual
accreditation of the corporate university.
The explosion of corporate universities and corporate
partnerships with traditional universities offers many new opportunities and challenges.
This explosion offers all sorts of non-traditional career paths for educators, especially
educators interested in development of learning materials for online courses. There are
also some concerns at are mentioned below at http://WWW.Trinity.edu/~rjensen/255wp.htm#Corporate
The Controversial Ernst&Young
and PriceWaterhouse Coopers
Funded Masters Degree Programs
Will this become the masters degree in accounting model for all top
accounting firms and large business firms in the future? Will more private
firms like Ernst & Young
(E&Y) and PriceWaterhouse Coopers (PWC)
partner with one or more traditional universities and fund a customized program in
which the firms are a heavy players in calendar, work load, and student admission
decisions? Students in most cases will be existing or incoming employees of the
firms.
PriceWaterhouse Coopers (PWC) has a
custom
MBA program leading to an MBA degree from the University of Georgia's Terry College of
Business with the following attributes:
1. Students in the program are all full-time employees of PWC.
2. The program is online in an asynchronous mode.
3. The University of Georgia designs and delivers the courses with full-time faculty.
4. PWC pays the tuition and other fees.
The PriceWaterhouse Coopers (PWC) MBA program is not quite as controversial as the
E&Y Master Plan. PWC's program is aimed mostly at existing consulting division
employees and is not used as heavily as a recruiting enticement for graduating students.
It is aimed at employees who probably were not even business majors. It leads to an MBA
degree and does not compete with masters of accounting programs. It does not lead up to
taking the CPA examination. It also involves many fewer students than the new E&Y
program at Notre Dame and the University of Virginia.
Nevertheless it does suffer from some of the controversies such as the role it plays in
admission of students, its role in setting workloads of employees who are working while
taking the customized program, and the use of faculty and facilities that are heavily
subsidized by taxpayers if the participating university is state supported. Even in
the case of private univeristies, private industry is benefitting from the tax exempt
status of the university delivering the customized program for the firm's employees.
I cannot even find a web site discussing the PWC MBA program at the PWC web site. You
can read about it at
http://www.cba.uga.edu/mba/home/deanbio.html
Two universities are participating in the E&Y customized
program. The program is an employment fringe benefit and even provides income ($1,000 per
month) in addition to tuition, fees, room, board, and books. In the September
through April period, students can live at home, take two distance education courses while
earning a full-time E&Y salary that is not limited to $1,000 per month.
Ernst & Young
(E&Y) has a funded customized program leading to an Masters of Accounting degree from
the the University of Notre Dame or the University of Virginia. The web site is at
http://www.ey.com/careers/masters/default.asp
Notre Dame's web site of interest is at http://www.nd.edu/~acctdept/careers.htm#2
My interests in the Ernst & Young partnerships with
Notre Dame and the University of Virginia are somewhat different than my interest in the
PWC MBA partnership. In the first place, an E&Y partnership does not entail networked
learning in a heavy way. Two of the ten required courses are distance education courses
delivered in remote E&Y offices while students are working full time. Those two
courses are synchronous rather than asynchronous on the web. The Readiness
Program and eight graduate courses meet in traditional classroom settings while
students are in residence on the university campuses.
My interest in the E&Y masters degree programs is focused mainly upon the
combination of student recruitment, curriculum design, and the way that program at first
seemed to me to be doing something that is impossible. What seemed impossible to me were
the following points that I concluded immediately after reading the packet of materials
being sent to universities to distribute to undergraduate students and the information at
the E&Y web site on "The Master Plan" at http://www.ey.com/careers/masters/default.asp
- The program mixes former accounting majors having 10 or more courses in accounting with
other business majors having as few as two courses in basic accounting.
- Students who are not former accounting majors must attend a five-week Readiness
Program that provides 10 credits of undergraduate accounting credit.
- The custom E&Y program is a lock-step program for all students and does not have
separate tracks for accounting versus non-accounting majors. E&Y will not fund
taking of additional undergraduate accounting courses other than those provided in the
five-week Readiness Program.
- After taking ten courses for 30 credits from Notre Dame or UVA, the capstone course is a
non-credit CPA Review Course delivered by E&Y instructors.
The fact that the masters degrees are designated as accounting degrees and that the
capstone course is the CPA Review course, leads students and people like me into believing
that these degrees enable graduates from the E&Y program to sit for the CPA
examination. Although many of us that teach in universities having some form of masters
programs in accounting try to some extent to avoid having the CPA examination dictate our
curricula, we generally do make it possible for our graduates to meet the minimum
requirements to sit for the CPA examination in our own states and many other states.
The Masters in Accounting degree is free in the sense that E&Y pays a salary plus
providing funding for all tuition, fees, room, board, and travel costs. In return, the
student is indentured for three years and must repay the education costs if he or she
should voluntarily leave E&Y before the three year commitment is satisfied.
What concerned me more than any other thing in all of this was a claim made (in the
student application form and at the E&Y web site) that reads as follows:
"We worked with the universities to ensure that the Master's Program offers you
the best education through a schedule which also allows you to develop skills and
knowledge to prepare you to excel at Ernst & Young."
This said to me that this program and its curriculum plan were "the best"
vis-à-vis what students can get from other masters programs in accounting, including our
program at Trinity University. There was no detailed curriculum information
available on the E&Y program, but it appeared to me that given the five things
enumerated above, it would be impossible to accomplish such our own program for students
not having more accounting prerequisites.
Admittedly, I jumped to some erroneous conclusions prior to learning more about the
E&Y Master Plan curriculum. Belatedly, it now appears to me that graduates from the
E&Y program will not be allowed to sit for the CPA examination in Texas and some other
states unless they take nearly an extra year of accounting coursework before or after
completing the masters in accounting degree program funded by E&Y.
I sent my first message about the E&Y Master Plan to the aecm list serve and
expressed some of my off-the-wall concerns in my web document at http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm#ErnstandYoung
. Those two things resulted in email messages from various educators, including messages
from Notre Dame faculty members Tom Frecka and Kevin Mislewicz. I reproduced Tom's message
in the above web document.
Kevin's message was less detailed, but it did give me my first insight into the
curriculum. Kevin informed me that the E&Y Master Plan's curriculum differs only
slightly from M.S. in Accountancy
curriculum that Notre Dame offers to students in its regular program. The main
difference is the lock-step calendar for the E&Y Master Plan and possibly fewer
choices due to the customized E&Y calendar. That calendar reads as follows:
Mar-April (Preparing): CD-ROM Review Course on
Introductory Accounting
May-June (Home&EY): Readiness Program for non-accounting majors (10 credits)
June-Aug (University): Core Program on campus (9 credits)
Sept-Aug (Home&EY): Distance Learning (3 credits, one night per week)
Jan-April (Home&EY): Distance Learning (3 credits, one night per week)
June-Aug (University): Core Program on campus (15 credits)
Aug-Nov (Home&EY): CPA Review Program
The E&Y Master Plan curriculum plan at Notre Dame is shown below:
Summer, 1999
Negotiations/Communication
Taxes and Business
Strategy
Financial Statement
Analysis (same as MBA elective)
Fall, 1999
Distance Learning (Synchronous)
Finance (Investments,
same as MBA elective)
Spring, 2000
Distance Learning (Syncrhronous)
Business Risk Analysis
Summer, 2000
Advanced Assurance
Services course
Special Topics in
Financial Reporting (securitization, derivatives, hedging,...)
Business Consulting
Course
Advanced Finance Course
(still being developed)
Advanced Technology
Course (to be developed jointly by ND, UVA and E&Y)
TOTAL GRADUATE
CREDIT HOURS = 30
Non-accounting
majors will also receive 10 undergraduate credits for the Readiness Program
Financial accounting
(4.5 credits)
Managerial accounting
(2.0 credits)
Auditing (2.0 credits)
Taxation (1.5 credits)
The above Financial Reporting & Assurance Services curriculum appears to me to be
an outstanding curriculum for former accounting majors. It also appears to be an
outstanding curriculum for non-accounting majors since there does not appear to be all
that much accounting in the program, at least not to the point where prerequisites in
intermediate accounting, income taxes, auditing, and managerial accounting are necessary.
However, for non-accounting majors there is a major drawback relative to virtually
all masters of accounting programs in the U.S. In many states, especially Texas, the
graduates would not meet the requirements, in my judgment, to apply to sit for the CPA
examination. If taking the CPA is important to such a graduate and passing it is
important for career advancement in E&Y, the non-accounting graduate from Notre Dame
will have to take more accounting courses just to sit for the CPA examination unless he or
she can sit for the examination in some state that has less explicit application
requirements than Texas. The Texas requirements include 30
credits beyond basic accounting courses that cover the following::
Intermediate Accounting
Advanced Accounting
Auditing, Internal Accounting Control and Evaluation
Financial Statement Analysis
Accounting Theory
Not-for Profit Accounting
Six credits of Income Tax
Accounting Systems
Accounting Report Writing
Other recommended courses and areas are suggested in the law
At this point in time, I must assume that the UVA curriculum for
the E&Y Master Plan will be somewhat similar to the Notre Dame curriculum. I
viewed the curriculum for regular students not part of the E&Y program at http://www.commerce.virginia.edu/ms_accounting/requirements.htm
. That curriculum is a much more traditional master of accountancy curriculum than the
above Notre Dame curriculum. However, I cannot imagine business majors having
only one or two basic accounting courses entering that UVA curriculum without taking
intermediate accounting and some other prerequisite accounting modules. Most
certainly I cannot imagine such students being mixed in with former accounting majors in
many of the listed UVA graduate accounting courses. At this point, however, my comments
are restricted to the above Notre Dame curriculum.
This is part of what prospective students read about in their
proposed "Master Plans":
ERNST & YOUNG LLP
Your Master Plan
Information For Prospective Candidates Interested in
Ernst & Youngs Master of Science in Accountancy Program
Make this Program part of Your Master Plan
Leader
winner
visionary
standard-setter
bold
willing
to take risks
Do these words describe you? They definitely describe Ernst & Young
and its focus on the entrepreneurial spirit. Over the past three years, Ernst & Young
LLP has been the fastest growing of the largest multinational professional services firms.
And, as indicated by our record growth in 1998, our momentum continues to accelerate. We
attract multi-talented, motivated individuals who seek to be on the cutting edge of
technology and knowledge. Thus, we have developed a unique Program in which Ernst &
Young will pay for you to obtain your Master of Science in Accountancy at a premier
institution while working at the firm.
Why should you apply? As a young professional, you most likely
desire to distinguish yourself early on from other business graduates to jump start your
career. Enrolling in the E&Y Masters Program is the first step. Every professional at
Ernst & Young is dedicated to growth and speed to market, speed to reacting to new
opportunities, and the speed to stay ahead of the competition. We are no longer just in
the business of debits and credits. Thus, we seek professionals who are committed to
becoming the top business advisors in the ever-changing global marketplace. Do you want to
position yourself ahead of the rest? Completing a Masters degree while working at Ernst
& Young offers you that opportunity.
Ernst & Young has established Programs with two top tier
schools; the University of Notre Dame and the University of Virginia. These Programs
promise to be premier graduate experiences with customized and innovative curriculums.
Obtaining your Masters degree from one of these Programs provides you with an exceptional
opportunity to begin your career with a competitive edge.
This is a highly competitive Program and we expect to recruit the
best business school candidates. Please see your E&Y campus recruiter for your school,
or if unsure of your E&Y recruiter, please contact one of the contacts listed below to
see if you qualify.
A message from Tom Frecka
Director, M.S. in Accountancy Programs,
University of Notre Dame
Bob Jensen's reply comments are in red.
Hi Tom,
I added a few comments below your comments. I appreciate
your prompt response.
My comments have been added
in red to your message.
Thanks,
Bob at rjensen@trinity.edu
Professor Robert E. Jensen http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-736-7347 Fax: 210-736-8134
-----Original Message-----
From: thomas frecka [SMTP:Thomas.J.Frecka.1@nd.edu]
Sent: Monday, February 15, 1999 9:30 AM
To: rjensen@trinity.edu
Subject: Notre Dame/E&Y M.S. in Accountancy Program
Bob,
Just read the stuff about the
program on your web site. Thought I might set the record straight on a few points:
The program is for both undergraduate
accounting majors and for non-accounting undergraduate business majors. The latter group
will start with the Readiness Program. I dont consider this very
"controversial."
Comment from Bob Jensen:
It is controversial to the extent that some states require 21
to 24 credits of content that is traditionally covered at the undergraduate level.
Since you only offer 10 undergraduate credts of undergradutate accounting content, I do
not see how it will be possible for graduates of your program to meet the requirements to
take the CPA examination in states like Texas.
The E&Y program is also
controversial in that E&Y does not provide funding for this program for any of its
employees at any colleges or universities other than Notre Dame and the University of
Virginia. To my knowledge, other universities were not even given a chance to bid on
this program. It might be noted that unlike the E&Y and PWC programs, all
universities have a chance of receiving funding for the new KPMG program that funds a
Masters of Taxation degree for employess in the tax division.
(2) Students will continue to consider employment at other firms.
In order to receive "free" tuition, the E&Y students must remain with the
firm for three years. If they leave, they will need to reimburse E&Y for the pro-rated
cost of the program. I presume that many students will not want to incur this liability.
Comment from Bob Jensen:
Yes but the E&Y funded masters degree is a fringe benefit not being offered by any
other firm as part of the plan to recruit undergraduate students. Other firms
may have to join this band wagon just to compete for top students.
Since most new hires hope to stay with a large public accounting firm for at least three
years, the three year indenture is no big deal. I assume that if they are terminated
by E&Y, their debt for the masters degree is waived. In reality, the E&Y
Master Plan is one of the largest fringe benefits in the history of public accounting
firms. For all practical purposes it is even more than a "free" masters
degree.
One question that comes to mind is
how this fringe will be taxed by the IRS? That will be a major bite not anticipated my
many applicants. The tax implications should be mentioned in the E&Y application
for the program.
(3) Both Notre Dame and UVA have signed a Letter of Understanding
with E&Y. The agreement gives both schools complete control over the curriculum. In
our case, it was important for us to have a curriculum that was exactly consistent with
the requirements for our existing M.S.in Accountancy Degree Program. We also have complete
control over admission decisions and students are expected to follow all of the Notre Dame
rules.
Comment from Bob Jensen:
When I posted my earlier concerns, I thought you were constrained by the requirement in
many states that students have 30 or more hours of accounting to sit for the CPA
examination and particular accounting, auditing, tax, and systems courses. Now I
realize that you are not constrained by this requirement. It appears that graduates
from your M.S. in Accounting program will not be able to sit for the CPA examination
unless they take more accounting courses other than accounting courses you require in the
program and as prerequisites for the program.
(4) Distance learning courses will be taught by faculty at ND and
UVA.
In our case, we have a great deal of experience with distance
learning, particularly in our Executive Programs. In fact, our program won an award for
best distance learning in higher education last year.
Comment from Bob Jensen:
I have never questioned the quality or integrity of the University of Notre Dame or UVA.
These are very presitigious
programs. I have featured the BAM program at UVA in a document at http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/265wp.htm
. In my technology workshops I rate Notre Dame's business school faculty and
building among the most advanced programs I know of in technology applications.
(5) Our program is not comprised of more accounting
courses than competing programs. The program is designed to meet AACSB accreditation
standards and 150 laws that limit the amount of accounting included in such programs. RE
communication/speech courses, our program includes a required negotiations/communication
course and a required consulting course. Re the CPA exam, our program should cover the
requisite accounting material, but CPA review is E&Y/the participants
responsibilities, not ours.
Thank you for this
clarification. In my earlier concerns I thought that you were intending to make
students eligible to sit for the CPA examination and would offer a more traditional
masters of accounting program that had more accounting prerequisites and/or more
accounting courses required in the program. Now I realize that your program is not
intended to make students elgible to sit for the CPA examination in many states.
(6) There will be no undergraduate accounting material covered
in the 30 credit hour degree program.
Comments from Bob Jensen:
This is both a strength and a weakness. It is tough to
mix former accounting majors with non-accounting majors who have only had a five week
Readiness Program.
I would appreciate it if you would correct the erroneous
impressions conveyed by your article.
Comment from Bob Jensen:
I have added you message to the web document so that your concerns are fully stated in
your own words. I apologize for jumping to the conclusion that you were trying to
offer a curriculum that enables students to sit for the CPA examination in virtually all
states.
The message came from
Tom Frecka
Director, M.S. in Accountancy Programs,
University of Notre Dame
February 15, 1999
Deere
Contracts With Indiana University for Online MBA Degrees in Finance
"Deere
& Company Turns to Indiana University's Kelley School of Business For Online
MBA Degrees in Finance," Yahoo Press Release, October 8, 2001 --- http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/011008/cgm034_1.html
MOLINE, Ill., Oct. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Deere &
Company, the world's leading manufacturer of agricultural equipment, has
entered into a Web-based academic partnership with Indiana University's Kelley
School of Business to provide a Master of Business Administration degree
program for Deere's finance professionals, beginning in August 2002.
The customized online program is designed as a
three-year course of study to be completed in parallel with the participants'
full-time job responsibilities. Course content is centered around the business
knowledge, technical skills, and behavioral competencies for Deere's future
leaders to use in responding to challenges facing the company. Kelley's senior
faculty designed the program specifically for John Deere, with input from the
Deere finance division's senior management team.
``This is a rigorous program drawing from the
strengths of both the Kelley School and the Deere management team. It is
designed to create value for our enterprise and allow us to attract and retain
high-quality employees,'' said Nate Jones, chief financial officer at Deere
& Company. ``Graduates of this program will learn skills that help them
better meet the challenges of improving business performance and delivering
value to shareholders.''
``The Kelley School of Business takes pride in its
ability to build curricula,'' said Dan Dalton, dean of the Kelley School.
``Our faculty's talent in educational innovation enables us to create close
relationships with the corporate community and construct programs according to
their specific criteria. We are delighted to extend this ability to include a
corporation with the integrity and strong international reputation of John
Deere.''
The MBA program curriculum will consist of twenty
courses structured to meld individual student goals with the organizational
needs of Deere & Company. Each academic year will consist of three
twelve-week sessions. The program will be launched each year with a one- to
two- week residential module on Indiana University's Bloomington campus.
Teaching tools will include discussion and debate
forums, on-line testing, audio streaming and video streaming, simulations, and
time-revealed scenarios for case-based learning. Course materials may be
accessed directly from the Worldwide Web. The program will use only full-time
tenure-track faculty recognized for their quality of teaching in other Kelley
School programs.
The John Deere MBA program is a customized adaptation
of the Kelley Direct Online MBA program, which is the first fully online MBA
offered among nationally ranked top-20 business schools. It has been available
since 1999 to qualified working professionals who continue their employment
while earning their degrees. It was created in collaboration with the Kelley
School's corporate executive education clients, who voiced a need for MBA
skills throughout their work forces. About 150 students are enrolled in the
Kelley Direct Online MBA program today.
Bob
Jensen's threads on universities that have similar contracts with other
universities are given at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/crossborder.htm
Tools and Innovations
in ALN Technologies
Before reading this you may want to visit the
tools site at
http://www.uwex.edu/disted/interactive.html
Also see Tools and Tricks
of the Trade at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm
"The Chronicle's special report on Online Learning explores how calls for
quality control and assessment are reshaping online learning," (Not Free),
Chronicle of Higher Education, November 2011 ---
https://www.chronicle-store.com/Store/ProductDetails.aspx?CO=CQ&ID=78602&cid=ol_nlb_wc
The Chronicle's special report on Online Learning explores how calls for
quality control and assessment are reshaping online learning.
As online learning spreads throughout higher
education, so have calls for quality control and assessment. Accrediting
groups are scrambling to keep up, and Congress and government officials
continue to scrutinize the high student-loan default rates and aggressive
recruiting tactics of some for-profit, mostly online colleges. But the push
for accountability isn't coming just from outside. More colleges are looking
inward, conducting their own self-examinations into what works and what
doesn't.
Also in this year's report:
- Strategies for teaching and doing research
online
- Members of the U.S. military are taking online
courses while serving in Afghanistan
- Community colleges are using online technology
to keep an eye on at-risk students and help them understand their own
learning style
- The push to determine what students learn
online, not just how much time they spend in class
- Presidents' views on e-learning
Bob Jensen's threads on assessment ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Assess.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on online course and degree programs ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm
"Seven Problems of Online Group Learning (and Their Solutions)," by
Tim S. Roberts and Joanne M. McInnerney, Faculty of Business and Informatics,
Central Queensland University, Australia ---
http://www.ifets.info/journals/10_4/22.pdf
Roberts, T. S., & McInnerney, J. M. (2007). Seven Problems of
Online Group Learning (and Their Solutions). Educational Technology & Society,
10 (4), 257-268.
ABSTRACT
The benefits of online collaborative learning, sometimes referred to as CSCL
(computer-supported collaborative learning) are compelling, but many
instructors are loath to experiment with non-conventional methods of
teaching and learning because of the perceived problems. This paper reviews
the existing literature to present the seven most commonly reported such
problems of online group learning, as identified by both researchers and
practitioners, and offers practical solutions to each, in the hope that
educators may be encouraged to “take the risk”.
Keywords
Online collaborative learning, CSCL, Group learning, Group work, Free riders
"Better Learning With Sites and Sound," by Andy Guess, Inside
Higher Ed, December 3, 2008 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/12/03/audio
Students in four graduate courses at West Virginia
University worked on and submitted group projects in two different ways,
alternating for each assignment: using Microsoft Word to save, track
changes, add comments and send files back and forth as e-mail attachments;
and sharing files and editing them online using Buzzword. According to the
study, the students “were more likely to use graphics, charts, links, etc.
in Buzzword because of the ease of inclusion” than in Word, possibly as a
function of the interface’s comparative ease of use.
Perhaps more significantly, the study found that
they were “more likely to explain more complex concepts using a combination
of text and non-text based materials. The majority of participants ...
expressed the view that it was easier to express themselves at a higher
cognitive level when they could present material using multiple media
sources.” They also had higher levels of satisfaction.
Although the study had a small sample size, Ice
suggested in an interview that the “multiple forms of sensory input” such as
charts, links and graphics not only make the information more understandable
to the reader “but apparently ... students are learning more from that
process as well"; a process that’s not too different from the wiki editing
experience. He is preparing a larger follow-up study with at least six
different institutions around the world.
In theory, then, collaborations using Web-based
editing tools can potentially boost understanding, at least visually.
But learning doesn’t just occur in the visual
realm. Ice co-authored a study, currently under review, that examines how
listening to spoken words while also reading at the same time can improve
students’ learning experiences. In particular, he and his colleagues
attempted a method in which professors record comments on students’ written
assignments, which students can then listen to as they read along at
corresponding points in the text. They can also record their own responses
and continue back and forth in a sort of audio conversation.
While the Web-based collaboration tools are free,
Ice’s method makes use of embedded audio features in Adobe Acrobat Pro. If
institutions own the software, however, students can listen to the audio
(and record their own additions) on the free and commonly used Acrobat
Reader. (Adobe provided 60 copies of Acrobat Pro for the study but no
additional funding or support.)
The forthcoming paper found that students in the
audio study were at least three times more likely to take professors’
comments into account in their final assignments if they were in audio form
as opposed to written. What they found, Ice said, was that “students are
actually listening to the instructor and reading what they wrote so they
have two sensory modes working at the same time,” which could actually
improve cognition.
Since the paper was produced, Ice added, additional
research has confirmed that the findings are generalizable over many
different contexts, such as types of learners and types of institutions.
But a central component of the effect is what the
authors call the “asynchronous audio feedback” aspect of the comments: that
students can listen to previously recorded audio while they’re reading what
it is referring to.
“I’ve tried other methods, too, where you send the
students a document and then also send them a [separate] sound file, and the
effect is not nearly as strong; as a matter of fact, it’s barely significant
when you do that,” Ice said.
Continued in article
HTML slide shows on the tools of ALN
technologies are provided at the University of Illinois web site http://talon.extramural.uiuc.edu/ws97/intro/tsld033.htm
and http://talon.extramural.uiuc.edu/ws97/intro/sld033.htm
A Power Point presentation is available at http://www.online.uillinois.edu/oakley/presentations/CACUBO_Links.html
The tools mentioned by at the by Andrew
Wadsworth at http://talon.extramural.uiuc.edu/ws97/intro/tsld033.htm
include the following:
Print --- good ALN courses may not be entirely paperless. W.
Crawford and M. Garnow state (as quoted by Eli Noam in Educom Review, March/April
1998, p. 18)
Print is not dead.
Print is not dying.
Print is not even vaguely ill.
Videotape --- this is still cheaper than storage and transmission of high
volumes of digitized video, although random access, searching, and freezing on frames are
huge limitations.
Audiotape --- this is still cheaper than storage and transmission of high
volumes of digitized audio, although random access, searching, and freezing on frames are
huge limitations.
Email
--- email and the Internet comprise the core technologies of ALN
communications. Cost, efficiency and ease of use have no equals to email and the Internet.
The main drawback of email is that responding to email communication is labor intensive
(humans still answer the messages) and there are no volume controls other than refusals to
answer all or certain types of email messaging. WalMart, for example, naively installed a
customer email answering service only to discover that the flow of message become a
roaring stream that was overwhelming. Very few retail corporations openly respond to more
than a small fraction of email messages. Many conceal email addresses of employees.
Voice Mail --- this can reach users and educators at times when they do not
have access to computers.
Bulletin Board System (BBS) - the electronic version of a cork board with tacked messages. The
electronic version, however, is easier to search and index.
Facsimile or FAX - with advances in email that allow for graphics, audio, and other
file attachments, FAX technologies are losing out to modern email. However, for many
organizations (such a Microsoft, Dell, etc.) cannot handle email traffic, so that
sometimes the only way to transmit facsimiles is via FAX, postal services, or other
express mail services.
Internet and the World Wide Web - email and the Internet comprise the core technologies of ALN
communications. Cost, efficiency and ease of use have no equals to email and the Internet.
A drawback of the world wide web, however, is flow capacity (bandwidth) that can make
transmissions very slow. Also there are huge differences between being connected to
arteries (e.g., T1 lines) versus capillaries (modems). Students on campus have tremendous
comparative advantages if they can use arteries and avoid the capillaries to households
outside the campus. Some advocates of ALN having great successes with ALN on campus may
not have the same success with modem users.
To Wadsworth's list we might add some
extensions of the above technologies.
Chat Lines --- these are actually technologies for supplementing asynchronous
messaging (like email and the Internet) with synchronous messaging where students and
faculty are assembled at the same point in time from various parts of the world to have
synchronized communications. Older technologies include teleconferencing and video
conferencing. Newer technologies include text, audio, and video conferencing via computer
networks.
Real and Psuedo Audio/Video --- these are huge innovations for ALN. Downloadings of large
audio/video files can be very time consuming and require computer capacity to handle the
storage. The user is put on hold while audio or video files are being downloaded. Real
audio/video commences to playback immediately without having to wait, and psuedo
audio/video commences when only a portion (e.g., 10%) of a file has been downloaded. Real
audio makes it possible to have radio broadcasts around the clock over the Internet, and
these broadcasts can come from any part of the world. Examples of real audio application
in courses along with the use of other ALN tools can be found in the Power Point slides at
http://www.online.uillinois.edu/oakley/presentations/UIUC_ALS_Links.html
You can download a version of RealPlayer from http://www.real.com/ As an illustration, Paul
Krause's streaming video Accounting Information Systems lectures are linked and explained
at http://WWW.Trinity.edu/~rjensen/ideasmes.htm#Krause
One of the more innovative applications of real audio online is in Beth Ingram's
macro economics course at the
University of Iowa. The web address is http://www.biz.uiowa.edu/class/6e002/audio/index.html
You can read more about web streaming at http://www.trinity.edu/~rjensen/245glosf.htm#Web5
Probably more important than the tools are the
clever ways in ALN for using these tools and the possibility for abusing the tools. For an
analysis of these issues, please click on http://www.trinity.edu/~rjensen/245ch02.htm#Tablebig
experiments at the University of Illinois are discussed at http://w3.scale.uiuc.edu/scale/
Once again I remind you to visit the tools
site at http://www.uwex.edu/disted/interactive.html
MUD, MOO, and MUSH
Extensions
A somewhat bolder extension of ALN pedagogy entails having students
create their own avatars and learning worlds. MUDs are Multi-User Dimensions or Multiple
User Dungeon, or Multiple User Dialogue. These are extensions of Dungeons and Dragons that
seduced "adolescents" into a network world of imaginary places. Now there are
serious social and education MUDs. Some of the many types of MUDs and MUDding are reviewed
http://www.lysator.liu.se/mud/faq/faq1.html.
There are extensions such as Object-Oriented MOO applications that,
along with MUDs, have become serious educational experiments and applications. For
example, in Technological Horizons in Education THE (http://www.thejournal.com), March 1997, pp. 66-68, the Director of Information Resources (Michael
Conlon) at the University of Florida reports on the MOOville writing workshop for over
2,500 students per semester at the University of Florida. A summary of the article is
provided by Jensen and Sandlin at http://www.trinity.edu/~rjensen/245ch02.htm#Advantages5. An example of the network learning features of MOOville is by Conlon as
follows:
When an instructor assigned a short play for students to
read, instead of discussing it by talking face to face with each other, each group of
students would go to its workspace in MOOville and conduct their discussions online.
Students were not allowed to address each other verbally. At their workstations, students
had to type in their ideas for other group members to read and respond to; they also had
to respond in return.
The MOOville pedagogy has become exceedingly popular with University
of Florida faculty and students. Dr. Conlon concludes the following:
To those who say that a subject as complicated as writing
cannot be taught with computers, we say that it definitely can, especially when the
computer becomes the gateway to an environment that draws students in and excites them
about expressing themselves through writing.
Another less extreme extension is the MUSH which, like a MUD, is an
electronic space in which multiple persons (players, users, students) socialize, create
"worlds," and interact in gaming or serious episodes. For a discussion of the
history and applications of MUSHes, see "The Mush Manual" by Lydia Leong at http://galaxy.neca.com/~soruk/manual.html. The
variations differ more in terms of underlying software codes than in purpose and
application.
Types of ALN
Contracting
Costs of development of a virtual university are discussed by Murray
Turhoff at http://eies.njit.edu/~turoff/Papers/cbdevu.html
The abstract reads as follows:
This paper is an update of one that the author published
in 1982. It deals with the costs and effort required to set up a first class academic
program for 2000 students that is made up of students and faculty scattered around the
world. The establishment of such a University would cost less than the addition of a
single classroom building on a physical college campus (approximately $15 million US).
There are of course many options as to scale and magnitude of
effort. In terms of new courses at a university, the most
expensive option is probably on-campus development of either a traditional or an ALN
course internally. The alternative option is to contract for selected ALN courses from
other developers (vendors). In some instances the price of importing a course may not be
significant (e.g., when the course is developed using state funds with the proviso that
other institutions in the state are to share in the results). In other instances, the
price may be very high (e.g., where the vendor both develops and administers the ALN
course).
Bill Graves discusses various "micro market" scenarios in
"Adapting to the Emergence of Educational Micro Markets" in the
September/October 1997 issue of Educom Review (pp. 26-31). Many universities will
probably take on some form of the first scenario on Page 30 that reads as follows
(emphasis added):
A traditional institution (college or university) can move
selectively to offer online versions of existing courses and degree programs. This is
already happening in many institutions in an ad hoc incremental manner that adds value
to the institutions core programs.
For example, adding an array of ALN business technology courses
would add value to our existing core programs in Business Administration at Trinity
University. ALN courses bridge key gaps in the core program. The second scenario,
according to Dr. Graves, is to become a "meta" university like the University of
Utah that is retaining its traditional market niche while exporting several networked
courses to the new online Western Governors University. The third scenario is to become a
"mega" university aggressively marketing world wide online degree programs.
Other examples of these ranging alternatives are provided in the
Appendix of this paper. To skip to this Appendix, click on Appendix: Links to Some Key Web Sites.Appendix.
The Myth of
Lower Faculty Cost: Network Bridges May Be Cheap Shots or Very Costly to Deliver
I indicated above that my colleagues are skeptical about contracting
for any networked ALN courses even though some courses would greatly improve the
curriculum at Trinity University. Their skepticism, however, may be for the wrong reasons.
Some early studies of ALN at other universities indicate that ALN is more effective than
traditional pedagogy. However, skepticism regarding labor intensity and need for high
faculty dedication to ALN are well grounded.
Networked courses are cheaper than traditional courses due to
virtual elimination of needs for physical classrooms, building maintenance, and expensive
on-site faculty. They can be virtually paperless and administered with little or no
contact between faculty and students. However, most respected universities are not
considering the cheapest form of distributed education. Duke University forged ahead
with its new and very expensive Global Executive MBA (GEMBA) networked, prestigious, and
high tuition program described at http://www.fuqua.duke.edu/programs/gemba/index.htm.
In the October 20, 1997 issue of Business Week article on
GEMBA, the title of the article is "THE HOTTEST CAMPUS ON THE INTERNET: Duke's pricey
online B-school program is winning raves from students and rivals." By
"pricey" the article means that the tuition alone is $82,500 for this online
combination of synchronous and ALN modules. Although it may not be available for long on
the web, at the time of this writing the Business Week article is available free
at
http://www.businessweek.com/1997/42/b3549015.htm
The GEMBA Program at Duke University stresses increased rather than
decreased communications between faculty and students and between students themselves via
newer technologies for global online communication. Heavily featured in the GEMBA program
are networked cases and chat lines between students who reside in virtually all parts of
the globe. Component technologies used by GEMBA at present are as follows:
Voice over network synchronous discussions
Application-sharing software
CD-ROM multimedia course ware
E-mail
Electronic bulletin boards
Streaming audio
Synchronous group discussion software
World Wide Web browser
Internet based search engines, including Dialog, Dow Jones
& ProQuest
Another leading edge program is the Ohio University Online MBA
Without Boundries program at http://sirius.cba.ohiou.edu/www/intranet/#mbawb
. My friend Thomas Calderon writes as follows:
Yesterday I visited Ohio University
to take a look at their "MBA Without Boundaries" program. It was facinating. The
program is offered on the web using Lotus Notes and Domino. It is a two-year, lock step
program that is 100% project oriented. Students must complete a number of individual
projects and about 8 major group projects. No text books are required or recommended. Six
instructors team teach the program and they collaborate on every project. The entire
program is a collaborative effort between students and faculty that is supported by a
powerful web-enabled GDSS tool. The program is very selective and students pay a hefty
fee.
By the way, thanks again for your contribution to Ohio AAA.
Thomas
___________________________________________________________
Thomas G. Calderon, Ph.D. Phone (330) 972-6099
Associate Professor Fax (330) 972-8597
G. W. Daverio School of Accountancy Mailto:TCalderon@Uakron.edu
College of Business Administration
The University of Akron
Akron, OH 44325-4802
Some of the top universities experimenting with network delivery of
courses are finding that networking can be a victim of its own success. This is the
purported experience of the ALN experiments in the College of Commerce and Business
Administration at the University of Illinois under a relatively large grant from the Sloan
Foundation. The unexpected huge cost arises from labor intensity of dealing with
increased messaging of students in networked courses and the varying ALN styles needed for
differing types of students. In the Sloan Foundation funded ALN courses, it was
discovered that students normally reluctant to communicate in traditional classrooms and
faculty offices suddenly want to write vast amounts in writing assignments and other
messages in the Illinois ALN experimental courses. Teaching assistants had to be hired to
assist faculty in dealing with the huge and somewhat unexpected volume of student
messaging. It was also found that different types of students (Eager Beavers versus Drones
versus Sluggos) need different types of ALN pedagogy.
The "urge to message" phenomenon among students will come
as no surprise to major corporations such as Wal-Mart, Microsoft, and most other
corporations that have very fine web sites but cannot afford the labor expenses of
personally responding to email messages from customers and the public at large. Some
companies like Wal-Mart for a short time encouraged their web site users to send in
messages and, soon thereafter, drowned in a sea of messages. To stem the flood, typical
options currently available at most corporate web sites are only to fill out standardized
forms (that computers can process) and/or to limit email messaging to webmasters with
suggestions for improving the web site. Although Dell Corporation has over $2 million in
sales per day from web site order forms, a message sent to the only email address provided
at the Dell web site reads as follows:
Please note, the webmaster@dell.com address is for
communications regarding this website only. While all messages are read, we may not
respond to or forward your message.
Note that corporations can limit 800-number phone messaging by
simply setting the capacity for incoming telephone calls such that, when all lines are
busy, the public must wait for an open phone line. Email messaging cannot be controlled
with "busy signals." As a result, corporations either do not provide any email
addresses at their web sites or they restrict the types of messages that will be answered.
Some large and small business organizations have delayed extending 800-number type
services to web services due to the anticipation of being swamped with use of the web
services and the added messaging that will accompany the web services. Email addresses,
unlike telephone numbers, of departments and divisions of major corporations are closely
guarded secrets. Customers, students, and network users in general appear to "love to
message" according to early experiments in web site administrators. FedEx is one of
the rare exceptions to offer to personally respond to public messaging at http://www.fedex.com/email-form.html. Labor costs are enormous for having humans read and respond to email
messages.
There are added costs that are noted in some of the grant reports
filed with the Sloan Foundation. In particular, the Final Report from Stanford University
is negative about current technologies for ALN courses and calls cost problems
"problematic."
The problem of cost is problematic. As mentioned above,
there is an expectation that asynchronously delivered courses will be less costly than
synchronously delivered ones. To some extent this is a simple pricing issue. However, if
we frame the issue as the need for the production, maintenance, and delivery costs of an
asynchronous course to be less than that of either a live or televised class, we can make
some observations. Our experience shows that the production and delivery costs of adequate
quality multimedia content are high. In a situation such as that at Stanford, where
classes are taught live and are also televised, asynchronous delivery is a direct cost
overlay. Although live classes will continue into the foreseeable future, on-line
synchronous delivery could supplant television should the quality of the two methods
become comparable.
Executive Summary of the Final Report on
Sloan Foundation Grant No. 94-12-7, March 4, 1997 http://pocari.stanford.edu/history/index.html
It should be noted that newer technology is now being installed at
Stanford University that will improve upon both ALN and traditional courses. At the
moment, Microsoft Corporation is leading the way in installing technologies at Stanford
University that will put every Business Administration course on a network server. Even
though Stanford has not yet announced plans to make these courses available to other
campuses through its Stanford Online Program, it will not take much effort to do so when
competition from other prestige universities makes it popular to join in the movement
toward global networking of courses and/or entire degree programs.
Microsoft Corporation provides a recent online article by Dees
Stallings entitled "Applying Taylor's Efficiencies in cyberspace." This article
describes some ways to improve efficiencies of asynchronous courses. The article is at http://www.microsoft.com/education/hed/vision.htm
Also see Concerns
About Faculty Resistance to Change
How to Reduce
Messaging Costs in ALN Courses
The "cheap shot" way to reduce messaging costs is to
virtually do away with messaging to course administrators by limiting messaging to only
technical support in making the online or CD-ROM course work on a given computer. Most
respected universities are understandably reluctant to take the cheap shot approach.
Faculty themselves must be dedicated to a long-term ALN pedagogy. Several faculty at
Drexel University who participated in a Sloan ALN grant warn that:
Institutions as a whole must also be
committed to ALN-based education and training. If organizations regard the technology as a
fad or as something in which they must become involved because of perceived competition,
then they will not sustain ALNs as part of the primary delivery processes. The danger
today is that asynchronous learning-along with other forms of "distance
education"-will remain in the labs and in the hands of techno-educators-who seldom
represent mainstream faculty interests.
Asynchronous Learning Networks: Drexel's
Experience http://www.thejournal.com/past/oct/510andriole.html
A more respected way to lower messaging costs is to investigate why
students need to have such frequent messaging with the course instructor or teaching
assistants. Chances are that many of the messages arise because of deficiencies in the
provided ALN materials. The deficiencies may be in terms of content or in terms of poor
aids in navigating that content. In this regard, I have provided a checklist of things to
consider when designing ALN learning materials. This checklist is available at http://www.trinity.edu/~rjensen/ideasmm.htm.
Good design will not eliminate messaging, but great designs might eliminate an enormous
proportion of the messages. One problem that experimenters with ALN are having is that
budgets and material preparation time are inadequate for creating great ALN content with
creative navigation aids.
Another way to reduce messaging costs is to invest more heavily in
developing "intelligent" ALN materials versus "one size fits all"
materials. In U.S. Department of Defense courses, the distinction lies in computer based
training (CBT) versus intelligent computer based training (ICBT). When the military
develops ICBT, the material contains artificial intelligence utilities that adapt to the
background, aptitude, and motivation of the learner. It was mentioned above that after
experimenting with ALN courses at the University of Illinois, Professor Arvan discusses
ALN in terms of students classified as "Eager Beavers" versus "Drones"
versus "Sluggos." Virtually all universities contend that the majority of their
students are Eager Beavers rather than Drones and Sluggos. Professor Arvan concludes that
the proportion of actual Eager Beavers may be overstated and, in their cases, the need for
labor intensive discourse is different but nevertheless significant:
I'd be remiss if I didn't say something
about ALN and Eager Beavers before concluding. Though I believe there can be substantial
benefit from utilizing ALN in a course primarily composed of Eager Beavers, that use
should be substantially different from what I have outlined above, because the teaching
objective is different. The main goal in the case of Eager Beavers is to promote
high-quality discourse, rather than to offer a channel for getting help and to provide an
incentive for doing the work.
From Lanny Arvan in the Department of
Economics at http://www.cba.uiuc.edu/~larvan/ALNessays/ALN1.html
If the ALN materials contained artificial intelligence that
identified the type of learner, it might be possible to reduce messaging costs by
automatically varying the navigation options to learning styles and aptitudes. This will
not eliminate discourse and other messaging costs, but it may take some of the drudgery
out of messaging.
Components
of ALN
Jack Wilson at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has had
a great deal of experience in an ALN program at Rennsselaer. He states that a
"good" ALN will have the following:
- Delivery on standards-based multimedia PCs equipped for live
video/audio interactions and connected to a robust IP multicasting network
- A mix of synchronous and asynchronous activity
- Use of Intranet and/or CD-ROM-based multimedia materials
- Live audio and/or video interactions among the students and
with faculty
- Use of professional quality software tools for CAD, symbolic
math, spreadsheets, word processing, etc.
- Small group discussions
- Question-and-answer tools to verify content retention
- Collaborative software for application sharing and
application synching over the network
- Access to rich resources on the network
- Floor control to allow classroom coordination for both
instructor-led and student-centered learning
- Course administration to track student progress and to
identify the students during the synchronous interactions
Jack M. Wilson
"Just-in-Time Training: Distance Learning on the Desktop"
Syllabus, September 1997,
p. 52
Small group discussions can be carried on in chat lines
or some type of email setup such as a listserv. Professor Wilson also argues that good ALN
courses will still have both instructor-led and student-led learning in addition to
pre-recorded ALN learning materials.
Components
of SLN
Online courses need not be ALN.
Indeed many of them are mainly synchronous learning network (SLN) courses with
small amounts of asynchronous ALN material. Most SLN courses in the past and present
are taught with interactive television. A few courses are now SLN via the Internet.
A highlight for me at the November 6-7, 1998 AICPA
Accounting Educators Conference was a presentation by Sharon Lightner from San Diego State
University and Linard Nadig from Switzerland. This presentation followed a ceremony
presenting Professors Lightner and Nadig with the $1,000 AICPA Collaboration Award prize.
The Collaboration Award was given for an online course that is now offered to a class
comprised of five students from each of six universities in the United States, Japan,
Switzerland, Spain, and Hong Kong. I videotaped the presentation by Professor Lightner and
Nadig and will now share my summary of the highlights of this innovative international
accounting course. The summary highlights and links can be found at
http://WWW.Trinity.edu/~rjensen/255light.htm
The course has some highly innovative features including the online
participation of accounting standard setting bodies in the various countries mentioned
above. The course is also innovative in that students in class and in team projects see
and hear one another over the Internet in a manner much like they would see and hear each
other if they were all in the same classroom. The course has one instructor from each of
the campuses.
The components of a SLN course include servers, cameras
attached to each client compujter, real audio software, real video software, and software
for chat lines, file transfers, etc. An example of software components and a
discussion of possible problems is given at http://WWW.Trinity.edu/~rjensen/255light.htm#TechnologySoftware
A good example of an entire online degree program that is heavily a SLN program is the
Duke University Global Executive MBA (GEMBA) program described at http://WWW.Trinity.edu/~rjensen/255wp.htm#TheMyth
Will Higher Education Adopt Business Strategies?
In On the Horizon,
July/August 1997, D.P. Snyder lists the following business strategies that loom on the
horizon for higher education following the lead of postindustrial enterprises:
Insourcing and outsourcing
Collaborative in-house initiatives
and teamwork
Intrapreneurship and extrapreneurship
Distribution channeling
He suggests that these will be
translated to the following education strategies:
Colleges and universities have been
slow to adopt business strategies that are fueling the postindustrial revolution.
One reason is that educational institutions have thrived on regional monopolies and/or the
halo of hallowed tradition. In the 21st Century, however, networking technologies
will gnaw away at traditional comparative advantages. As competition for students
becomes more intense, colleges and universities will experiment more and more with
business strategies of the late 20th Century.
ALN vs Self-Directed Learning (SDL)
ALN and self-directed learning (SDL) had different origins. SDL is
an older term that evolved from continuing (adult) education, correspondence courses, and
corporate training. SDL existed before computer networking whereas ALN implicitly assumes
computer networking and/or CD-ROM hypertext
and hypermedia. However, SDL applications have moved
quickly to computer networks and CD-ROMs with hypertext and hypermedia. Few, if any,
differences remain between SDL and ALN.
One difference of note is that SDL usually depicts a self-paced
learner struggling alone with the learning materials and occasional messaging with a
trainer or instructor. ALN typically makes use of more recent collaborative technologies
of chat
lines, listservs, and webcasting.
In addition, ALN in a college setting is rarely totally asynchronous. Usually there are
synchronous elements that possibly include classroom lectures and case discussions.
SDL has become a "quiet revolution" in corporate training
according to Guglielmino and Murdick:
There has been a "quiet
revolution" going on in the training departments of some of corporate America's most
prestigious companies. For example, a series of national seminars were conducted by the
International Quality & Productivity Center on Self-Directed Learning during the past
three years. Companies such as Motorola, Disney, Aetna, Xerox, U.S. West, Levi Strauss,
Owens-Corning, and American Airlines have all been implementing SDL in their long-term
training and development strategies. These companies have discovered an educational
practice that has its roots in the Socratic method. It is called self-directed
learning. Organizational and technological changes have forced companies to
re-examine the way employees learn and what they learn.
The storage time of an
individual's knowledge from acquisition to use has shrunk because employees must use the
latest knowledge available to keep companies at the edge of the competition. In essence,
we have entered the age of "just-in-time learning." This type of learning has
been discovered to be self-directed learning. It is the only approach possible for keeping
learning in sync with the rapidly changing environment. The nature and advantages of this
method of learning as well as successful applications will be presented in the following
sections.
P.J. Guglielmino and R.G. Murdick
"Sel-Directed Learning: The Quiet Revolution
SAM Advanced Management Journal
Summer 1997, p. 10
Comparisons of SDL with traditional training is always risky. Hawthorne
effects become major problems in experimental designs. These are distortions
and possibly non-sustaining effects of a treatment just because its newness captures more
of an individual's attentiveness. In double blind studies of the impact of technologies
upon learning, Hawthorne effects are particularly troublesome. Students are apt to be more
attentive to newer technologies simply because they are "new" curiosities.
Positive results on learning impacts may not be sustaining, however, after the novelty and
curiosity factors decline with repeated use of the technology over time.
Be that as it may, there are repeated reports of successes of SDL in
both reduced cost and improved performance in training. An example is provided in a
Motorola Corporation plant as follows:
In 1994, 633 associates undertook 853
self-study courses. This represented over 3,000 hours of SDL training in just four months.
In 1995, 1,920 learning plans were completed, resulting in 4,080 self-study hours, or 40%
of the total course offerings. Approximately 50% of the associates selected a self-study
course to learn what they needed. The average cost per hour for delivering the
traditional classroom instruction was $13.34, while the average for delivering the
self-directed material was $7.76. It is interesting to note that the results of the
learning indicate the self-direct approach proved as good as, or better than, the
traditional learning method. Recently, Motorola Paging Division has made a commitment to
extend this SDL approach to all of its sites worldwide.
P.J. Guglielmino and R.G. Murdick
"Sel-Directed Learning: The Quiet Revolution
SAM Advanced Management Journal
Summer 1997, p. 13
This type of SDL was not undertaken with the instruction labor
intensity of the ALN experiments on university campuses under Sloan Foundation grants.
Cost savings may not be as dramatic in ALN. Also, without instructional labor intensity,
SDL may not be as effective with college students as it is with highly motivated adult
employees seeking promotions and job performance evaluations.
A Comment
Regarding Intranet versus Internet Courses
Before closing this document, I would like to
make a comment about Internet courses. An "Internet" course is any course that
makes use of the Internet (usually by means of http protocols on the World Wide Web). The
transmitted materials may be selected materials or entire courses.
An "intranet" is any network that
has some type of restricted access to materials (web pages, images, audio files, video
files, animation files, databases, etc) on the Internet. The common access restriction is
a password that in the case of online course materials must be purchased. One type of
intranet is formed when a textbook publisher restricts access to only users who have paid
for the right to open an online textbook. For example, see textbook listing at Cybertext
Publishing (http://www.cybertext.com/).
The University of Pheonix uses similar intranets for course material access at http://www.uophx.edu/online/.
An example of a student's experience at taking an online course is provided by CyberSchool at http://CyberSchool.4j.lane.edu/About/CSClass/CSClass.html.
In many instances, course materials used by
faculty are shared freely with the world without intranet restrictions. Example links to
free shareware are shown below:
http://wwwhost.cc.utexas.edu:80/world/lecture/
http://WWW.Trinity.edu/~rjensen/
http://viking.som.yale.edu/will/finman540/classnotes/notes.html
http://viking.som.yale.edu/will/cases/casebk2.html
http://Finance.Wat.ch/cbt/Options/
http://www.cob.ohio-state.edu
http://www.trinity.edu/~rjensen/bookbob.htm#Top1
Once again it is stressed that ALN courses my
have online learning materials that make a course heavily asynchronous, but the
"complete" course will most likely be improved with some synchronous components
such as traditional classroom meetings, distance learning "classrooms" such as
with interactive TV connections, audio conferencing, video conferening, chat lines, etc.
Judith Boettcher describes the range of
"Web-light" to "Web courses" possibilities as follows:
I think it is useful to describe some of the
characteristics for courses using these new technologies. It is also useful, I think, not
to think in terms of either-or but to think in terms of online/Web courses/Internet
courses as points on a continuum. Some of the courses might be described, for example, as
"Web-light," while other courses are truly "Web courses" in that they
are delivered fully on the Web and are accessible anytime and anywhere.
Communicating in the Tower of WWWeb-ble
by Judith V. Boettcher
Syllabus, October 1997, p. 44
Concerns
About the Explosion of ALN in Education
Concerns
About Residency Living & Learning on Campus
I recently listened to an address by Robert S. Sullivan, Directory
of the IC2 Institute, University of Texas at Austin. He was extremely positive
about opportunities for ALN networking and bridging of curriculum gaps with web courses
that in many instances will become much higher in quality than a single university will
normally be able to develop only for its own campus. At the end of his address, in
response to a question from the audience, he did raise two very serious concerns (that I
paraphrased below from my videotape of his remarks):
Problem 1: One day a "university" may only be left with onsite faculty and
programs that distributed education vendors are not willing to "pay for." There
is an important debate going on that focuses on the issue of whether the "university
concept" might be undermined.
Problem 2: Students, especially undergraduate students, cannot have a complete learning
experience without being physically present on a campus. The interpersonal and social
dynamics of a campus may be put at risk with distributed learning.
Robert S. Sullivan, August 20, 1997 Plenary
Session
Annual Meeting of the American Accounting Association
Concerns About
Impersonality and Becoming Irrevocably Orwellian
One of my students, Elizabeth Eudy, coined the phrase
"irrevocably Orwellian." At http://www.resnet.trinity.edu/users/eeudy/aln.htm
she writes the following:
Although it is too far fetched to say that we
will turn into cold, heartless robots as a result of ALN and that our society has become irrevocably Orwellian, the lack of
face-to-face social interaction could potentially do more harm than good in our education.
Will graduates of ALN degree programs be left wondering how they will cope in an actual
job interview? Students need social interaction as vital component sof maturation and
professional development. The most successful use of ALN thus presents itself as a
combination of online courses and real classroom interaction. The classes do not
necessarily have to meet twice or three times a weeks as most do now, but rather as needed
by the demands of students or by the judgement of the professor. In any case, as the
market for ALN courses expands (as it is doing) traditional universities will have to
upgrade their curriculum to ALN in order to remain competitive.
At a later point she writes the
following:
ALN courses can be dehumanized to such an
extent that students will no longer feel as if they belong to a learning community.
Community is a key concept for the learning process, and enables students to gain support
from each other. This concept is taken to the limit in traditional universities where
students belong to a university community--they live in the dorms, they eat together at
the cafeteria, they join various student organizatons, and most importantly, they learn
together. The professors and students ideally belong to the same community of learning;
although in some universities students feel that professors are too inaccessible. Many
proponents of ALN still agree that the human component of education and university life is
necessary. Degerhan Usleul, the chief operating officer of Interactive Learning
International Corporation (ILINC), is quoted as saying: The importance of an
instructor's physical presence, complete with body language, as well as the rapport one
builds with classmates, are not easily replaced. Jo Ann Davy continues in the
article, writing that Usluel recommends holding a physical event to help
relationships, before connecting online.
Davy, Jo Ann. "Education and Training
Alternatives." Managing Office Technology: Cleveland. April 1998.
Another student named Katie Lawrence
lists drawbacks of ALN as follows at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~alawrenc/ALN.html
- There are more dropouts than in actual on-campus courses
- Loss of commuinty/campus atmosphere
- There are no current standards for program assessment, so
it is difficult for students to know which courses will be worth the money they are
spending
- Often, the high fees charged for some ALN courses go to
fund actual campus courses rather than the virtual courses being offered.
- Due to the large number of students taking ALN courses and
their tendency to contact professors frequently, more professors or teaching assistants
are required to adequately teach a cyber course.
- "Learning ceases to be about analysis, discussion, and
examination, and becomes a product to be bought and sold, to be packaged, advertised, and
marketed." (taken from Dangers of Global Education)
- Students loose out by not actually reading published books.
- Because the courses are developed in the Western world,
Western views are spread to all parts of the globe, which may inhibit the cultural growth
of other societies, thus creating a unified, undiverse world. Computer access and
availability and modem speed are problems for ALN courses given on college campuses -
students are often times unable to log on due to slow modems or busy network lines.
Barbara Brown discusses the myth of
asynchronous learning impersonality:
Another myth one frequently
encounters about computer-mediated instruction is that of impersonality. People assume
that in the absence of face-to-face interaction, relations automatically become more
distant and impersonal. Traditional distance learning formats are said to be plagued with
this problem.[9] Not so, in my experience with the interactive digital classroom. There is
a type of intimacy achievable between teachers and students in this medium that is quite
extraordinary, reminiscent of what Sproull and Keisler refer to as
"second-level" social effects of the technology. I believe this intimacy results
from a sense of shared control and esponsibility, commitment to collaboration and
dialogue, and increased willingness to take risks in communications with others nline. The
verbal and writing-intensive nature of the text-based forum network also forces one to
make ones thoughts very explicit whenever possible; there is little room for
subtlety. As one administrator put it: "In an online environment, words matter....
Words are everything."
Also, it takes longer for groups to reach consensus in
brain-storming and problem-solving situations online.[10] Peoples feelings can be
hurt easily, so more time and effort are put into explaining meanings and supplying
detailed contextual background to enhance mutual understanding. Thus, writers get to know
one another intimately over time while computer-mediated conversations - both formal and
informal - unfold. Neither e-mail nor chat, the forum classroom environment at Fielding
calls for and inspires thoughtful, composed (after reading and reflection) asynchronous
networked interactions, without sacrificing human warmth.
At this stage in the evolution of Internet educational
technology, we are all learners. There is also a sense that we are innovators and early
adopters who "crossed over" early in the technology transfer and diffusion
process.[11] In the Fielding culture, this pioneer experience has come to be known as
riding the waves, or embracing the "turbulence" of rough seas - a metaphor for
global and organizational unrest as well. The attention given to group process online and
the thoughtful nature of masters-level conversations establish an intimacy within
the group, belying the myth of impersonality.
B.M. Brown
"Digital Classrooms: Some Myths About Developing New Educational Programs Using
the Internet,"
T.H.E. Journal, December 98, pp. 57-58
The online version is at http://www.thejournal.com/magazine/current/feat04.html
Concerns About Making Education and
Training Too Easy
It has been demonstrated in various ways in
cognitive and learning science that making a training environment easier may be dysfunctional in the sense that
it improves short term memory at the expense of long-term memory and performance.
Complex information needs to be multiply encoded in semantic and/or situational
associations. Computer-aided training may either enhance or detract from long-term
performance.
For example, I am inclined to make it easier
for students to find answers or get leads each course topic. I view it as taking the
Mickey Mouse drudgeries of finding things that consume time. I hope
to provide my students with more time to study what they find and less time trying to find
what they study. To do so I provide as much literature as possible on
CD-ROMs (many of which I record myself), my LAN hard drive, and the University's web
server. However, it is possible that the Mickey Mouse activities contribute
significantly to long-term memory. To the extent that I am making discovery less
difficult and more predictable, I might in fact be improving students' short term
performance at the expense of long-term memory and cognition.
Robert Bjork states:
It has now been demonstrated
in a variety of ways, and with a variety of motor, verbal, and problem-solving tasks, that
introducing variation and/or unpredictability in the training environment causes
difficulty for the learner but enhances long-term performance --- particularly the ability
to transfer training to novel but related task environments.
Robert A. Bjork
"Memory and Metamemory considerations in the Training of Human Beings,"
Metacognition: Knowing about Knowing
Edited by Janet Metcalfe and Arthru P. Shimaura
The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts
ISBN: 0262132982, 1994, Page 189
Click
Here to View Working Paper 265 on Metacognition
Concerns in Designs and Evaluations of
Computer Aided Education and Training:
Are We Misleading Ourselves About Measures of Success?
Other references are provided later on in this
document under the section entitled "Fostering Deeper Learning: Risks of Teaching More Than You Know."
.
Concerns About Making
Education and Training Too Hard
All courses at Trinity University are
three-credit courses. Virtually all of my students are full-time students who are
taking at least five courses each semester. On the faculty evaluation forms one of
the questions reads: "How would you rate the workload of this course?"
Another question reads: "How difficult did you find this course?"
As I added more ALN modules in place of lectures, answers to these questions
virtually all moved to "Very Heavy" and "Very Difficult." The
following quotation is representative of class concerns:
The work load was very heavy
and put a strain on my other classes. I liked the material, but weekly quizzes and
examinations plus 50-90 pages of reading per class along with other classes is too much.
Actually I usually do not assign pages to
read, but in the process of studying assigned topics, my graduate students dig out a huge
amount of material that they themselves feel they must study. In research
projects constituting over 50% of the course grade, they must seek out, sift, digest, and
nurture a vast amount of learning material. Often students must spend a great
deal of time building foundations to even study the material. For example, projects
entailing both design and implementation of relational datatbases entail learning how to
make complicated software work. Projects entailing how to account for financial
instruments derivatives entail learning what those financing contracts are and how they
are used in hedging stragegies.
The bottom line is that it is would not be
reasonable for all five graduate courses each semester to take as much time as my courses.
Students would become frustrated, angered, and seek to somehow short circuit their
effort if there was not enough time each week to cover five similar ALN courses.
Their traditional lecture courses are often neat and tidy with problems assigned from the
back of the textbook and sufficient material in the textbook or lectures to master the
assigned materials. Students all study the same materials and can help each other in
many lecture courses. In my asynchronous modules, students must do a lot more
digging on their own and generally come away frustrated by the "loose ends" that
they neither have the time nor skills to master nor the skills to master. For
example, in the process of studying risk exposures of derivatives contracts they encounter
mathematically complex Value
at Risk time series models. A few of the mathematically inclined students
who elect to delve into such models learn more about Value at Risk than students who
go down other avenues on their projects. Hence, students are not all studying the
same materials, and it becomes more difficult to lean on each other for help crossing
troubled waters. In many instances their instructor, me, is not sufficiently up on
the particulars of each topic to bail them out. For more on this, skip to the
section entitled Fostering Deeper
Learning: Risks of Teaching More Than You Know.
I like to force students to struggle on their
own, because I think this prepares them for life after graduation. However, there is
a fine line in ALN between making ALN too easy versus making ALN too hard. I have not yet achieved the correct
balance. One example where asynchronous learning appears to achieve a good
balance is the Business Activity Model (BAM) in Intermediate Accounting at the McIntire School of Commerce at the University
of Virginia. A portion of one of my recent email messages is quoted below:
The mere fact that many ALN courses are
shown to improve grades and/or the rate at which learning takes place does not imply that
long-term performance has been enhanced. It is not clear whether better performance arises
from a confounding of added sweat with ALNs. What does intrigue me, however, is how an
entire year of Intermediate Accounting (typically very tough courses requiring
memorization of lots of accounting rules and procedures) is now being taught at the
University of Virginia totally without lectures by the two professors (Croll and Catanach) who, up until 1996, lectured (quite brilliantly)
in virtually every class. Their anecdotal claims for the "BAM" non-lecture
approach are that students are doing markedly better on in course examinations, the CPA
examination, and on the job (which they can monitor since all students have internships
with firms). I now feature a multimedia workshop module of the University of Virginia BAM
ALN program. The average SAT of students in these UVA classes is over 1300. It is not
clear that BAM will work so well on lesser mortals.
One way to judge good ALN workload balance is
to keep track of teaching evaluations. Students generally voice complaints when
workloads are unreasonable (they will not always complain when a course is too easy).
The BAM asynchronous courses at the University of Virginia have heavy workloads,
but Professors Croll and Catanach manage to pull these courses off with some of the
highest instructor evaluations in the McIntire School of Commerce.
Click
Here to View More Discussion of the BAM Pedagogy at the University of Virginia
Concerns in Designs and Evaluations of
Computer Aided Education and Training:
Are We Misleading Ourselves About Measures of Success?
Concerns About Corporate Influences on Traditional Missions
There are two types of partnerings between business
firms and universities. The first type is where the university's faculty deliver a
specialized degree program to employess of a business firm. The program is often
specialized calendar, courses, and mode of delivery. For example, the
PriceWaterhouse Coopers MBA program at the University of Georgia has a customized
calendar, customized courses, and all courses are delivered asynchronously on the web.
Another type of partnering is where the
business firms deliver courses for the university degree programs. An example of
this type of partnering is the AT&T partnering with Western
Governors University that was announced in two magazines that I track regularly.
For example, see
"AT&T Learning Network Hosts WGU
Content," T.H.E. Journal, February 1999,
14-16.
One of my undergraduate students, Paul Meekey, notes
the rise of partnerships between universities and corporations where the universities
participate in educating and training employees of companies. Paul's paper can be
found at http://www.resnet.trinity.edu/users/pmeekey/frame2.htm
wherein he states the following:
Employers are always trying to find ways to
cut costs and now with the introduction of ALN,
they should be able to do so. Two companies that have enabled this technology are helping
to reduce costs in their post graduate business training programs. CIGNA Corporation, an
insurance company located in Philadelphia has formed a partnership with Drexell University, also in Philadelphia to create a
master's program for information systems. They came up with a three year program that
would train their students online. The only time they actually met offline was for a two
day orientation at the Drexell campus and after that it was totally online. After
the success of the program, Metlife, another
insurancecompany decided to form a similar partnership with Drexel University. One
advantage to this program that both company enjoyed was that both companies didn't have to
give up their employees to go back to a university campus for the 2 yr. graduate program.
The employees could remain working for the company, continue working on their
projects and fulfill their educational requirements after work, before work, on their days
off, or on the weekends. Richard H. Lytle, dean of Drexel's
College of Information and Technology, says that the he is really excited that both
companies are not only using his program but applying it to software application within
their own applications of everyday work. The program helps the companies to eliminate the
some costs and uncertainties of trying to hire full-qualified employees from major
universities and also the time lost when employees have to go to these classes during
normal working hours. The companies are also using what they have learned through Drexel University to eventually have all training in
the company done through ALN, in all departments. New
York University's School of Continuing Education also participates in online learning,
and just recently formed a partnership with IBM to offer information systems courses for
their professionals, on a global scale. We are sure to see a huge increase in ALN used in
the business environment. Companies can keep their employees working hard and earning the
profits while training them to make them more efficient at their job. Although still
young, ALN is helping companies such as Citicorp,
NYNEX Corp., and Sandoz to become more cost efficient in training their employees.
The above trends are a mixed blessing.
Clearly, expansion into corporate education and training expands the market alternatives
for colleges facing a shrinking and increasingly competitive environment for traditional
students and traditional continuing education students. The flip side of the coin is
that the universities may sacrifice some of their independence in setting curricula and
course contents since corporations paying for the education and training will dictate such
matters to a large degree.
For more discussion and references about
corporate universities and partnerships between corporations and traditional universities,
see http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm#CorporatePartnerships
and http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm#ErnstandYoung .
Concerns About Library
Services
The Internet has become the world's library.
However, content pales in comparison with scholarly works found in libraries that
contain vast resources that either are not or cannot be digitized. Making centuries
of literature available on networks is cost prohibitive to digitize for and deliver from
web servers. Copyright restrictions deliberately protect vast bodies of new and
older literature from being digitized.
When asynchrounous courses are delivered off campus,
library access becomes a major problem that is frequently ignored in the hype of ALN
promotion. One of my students, Katie Greene, addresses this problem at http://www.resnet.trinity.edu/users/kgreene/distanceno.htm
In the above document, Katie provides links and
references to literature on looming issues and "new roles for librarians."
She states:
Librarians must change their role if they want to keep up
with the changes in education. They will need to change in three different ways. The first
way would be that "librarians will take on a more proactive role in the classroom and
will work more collaboratively with the teaching faculty to develop assignments that are
feasible in the off-campus/ distance environment." (Lebowitz) Secondly, distance
education will bring about "greater collaboration among institutions".
(Lebowitz) Because their are no constraints on location, libraries from all over can work
together to create collections of works and pool their resources. A good example of this
cooperation, is Western Governors University, which is a university made by the governors
of the western states. Along with this cooperation, though, "the supplying of library
services will become highly competitive, and libraries may choose to outsource the
provision of services to other institutions" (Cavanagh). Thirdly, the librarian's
role "will shift to one of facilitator/instructor, rather than provider of
information." (Slade) Librarians will now be communicating with students in remote
locations via e-mail, video conferencing, chat lines, or audio conferencing. One example
of this is at University of
Maryland University College where students can "chat" with
librarians online and ask any questions they might have. Librarians will have to be
proactive and learn about the new technologies and make the materials available to
students all over the world.
Many have already used these devices and made the information available. Old ways included
loan programs and mailing books and other materials. Now librarians use information
technology to develop online, virtual libraries. One criticism is that distant students do
not have access to as much information, but librarians are now able to put entire works,
full texts of books, journals, references, newspapers, as well as web searches and
internet access on the internet.
Some Examples include:
VIVA the virtual library of Virginia
- electronic collections of books, journals, newspapers , as well as internet searches.
Online Literature Library
Internet Public Library- references,
magazines, newspapers, online texts.
Carrie-Full-Text Electronic
Library.
Katie Greene raises other concerns and
discusses the challenges of giving distance learners the same access to libraries as the
access available to resident students. One wonders how top programs such as the Duke University Global Executive
MBA program and the Ohio University Online MBA Without
Boundries program manage to provide library resources to students.
Judy Luther provides a paper entitled "Distance
Learning and the Digital Library: What Happens When the Virtural Student Needs to
Use the Virtual Library in a Virtual University," Educom Review, July/August
1998, 23-26. Although no virtual library is going to contain the text of all books
and journals in a major academic library due to copyright and impracticalities of
digitizing trillions of pages of text and graphics, there are some collaborative efforts
being made by various universities to aid students taking virutal courses off campus.
At the time a am writing this paper, Judy Luther's article is not yet available
online, However, eventually it will be online at http://www.educom.edu/web/pubs/review/dateIndex.html
.
Concerns About Academic Standards
and Student Ethics
One of my students, Sophia Mena, at http://www.resnet.trinity.edu/users/smena/learning.htm wrote the following:
The first thing that came to mind when I
first started researching the Virtual Classroom is how professors monitor if students are
doing their own work. In the Traditional Classroom a professor can easily detect if a
person is cheating on their test, but how can they monitor that if someone is taking a
test by way of a computer? It seems very easy for someone to cheat in an
asynchronous learning environment. To find out more about computer ethics you can visit:
Computer Ethics - Cyberethics:
http://www.siu.edu/departments/coba/mgmt/iswnet/isethics/index.htm
IEEE Code of Ethics:
http://www.ieee.org/committee/ethics
In the 1900s it was common for students
to take tests in the presence of the village vicar who then certified that all conditions
placed upon taking an examination were followed. Some conditions are easily met with
existing technologies such as timing the examination and webcams and microphones that
allow the examiners to view and hear the student from most any distance around the world.
Newer technologies such as retinal scanners are emerging to verifiy that the
student taking the examination is truly the student who is authorized to take the
examination.
Nevertheless, there are enormous
problems with ethics and academic standards in ALN. For example, monitoring students
on chat lines becomes expensive and intrusive. Most ALN courses assume that the
email messages and chat line messages from a student are genuine without monitoring those
messages with the same scrutiny that is given to course examinations.
In some ways investigating suspected plagiarism is easier on the web.
Unhappily, I have discovered several instances where my students lifted parts of their
work (in two cases the entire paper) from sources that were not cited. Finding these
instances of plagiarism was much easier in their web documents due to the ability to
search for suspected phrases in web search engines.
Plagiarism has always been and will always be a problem
in education and research. The problem is exacerbated by computing technologies due
to the ease of selecting all or part of a document and clicking on (Edit, Copy) and (Edit,
Paste). Culprits do not even have to type the text. If they cleverly use the
technologies, phrases can be easily modified so it becomes more difficult to discover that
the passage was first lifted and then modified so as to escape detection.
One problem with emerging speech recognition
technologies is that spoken words (e.g., in a lecture or a session at a
conference) can be recorded and digitized automatically such that text that has never
appeared in print is created by speech recognition software. How easy it becomes to
beat the speaker in putting that speaker's presentation into printed text. Faculty clinging to traditional lectures and classroom case
discussions may not even be aware that whatever went on in their classrooms is now
available at hidden sites on the web at either a public or a private web site. Those infamous "fraternity files" have never been so rich as
they will become with speech recognition technologies.
Concerns About Faculty Efficiency and Burnout
Online education is now part of "fabric" of public universities, a new
study finds. But teaching on the Web is a lot of work, and professors are not
happy about lack of support from administrators.
"Going For Distance," by Steve Kolowich, Inside Higher Ed, August
31, 2009 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/08/31/survey
Online education is no
longer a peripheral phenomenon at public universities, but many academic
administrators are still treating it that way.
So says
a comprehensive study released today by the
Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) and the Sloan
National Commission on Online Learning, which gathered survey responses from
more than 10,700 faculty members and 231 interviews with administrators,
professors, and students at APLU institutions.
“I think it’s a call to
action,” said Jack Wilson, president of the University of Massachusetts and
chair of the Sloan online learning commission. “The leadership of
universities has been trying to understand exactly how [online education]
fits into their strategic plans, and what this shows is that faculty are
ahead of the institutions in these online goals.”
According to the study, professors are open to
teaching online courses (defined in the study as courses where at least 80
percent of the course is administered on the Web), but do not believe they
are receiving adequate support from their bosses. On the whole, respondents
to the faculty survey rated public universities “below average” in seven of
eight categories related to online education, including support for online
course development and delivery, protection of intellectual property,
incentives for developing and delivering online courses, and consideration
of online teaching activity in promotion and tenure decisions.
Still, more than a third of the faculty respondents
had developed and taught an online course.
“The urban legend out there was that many faculty
out there don’t want to participate” in online education, said Wilson.
“Contrary to popular myths, faculty at all ages and levels are
participating.”
Indeed, neither seniority nor tenure status held a
significant bearing on whether a professor had ever developed or taught an
online course. At the time the survey was administered, there were more
professors with at least 20 years’ experience teaching an online course than
professors with five years’ experience or less.
This despite the fact that developing and teaching
a course online is more taxing than doing the same in a classroom --
according to the survey respondents, teaching online isn’t easy. “Faculty
who get involved in online teaching have to be more reflective about their
teaching,” Wilson said. Professors need to organize lecture notes and other
materials with more care. They get more feedback from students. It’s more
apparent when a student is falling behind and needs special attention.
Almost two-thirds of the faculty said it takes more
effort to teach a course online than in a classroom, while 85 percent said
more effort is required to develop one. While younger professors seem to
have an easier time teaching online than older ones, more than half of
respondents from the youngest faculty group agreed it was more
time-consuming. Nearly 70 percent of all professors cited the extra effort
necessary to develop Web courses as a crucial barrier to teaching online.
So if teaching an online course is a ton of work
and support from administrators is lacking, why bother doing it? Most
professors said they are motivated by their students’ need for flexible
access to course materials, and a belief that the Web allows them to reach
certain types of student more effectively.
“As a faculty member, when you’re teaching online,
suddenly you have to be teaching 24/7,” said Samuel Smith, president
emeritus of Washington State University. “…It’s more difficult, but the
students get more contact.”
Given the extra work, more than 60 percent of
faculty see inadequate compensation as a barrier to the further development
of online courses. “If these rates of participation among faculty are going
to continue to grow, institutions will have do a better job acknowledging
the additional time and effort on the part of the faculty member,” said Jeff
Seaman, co-director of the Babson Survey Research Group and the study’s lead
researcher. For some, that might mean that their online work should figure
into tenure and promotion decisions. For others, “acknowledgment” might
equate to some extra cash in their paycheck.
This is not a new request -- nor is the fact that
it takes longer to develop and administer a college course online a new
revelation. The American Federation of Teachers report on guidelines for
good practice in distance education acknowledges that it takes “anywhere
from 66 to 500 percent longer” to prepare an online course than a
face-to-face one, and “additional compensation should be provided to faculty
to meet the extensive time commitments of distance education.” The report
noted that only half of the faculty it surveyed reported receiving extra
compensation. That was in 2000.
The authors of today's APLU study conclude by
recommending that public universities not only institute policies that
“acknowledge and recognize” professors’ online education efforts, but also
work develop “mechanisms that effectively incorporate online learning into
the fabric and missions of the institutions.”
“It’s now a factual statement that online learning
is woven into the fabric of higher education,” Wilson said. “It has grown
faster over the last six years than any other sector of higher education …
and it will keep growing.”
Bob Jensen's threads on asynchronous learning are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on assessment ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm
Barbara Brown wrote the following:
There
are many myths and tacit assumptions about computer-mediated learning that can be explored
in the Fielding context. Much has been written about technological efficiency and the
potential of the Internet as an educational medium to save time and money or increase
productivity. The authors experience inspires a healthy skepticism in this regard.
Having taught students in conventional classrooms for two decades, I experienced the
computer-mediated mode of instruction as more time-consuming, at least initially, both
from the standpoint of up-front course design and later, painstaking, labor intensive
hours online - designing messages for the classroom forum, reading and downloading from
the screen, posting new material, providing feedback, checking community bulletin boards,
e-mailing student comments and grade reports, etc. In fact, there were many times when I
felt torn between my real life and my virtual life on-screen, in an identity challenging
" Turkle [Turkle, Sherry (1995), Life
on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet, New York, NY: Simon &
Schuster.] sort of way, simply because
there did not seem to exist enough hours in the day to do justice to both. This was the
case even in an "asynchronous" environment where I had the flexibility to
conduct electronic office hours in my bathrobe over morning coffee or post feedback in the
dead of night.
Moreover, absent face-to-face
contact and ordinary non-verbal clues, even very mature students on the Internet demand
more frequent interaction and reassurance in dialogue with their professors, an
observation confirmed in student course evaluations. Students demand more feedback; and
the more feedback they receive, the more interaction they want. There are at least two
possible interpretations of this phenomenon: One is that it reflects the way students
compensate for the lack of face-to-face interaction. Or, it may be that this medium
disinhibits student communication, thereby stimulating the message exchange process. As
the intellectual excitement of these conversations grows, so does the amount of
interactivity in the virtual community.[See Rafaeli, Sheizaf and Fay Sudweeks (1998),
"Interactivity in the Nets," in Network & Net Play: Virtual Groups
on the Internet,
Menlo Park, CA: AAAI Press/The MIT Press]
I estimate this mode of instruction requires roughly 40% to 50%
more work on the teachers part in comparison with conventional classroom delivery.
For example, where I might put approximately 36 hours of work per week routinely into a
regular course load with a total of 120 students in four traditional class sections at a
large public university, online instruction at Fielding required 50 hours or more per week
- with only 24 students in just three sections of my digital classes. It also takes longer
for faculty members and administrators to reach consensus in electronic group meetings.
B.M. Brown
"Digital Classrooms: Some Myths About Developing New Educational Programs Using
the Internet,"
T.H.E. Journal, December 98, p. 57
The online version is at http://www.thejournal.com/magazine/current/feat04.html
Also see Concerns
About Faculty Resistance to Change
Concerns About Misleading and Fraudulent Web Sites
An emerging area of interest to me is the rate at which
marginal and fraudulent asynchronous courses and programs are emerging. For example, I
consider it shame when someone other than a major university uses a domain name of that
university. One of my students, Elizabeth Eudy, wrote the following at http://www.resnet.trinity.edu/users/eeudy/aln.htm
I may be mistaken in the specific case, but the person in
Reykjavik, Iceland who owns the domain name CarnegieMellon.com seems well positioned to
offer services in a way that just might be confused with services offered by a well known
U.S. university. Hundreds of examples exist of domain names that seem purposely designed
to be misleading...Two problems stem from this: First, there is no way for the typical
user to know whether the actual location of an Internet site is in, say, Pittsburgh or
Reykjavik. Second, these sites are not under any single legal jurisdiction. The FBI, for
instance, probably has little clout in Reykjavik
Concerns About CyberPsychology
The accelerating pace of networking for
education, entertainment, research, therapy, and commerce is having profound psychological
impacts on society.
IFOBITS in May 1998 made the following announcement about a new CyberPsychology
journal:
CYBERPSYCHOLOGY & BEHAVIOR is a
new, peer-reviewed journal for the mental health community devoted to the "impact of
the Internet, multimedia and virtual reality on behavior and society." Articles in
its inaugural issue include "The Gender Gap in Internet Use," "Internet
Addiction on Campus," "The Relationship Between Depression and Internet
Addiction," and "A Review of Virtual Reality as a Psychotherapeutic Tool."
Cyberpsychology & Behavior [ISSN: 1094-9313] is published
quarterly by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., 2 Madison Avenue, Larchmont, NY 10538; tel:
914-834-3100; fax: 914-834-3582; email: info@liebertpub.com; Web:
http://www.liebertpub.com/
Click
Here to View Working Paper 265 on Metacognition
Concerns in Designs and Evaluations of
Computer Aided Education and Training:
Are We Misleading Ourselves About Measures of Success?
Concerns About Computer Services
and Network Reliability
This morning I went to one of our
student labs to check to see if one of my new ToolBooks was being transported properly on
the Internet. I discovered that someone had wiped out both the Internet Explorer and
the Netscape Communicator web browsers on the first three lab computers that I logged
into. It is terribly frustrating for faculty and students to repeatedly encounter
hardware and software failures. Student frustrations center around not having enough
lab computers, wasting time on lab computers that fail, having their own computers crash
during the semester, and encountering network crashes or delays due to clogged bandwidth.
An enormous problem for universities
who engage more and more in ALN courses that rely daily upon networking systems is to keep
those systems efficient and reliable for students. Faculty members occasionally miss
class due to illness or scheduling conflicts, but faculty miss class much less often than
computers crash on most campuses. In addition, there are disruptions due to
necessary maintenance and updating of computer systems. Few, if any, campuses have
budgets to provide backup systems for disruptions of service.
There are increasing risks of security
failures on campus computers. Geeks hack or crack their way into systems on
every college campus. In most instances they do so without intent to cause great
harm. However, they may also be intent upon bringing down the system or parts
thereof. Equipping divisions (e.g., a College of Business within the university)
with their own servers, labs, and computing maintenance centers reduces the risks of
university-wide computer system failure, but the cost becomes enormous in terms of
hardware and personnel costs. However, this may also spread technician talent so
thin across the campus that the risk of poor performance in some divisions may be
increased.
There are no easy solutions to the
problem that ALN learning is absolutely dependent on reliability of computers and
networking systems.
Concerns About Effectiveness of
Learning Technologies in Large Classes
Email messages from Roger Debreceny and Andrew Priest
I do not doubt for a minute that small group, f2f teaching can be highly
effective. I sure hope so, because like many of the people on this list, I have devoted
many hours of my life to the pursuit of better f2f small group teaching! <g>.
As regards large group f2f teaching, I am much less sanguine. I lecture to a group of
750 students (!!) in one large (ok, its enormous!) lecture theatre. There are
clearly some benefits to such large group teaching (mostly sociological) but not
many. In most cases, large group lectures are poorly presented, inadequately planned and
almost completely lacking in challenges to the students. Large group lectures lead, in my
view, to the "I attend, therefore I learn" syndrome. We all know that all the
evidence points to the inability of humans to concentrate in such environments for more
than a few minutes at a time. Yet we consistently ignore such evidence.
There are many problems, however, with both small group and large group f2f teaching
and learning processes. Key amongst them is the idea that we engender in our students,
that they can go to a sage and receive knowledge in some structured fashion. Contrast that
with our research processes. OK, we do have research tutorials (e.g. at the AAA Annual
Meeting), but they are relatively rare. Research is undertaken by search for, and
integration of, knowledge. Research is much, much more like the real work world that our
graduates will experience than the f2f classroom.
Where networked technology can assist us is to change the teaching and learning model
from sage/pupil towards research leader/co-researcher.
We should listen more to the ideas of thinkers such as Schank (see, for example, a
short article by Schank in the July issue of Communications of the ACM).
Now, just as an example of a colleague who has made some interesting advances in using
networked technologies to move from pedagogy more towards androgogy here is a write-up on
Mark Freeman at University of Technology, Sydney that was recently posted to ATeach-L by
Andrew Priest. We can get a flavour of a new learning environment.
Roger Debreceny
=============================
Hi Folks
Thought this article from the Business Review Weekly http://www.brw.com.au
may be of interest.
Regards Andrew Priest
Mass lectures, often repeated, are the usual way that university
business courses cope with cost pressures and student loads. Students are bored to tears
by them. Mark Freeman, a senior lecturer in finance at the University of Technology,
Sydney (UTS), and a specialist in teaching methods, thinks he has found a better way:
using the Internet. "The groundswell of student interest in Web-based learning is
like no other phenomenon I have seen in educational innovation," he says, after tests
involving more than 2000 students.
At 4 am students can have lively interchanges on the site.
Business students make up 30% of the enrolment at UTS but their
courses get only 15% of total UTS funding. Freeman felt an obligation to make learning
better for students who are struggling to hold down a job or cope with English, pay fees,
mind children and resist fatigue at night. They may travel to university and find there
are 30-40 students in a tutorial. Or part-timers might visit reserved sections of the
library, only to find that desperate students have torn out the pages of a book or stolen
it altogether.
Freeman began Internet-based teaching in 1996 with 800 students
on a basic Internet system. Last year UTS brought in experimentally a special on-line
teacher-student pack called TopClass for messages and conferences, involving 1000
students. This year 10,500 students, nearly half the UTS student population of 23,000, are
using it. In one class of 100 last month, Freeman found that every student had private
Internet access.
Some academics misuse the medium by merely posting their lectures
on the Web, he says. This is no better than telling students that information is in the
library and "go get it".
One of Freemans examples of "new learning" is an
on-line role-playing exercise this year for post-graduate students of securities markets
law. They take the identity of people such as John Howard, Allan Fels, or securities
regulators, with their real identities staying secret until the program ends. The program
was based on a method used at Macquarie University in a simulation of Middle-Eastern
politics.
In the first week the students describe their roles; then crises
are provided, such as a currency slump, bank failure or misleading prospectus for a
privatisation. Students must research how their character would react, and type responses
to the central on-line site. The "prime minister" can even negotiate privately
with the "stock exchange chairman", as occurs in the real world. Freeman is the
only observer able to read the messages. Since each student researches a unique situation,
cheating is difficult. In normal work, cheating is a serious problem, now that vast
amounts of material can be cut and pasted into assignments or lifted from "cheat
sites" on the Web.
In team debates, groups take positions on issues such as
corporate law reform, and hone their responses in private conferences before posting them
on the Internet. Many students in their professional lives are already feeling the effect
of corporate law reform, and have strong opinions. Even at 4am there can be lively
interchanges among six students using the site.
Freeman says: "Students get completely immersed in the role
playing. In addition they do not have the hang-ups often suffered by people in
face-to-face arguments, such as deferring to those of the opposite sex or those perceived
to be higher in status. Shy people are not argued down, rhetorical flourishes cant
be used, and non-English students cope better with the language."
Later there is a coming-out session at the university where the
students show their real identities, often to surprise and applause. The debate is also a
permanent and expandable record useful for future students. "The best part is that
the students are not learning just what I tell them, but learning to think and make
choices based on good information." An individual assignment is to investigate and
give an assessment of a domestic and international securities regulators Web site,
and present the results to a discussion forum.
Freeman admits to having the usual failures of a pioneer.
"Technology in teaching can operate like an unguided missile unless the goals are
well specified, such as changing student understanding," he says.
There is less staff administrative work because the Web is used
for announcements, such as where to lodge assignments, errors in a text, changes to
deadlines, and guides to marking. Staff have to discourage students from calling by phone
and private e-mail, instead of logging on to the site.
But there is still a huge workload in the Internet-posted
queries. Some students at other universities became irate when Freeman failed to respond
to their queries. Students expect staff to respond seven days a week, and mark faster.
Now, without the Internet, the requests would be totally unmanageable. "I used to get
40 calls on my voice-mail before I even started work. This morning I had none,"
Freeman says. He predicts that in the coming decade, some universities will fail,
especially those that have chased short-term economies at the expense of quality. Students
are already exercising their consumer rights and demanding "just-in-time"
learning, rather than conforming to university teaching schedules. University teachers
failing to get average grades of "highly satisfactory" would be sacked, since
students would no longer tolerate mediocrity and would take their "business"
elsewhere.
Freeman predicted six months ago that many universities would
become user-pays systems where for $1000, for example, students could use a bare minimum
of the facilities, and pay $100 each for a menu of add-ons such as on-line self-study
material, videos and discussion groups. Replies within 24 hours would be guaranteed seven
days a week, with a ceiling of ten sessions per subject and $100 per chat thereafter.
There could be a $500 premium service involving time with experts face-to-face, on-line or
in video-conference. "In the US, user-pays universities have already arrived,"
Freeman says. "Its no longer a prediction."
Andrew Priest, School of Accounting, Edith Cowan University
Mailto:a.priest@cowan.edu.au
Mailto:apriest@imstressed.com
http://www.bs.ac.cowan.edu.au/acctinfoplus/
"Early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese"- SteveWright
Concerns About Faculty Resistance to Change
Probably the major stumbling block to
education change is faculty unwillingness to venture into technology and new learning
experiments. Instead of leading the way, faculty in traditional schools and colleges
are behind corporate and military/goverment trainers in adapting to technologies and
learning experimentation.
A funny thing happened to a campus event designed to bring
our faculty together to exchange information and demonstrations of technology in the
classroom. In the three years since the conference was launched, we have had steadily
fewer faculty attending.
We surveyed our faculty to find out why attendance had
declined at our on-campus technology conference (scheduled during a day when classes were
not in session). Results indicated that while some faculty and staff did have a
disinterest in technology, more often the problem was their frustration with it. Among
reasons for why they were not using technology in their work, they cited lack of the
following: training, support, space, equipment, and knowledge of what was available and
how items could be obtained.
"Where Are They?": Why Technology Education for Teachers Can Be
So Difficult"
by Claudia Rebaza
http://www.microsoft.com/education/hed/vision.htm
Although the barriers mentioned above
by Dr. Rebaza are serious, in my viewpoint they tend to be excuses rather than reasons in
many instances. Far more serious are the lack of credit given to technology
innovations in promotion, pay-raise, publication, and tenure decisions.
In fact, I maintain messages of selected "daring professor" who are willing to
take chances in adverse environments. The web address is http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/ideasmes.htm
Some email correspondence from a faculty member at
Trinity University is provided below:
- From: [Name Deleted]
Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 1998 12:40 PM
To: rjensen@trinity.edu
Subject: Web projectsDear Bob,
Thanks for sending along your web assignment and its rationale. Im
interested in doing a book-length project that has web links to my own set of materials
and exercises. Or even doing the whole book in this way.
Question is, does one receive academic credit for producing work on the
internet? Have you ever discussed this with the Administration?
Thanks,
[Name of the Trinity University Faculty Member Deleted]
========================================================================
Reply from Bob Jensen
Hi ______
One problem with web publishing is that if you submit your stuff to a
top journal, the editor wants you to hide your research from the world until the journal
gets around to publishing your work (which in a recent case took five years "in
press" for an accepted Jensen and Sandlin article to finally get published). I
recently had another paper accepted for publication. Then I had a long fight"
with the editor over whether I can keep a "live" and ever-changing version of
the essence of that paper at my web site.
I have discussed web publishing with administrators is many
universities. They have not and cannot take much of an official position without action by
the faculty. Matters of promotion and tenure are pretty well decided all along the way
(departmental faculty, Chair, Dean, and P&T faculty) with rare administrative
reversals of recommendations. Faculty bring individual biases into peer evaluation, and at
the moment web publishing is a new thing to most of them. Until the peer evaluation
culture is changed, web publishing will not count heavily toward promotion, tenure, or
take home pay.
The main issue is that web publishing is not refereed with the same
rigor (as refereeing in leading journals) or, in most cases, is not refereed at all. This
is a concern since it is pretty easy to disguise garbage as treasure at a web site.
Leading journals will one day offer refereeing services for web publishing and may, in
fact, do away with their hard copy editions. Until then what do we do? Most certainly we
do not put up a web counter and brag about the number of hits --- Playboy probably gets
more hits per day than all professors combined.
Somewhat of a substitute for hard core refereeing is a record of
correspondence that is received from scholars and students who use your web documents.
This lacks the anonymity of the refereeing process. Also there are opportunities to cheat
(Ill lavishly praise your work if you will adore mine in a succession of email
messages), but most scholars have more integrity than to organize that sort of conspiracy.
If you have a file of correspondence from people that your peers know and respect, chances
are that your peers will take notice. Include copies of this correspondence in your
performance reports. But this process is more anecdotal than the genuine blind refereeing
process.
Until a rigorous web refereeing process is established, those who must
evaluate a web publisher must do more work. They must study your web materials and make
their own judgments regarding quality and relevance. It is much easier to simply tick off
the refereed hits (For when the binary scorer comes to write against your name, he writes
only ones or zeros, to him the unread articles are all the same). It is easy to become too
cynical about the refereeing process. We have all had frustrations with bad referees,
including acceptances of our weaker output and rejections of our best work. At my web
site, I have section for my "big ones that got away." See http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/#BigOnes
Refereeing is a little like democracy --- it aint perfect, but until a better system
comes along it beats the alternatives over the long haul.
My trouble, and I suspect that Mike Kearl has the same problem, is that
web publishing is addictive. The responses that you get from around the world set
"your tail wagging." I have published many papers and several books (a sign of
my advanced age), but I have never had the "action" following hard copy
publication that I get from web publication. There are many reasons for this, including
the fact that more people than you can imagine stumble on your web documents while using a
search engine on the web. Not all of them send you nice messages, but a message recently
received by me last week from a total stranger is reproduced be low:
==================================================================
- Dr. Jensen,
- Wanted to say thanks for maintaining your Technological Glossary page. I
- am currently studying for my Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer exams.
Your page has been a god-send.
Pacificare,Network Associate II
Al Janetsky
Microsoft Certified Professional
Messages like the above message "keep my tail wagging." I even
like the messages that signal items to be corrected --- at least those users found my
stuff worth correcting. If you have audio on your computer, you can listen to Mike Kearl
discuss what makes his "tail wag." Mike also discusses the issue that you raised
in your message to me. The web address for Mikes audio on this is at http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/ideasmes.htm
. That particular article is entitled "Daring Professors" and contains audio and
email messages from other faculty members who were willing to take some chances with their
careers.
I can offer you a wagging tail and small pay raises if you rely entirely
on web publishing as evidence of scholarship. Old hounds like me can opt for more tail
wagging, but young pups need more nourishment shoved into the other end. (Actually I still
publish hard copy to maintain respectability, but I personally am far more proud of my
"living" web research documents than my annual refereed "dead" hits
over the past few years).
Until the evaluation culture is changed in peers who hold you on leash,
try to do web publishing alongside your refereed journal publishing. But dont let
the tail wag the dog or you will wind up in the dog house. If your book or journal editor
objects to having your working documents published at your web site, remember who your
master is at all times. His title is Editor in Chief!
An interesting paper by William H. Geoghegan at IBM Academic Consulting is entitled
"WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGY?" discusses some of the issues
as to why the faculty are not yet adapting to education technologies. Estimates run as
high as 95% of higher education faculty are not using these technologies. Geoghegan
analyses social and diffusion barriers in particular. The paper is at http://w3.scale.uiuc.edu/scale/links/library/geoghegan/wpi.html
Bob Jensen
Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob) http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity.University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-736-7347 Fax: 210-736-8134
- Also see Concerns
About Faculty Resistance to Change
Concerns About Attrition and
Drop Out Rates from Online Courses
August 31, 2007 message from Carolyn Kotlas
[kotlas@email.unc.edu]
REDUCING ATTRITION IN ONLINE CLASSES
"Attrition rates for classes taught through
distance education are 10- 20% higher than classes taught in a face-to-face
setting. . . . Finding ways to decrease attrition in distance education
classes and programs is critical both from an economical and quality
viewpoint. High attrition rates have a negative economic impact on
universities."
In "Strategies to Engage Online Students and Reduce
Attrition Rates" (THE JOURNAL OF EDUCATORS ONLINE, vol. 4, no. 2, July
2007), the authors provide a review of the literature to determine methods
for "engaging students with the goals of enhancing the learning process and
reducing attrition rates." Their research identified four major strategies:
-- student integration and engagement
Includes "faculty-initiated contact via phone
calls, pre-course orientations, informal online chats, and online student
services."
-- learner-centered approach
Faculty "need to get to know their students and
assess each student's pre-existing knowledge, cultural perspectives, and
comfort level with technology."
-- learning communities
"[S]trong feelings of community may not only
increase persistence in courses, but may also increase the flow of
information among all learners, availability of support, commitment to group
goals, cooperation among members and satisfaction with group efforts."
-- accessibility to online student services.
Services might include "assessments, educational
counseling, administrative process such as registration, technical support,
study skills assistance, career counseling, library services, students'
rights and responsibilities, and governance."
The paper, written by Lorraine M. Angelino, Frankie
Keels Williams, and Deborah Natvig, is available at
http://www.thejeo.com/Volume4Number2/Angelino Final.pdf.
The Journal of Educators Online (JEO) [ISSN
1547-500X ]is an online,
double-blind, refereed journal by and for instructors, administrators,
policy-makers, staff, students, and those interested in the development,
delivery, and management of online courses in the Arts, Business, Education,
Engineering, Medicine, and Sciences. For more information, contact JEO, 500
University Drive, Dothan, Alabama 36303 USA; tel: 334-983-6556, ext. 1-356;
fax: 334-983-6322; Web:
http://www.thejeo.com/ .
Jensen Comment
Attrition rates are high because online students are often adults with heavy
commitments to family and jobs. Initially they think they are going to have time
for a course, but then the course becomes too demanding and/or unexpected things
happen in their lives such as computer crashes, a change in job demands (such as
more travel), family illness, marital troubles, etc. Sometimes online students
initially believe the myth that online courses are easier than onsite courses
and, therefore, take less time. About the only time saved is the logistical time
waster of commuting to and from a classroom site.
"How to Be an Online Student
and Survive in the Attempt," by Maria José Viñas, Chronicle of Higher Education,
Chronicle of Higher Education, August 11, 2008 ---
Click Here
The lives of many online college students are not
easy. They have to combine jobs, house chores, family life and, on top of
all that, do some actual studying. To help online students cope with this
burden, a blog sponsored by Western Governors University offers survival
tips.
The
Online Student Survival Guide, a program that
kicked off in May, is meant to give online students tips on adjusting to
online learning and staying motivated throughout the courses, while
balancing life and school. Following the famous Latin maxim “mens sana in
corpore sano”, the bloggers also write posts on healthy eating—not only for
the online students, but for their families, too.
Once again, the link to the Survival Guide is
http://onlinestudentsurvival.com/
The Dark Side of Education Technology and Online Learning ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on distance education are at the following sites:
Other
Concerns
"The Chronicle's special report on Online Learning explores how calls for
quality control and assessment are reshaping online learning," (Not Free),
Chronicle of Higher Education, November 2011 ---
https://www.chronicle-store.com/Store/ProductDetails.aspx?CO=CQ&ID=78602&cid=ol_nlb_wc
The Chronicle's special report on Online Learning explores how calls for
quality control and assessment are reshaping online learning.
As online learning spreads throughout higher
education, so have calls for quality control and assessment. Accrediting
groups are scrambling to keep up, and Congress and government officials
continue to scrutinize the high student-loan default rates and aggressive
recruiting tactics of some for-profit, mostly online colleges. But the push
for accountability isn't coming just from outside. More colleges are looking
inward, conducting their own self-examinations into what works and what
doesn't.
Also in this year's report:
- Strategies for teaching and doing research
online
- Members of the U.S. military are taking online
courses while serving in Afghanistan
- Community colleges are using online technology
to keep an eye on at-risk students and help them understand their own
learning style
- The push to determine what students learn
online, not just how much time they spend in class
- Presidents' views on e-learning
Bob Jensen's threads on assessment ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Assess.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on online course and degree programs ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm
One of my students, Joshua Miller, lists the following
concerns:
may require students to have "technological
literacy" (I think this a
good thing but some of the sites I visited said otherwise)
content may become subservient to the technology
poses new difficulties for program evaluation and
accreditation
could alienate academics
may encounter language barriers/translation problems
can be obstructed by time zones
requires forms of institutional support to be
projected to distant
students
is complex in relation to copyright issues
often requires establishment of regional centers
can be costly for students to obtain equipment
A Message from Peter Kenyon on November
18, 1999
My own experience is with a three-semester experiment
of a non-majors "survey" course. We met as a class once at the
beginning of the semester and once again at the final exam. Without presuming
that my experience can be generalized to others, I've made the following
observations.
It was MUCH more work to prepare and execute the
course than I ever expected. I covered a little less material than in the
traditional course. Assessment was very difficult. Student reaction was strong
and about equally divided between those who loved it and those who hated it.
DL seems better suited to mature learners with well-developed learning skills.
In the end, I concluded their was little for me to
like about this mode of instruction. It takes away the part of my job I like
best (classroom interaction) and substituted mass quantities of gizmo tweaking
(GT). Improved tools will reduce the need for GT, but I don't see how we
maintain interesting human interaction. I use gizmos to support traditional
instruction, but I have no desire to give up the classroom.
As Barry Rice says, the traditional classroom MAY be
a dinosaur in need of extinction. But when it does, I'll find other work to do
because there's little joy for me as a cyber-prof.
Peter Kenyon [pbk1@AXE.HUMBOLDT.EDU
]
The most frequent refrain that I hear from my wife is: "Did you hear
what I just said?" I am sorry to say that I often must ask Erika to repeat
both that question and the her comments preceding the question. In fact, my
penchant for listening without hearing has become somewhat of a joke between us.
She has threatened to learn about computers just to communicate with me. Her
problem is that she is just too busy to learn about computers. When she does
find the time, however, I'm in for big trouble. Seriously, however, when I am in
the midst of concentrating on one thing, I have a bit of the same problem with
student communications on other issues.
I agree with Peter and Ron to a point. However, the Sloan Foundation
Experiments suggest that faculty/student and student/student communications
increase with asynchronous courses. Students who rarely take the trouble to
visit faculty during office hours will send email and chat room communications.
Students have a penchant for catching us in our offices at a bad time, and they
become embarrassed that it is a bad time. The trouble is that, being so busy,
there is rarely a really good time for us to really communicate face-to-face.
Sometimes students have to wait outside our offices, and being human, they
conclude that they have better things to do with their time --- such as seeking
out a teaching assistant or another student in the class. I sometimes think my
"former" students know be better, via email, after graduation than
while they were my students. Perhaps it is because they learn to appreciate my
work more after they have graduated. But I am certain there is more to it than
that.
I taught in five universities over the years and encountered a few,
surprisingly few, professors who have great face-to-face encounters with
students outside the classroom. There are many (like me) who seem to do better
with electronic communications. Years ago, I encountered an assistant professor
from a prestigious university who reported that the only way for faculty or
students to really make contact (before email was invented) with one of the
superstars on the faculty was through written memos even though that superstar
was located two doors down the hall.
For more on the relation between communications and pedagogy, see http://www.trinity.edu/~rjensen/slide01.htm.
For more on student evaluations, see the course evaluations at http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm#Illinois.
What seems to be more of a problem with asynchronous courses seems to be faculty
burn out that, in large measure, is caused by increased communications with
students. Asynchronous courses are also more demanding on materials development.
Much of what we expound in lectures comes from long-term memory that is
triggered by something (patterns of association) in the midst of class.
Beforehand, the same thoughts may not have surfaced in our offices that surface
in the middle of a class. This makes it almost impossible to write down down
complete lectures for asynchronous courses having no lectures.
Electronic communications, of course, are not as satisfactory in many
respects as face-to-face encounters. However, I would argue that electronic
communications are sometimes "closer." For example, there are times
when I feel a bit intimidated myself in the presence of some people that I
communicate freely with by email. There are people that I hate to interrupt with
a telephone call, but I am rarely embarrassed to send them email messages. After
a face-to-face or telephone visit, there are almost always things that I
belatedly think that I should have said or not said. This seems to be less of a
problem with email, and when it happens I just send out correction/addendum
messages.
My point here is to avoid associating "closeness" with
"face-to-face." We can be virtual strangers face-to-face and close
friends over a network. We may repeat daily greetings with colleagues in the
hallways who we rarely communicate with in depth. I am less close with
colleagues that I "see" in our hallways than with many of you with
whom I correspond regularly. There have been some studies (one was reported in
Playboy) showing that husbands and wives that see each other every day have a
surprisingly small amount of genuine communication except at certain peak
moments such as when they are in a car together on a long trip or awaiting a
meal by candlelight in a slow-service restaurant. Would some us learn more about
our spouses and kids if we communicated anonymously or openly with them via
email and chat rooms? Will our kids open up more to anonymous strangers on the
web than they will face-to-face with us.
But then maybe I am just "listening" to Peter and Ron without
"hearing."
Bob (Robert E.) Jensen Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212 Voice: (210) 999-7347 Fax: (210)
999-8134 Email: rjensen@trinity.edu http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
-----Original Message-----
From: Ron [mailto:rrtidd@MTU.EDU]
ent: Friday, November 19, 1999 6:55 AM
To: AECM@VAX.LOYOLA.EDU
ubject: Re: Distance Learning with traditional undergraduate students
Peter made one comment that I suspect reflects the
sentiments of many 20th century educators- any technology that detracts from
our ability to physically connect with our students is going to diminish our
career satisfaction. While I share this sentiment whole heartedly, I believe
that we confront two inescapable realities in 21st century education.
First, distributed education (whether distance or
proximity) is going to become a more prominent feature of the academic
landscape. Second, students are going to become increasingly comfortable with
online social interaction and communities.
Given those two "assumptions," most (if not
all) educators must learn how to develop an appropriate classroom community in
cyberspace. To me, that means having a community that fulfills all
participants' needs to connect, while achieving academic objectives. A
difficult challenge when the participants come from two generations that
define connecting and community in such different ways.
I have not had a chance to read it, yet, but some
might find "Building Learning Communities in Cyberspace," (Palloff
and Pratt) to be informative.
Ron Tidd
Student
Evaluations and Learning Styles
Bob Jensen's threads on assessment are at http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm
There is an enormous problem of assuming that students who
wrote high evaluations of any course actually learned more than high performing
students who hated the course. Happiness and learning are two different
things.
Reasons why students often prefer online courses may have
little or nothing to do with actual learning. At the University of North
Texas where students can sometimes choose between an onsite or an online section
of a course, some student just preferred to be able to take a course in their
pajamas --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm#NorthTexas
Some off-campus students prefer to avoid the hassle and time consumed driving to
campus and spending a huge amount of time searching for parking. Some
Mexico City students claim that they can save over five hours a day in commuting
time, which is time made free for studying (Jim Parnell, Texas A&M, in
partnership with Monterrey Tech, deliver an ALN Web MBA Program in Mexico City)
--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm
In general, comparisons of onsite versus online test and
grade performance will tend to show "no differences" among good
students, because good students learn the material under varying
circumstances. Differences are more noteworthy weaker students or students
who tend to drop courses, but there is a huge instructor effect that is
difficult to factor out of such studies. For more on this, go to http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm
"The Chronicle's special report on Online Learning explores how calls for
quality control and assessment are reshaping online learning," (Not Free),
Chronicle of Higher Education, November 2011 ---
https://www.chronicle-store.com/Store/ProductDetails.aspx?CO=CQ&ID=78602&cid=ol_nlb_wc
The Chronicle's special report on Online Learning explores how calls for
quality control and assessment are reshaping online learning.
As online learning spreads throughout higher
education, so have calls for quality control and assessment. Accrediting
groups are scrambling to keep up, and Congress and government officials
continue to scrutinize the high student-loan default rates and aggressive
recruiting tactics of some for-profit, mostly online colleges. But the push
for accountability isn't coming just from outside. More colleges are looking
inward, conducting their own self-examinations into what works and what
doesn't.
Also in this year's report:
- Strategies for teaching and doing research
online
- Members of the U.S. military are taking online
courses while serving in Afghanistan
- Community colleges are using online technology
to keep an eye on at-risk students and help them understand their own
learning style
- The push to determine what students learn
online, not just how much time they spend in class
- Presidents' views on e-learning
Bob Jensen's threads on assessment ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Assess.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on asynchronous learning ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on online course and degree programs ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm
Online Learning Styles
Here are a few links
of possible interest with regard to student evaluations and online learning
styles. In some cases you may have
to contact to presenters to get copies of their papers.
Probably the best place to start is with the Journal
of Asynchronous Learning --- http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/jaln/index.asp
For example, one of
the archived articles is entitled “"Identifying Student Attitudes and
Learning Styles in Distance Education" in the September 2001 edition --- http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/jaln/v5n2/v5n2_valenta.asp
Three opinion types were identified in this study:
Students who identified with issues of Time and Structure in Learning, Social
Interaction in Learning, and Convenience in Learning. These opinions can be
used to aid educators in reaching their students and increasing the
effectiveness of their online courses. At UIC, this insight had direct
application to the evolution of course materials. Early application of
technology merely supplied a web site on which were posted syllabus, readings
and assignments. No opportunity existed for conferencing; thus, there existed
no opportunity for social learning. In a subsequent semester, conferencing
software was made available to the class, in addition to the website. Thus,
the opportunity was added for social learning. The faculty learned, however,
that every time a new technology was added, it experienced an increase in the
level of effort necessary to support the student. Ultimately, the University
made available a course management system, which significantly streamlined the
effort on the part of faculty to make course materials available to the
student. The system provides through a single URL the student's access to
course materials, discussion forums, virtual groups and chat, testing, grades,
and electronic communication.
This study is qualitative and confined to University
of Illinois at Chicago graduate and undergraduate students. The three opinion
types identified through this study, however, correlate closely with results
reported in the literature. All three groups of students, representing the
three opinion types, shared a belief in the importance of being able to work
at home. The studies of Richards and Ridley [9] and Hiltz [10] described
flexibility and convenience as both reasons students enrolled in online
courses and as the perception of students once enrolled. On the other hand,
all three groups of students thought unimportant the need to pay home phone
bills incurred in online education, whereas Bee [13] found that students felt
the university should provide financial assistance to offset the associated
costs of going online. There is evidence in the literature (viz., studies by
Guernsey [8] and Larson [18]) that support the opinion identified in this
study of the need by some students for face-to-face interaction. Since none of
the students taking the Q-sort had ever taken an online course, they were
unaware of the opportunities provided by technology [8,10] to potentially
increase individual attention from instructors above that normal in
face-to-face course offerings. Since no post-enrollment Q-sorts were
administered, there was no way to tell whether students continued to hold that
opinion, or whether that opinion has changed. It is anticipated that even if
the Q-set were administered to a larger number of students, similar viewpoints
would still emerge.
The authors wondered whether there was an association
between the opinion set held by the student and his or her learning style.
Preliminary data using the Canfield Learning Styles Inventory [27] show that
the factor one group--Time and Structure in Learning--exhibited a much higher
than expected proportion of independent learners. (74% of the students who had
high factor loadings on factor one were also classified as independent
learners. This difference was significant Z = 3.00, p < .025.) One might be
tempted to hypothesize a relationship between being an independent learner and
having the time and structure opinion of technology and education. Similarly,
one might also expect that individuals who had high factor loadings for factor
two (Social Factors in Learning) would be more likely classified as social
learners. Further research is necessary to understand how learning styles
contribute to the experience of online education.
There is a movement in both education and business to
harness the power of the World Wide Web to disseminate information. Educators
and researchers, aware of this technological paradigm shift, must become
invested in understanding the interactions of students and computing. The
field of human-computer interface design, as applied to interaction of
students in online courses, is ripe for research in the area of building
better virtual learning communities (thus addressing the needs of the social
learner) without overwhelming the ability of the independent learner to excel
on his or her own.
Learning and Teaching Styles (Australia) --- http://library.trinity.wa.edu.au/teaching/styles.htm
Online Learning Styles --- http://www.metamath.com/lsweb/dvclearn.htm
Adapting a Course to Different Learning Styles --- http://www.glue.umd.edu/~jpaol/ASA/
FasTrak Consulting --- http://www.fastrak-consulting.co.uk/tactix/features/lngstyle/style04.htm
VARK Questionnaire --- http://www.vark-learn.com/english/page.asp?p=questionnaire
Selected
professors --- http://online.sfsu.edu/~bjblecha/cai/cais00.htm
JCU Study Skills --- http://www.jcu.edu.au/studying/services/studyskills/learningst/
Cross-Cultural Considerations --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/cultures/culture.htm
"How Do People Learn," Sloan-C Review, February 2004 ---
http://www.aln.org/publications/view/v3n2/coverv3n2.htm
Like some of the
other well known cognitive and affective taxonomies, the Kolb figure
illustrates a range of interrelated learning activities and styles beneficial
to novices and experts. Designed to emphasize reflection on learners’
experiences, and progressive conceptualization and active experimentation,
this kind of environment is congruent with the aim of lifelong learning. Randy
Garrison points out that:
From a content
perspective, the key is not to inundate students with information. The first
responsibility of the teacher or content expert is to identify the central
idea and have students reflect upon and share their conceptions. Students
need to be hooked on a big idea if learners are to be motivated to be
reflective and self-directed in constructing meaning. Inundating learners
with information is discouraging and is not consistent with higher order
learning . . . Inappropriate assessment and excessive information will
seriously undermine reflection and the effectiveness of asynchronous
learning.
Reflection on a big
question is amplified when it enters collaborative inquiry, as multiple styles
and approaches interact to respond to the challenge and create solutions. In
How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School, John Bransford and
colleagues describe a legacy cycle for collaborative inquiry, depicted in a
figure by Vanderbilt University researchers (see image, lower left).
Continued in the article
Bob Jensen has some related (oft
neglected) comments about learning at http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/265wp.htm
The Noteworthy Success of Variable Speed Video at BYU
Update on BYU Flipped Variable-Speed Video Courses in Accounting
BYU replaced live lectures in the on-campus two introductory courses in
accounting with variable -speed video 15 years ago. I wrote about the pioneering
efforts of adjunct professor Norman Nemrows who developed these CDs years ago
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#BYUvideo
The variable speed videos enable students to navigate more efficiently through
the video files and to slow down on parts they want to study.
I think Norm supervised the courses and held office hours when students wanted
some help. As I recall he did all this for $1 per term.
This was a one of the early campus classroom replacements on online lectures
with video. My contention then and now was that this would not work well on many
campuses. It worked well at BYU because the accounting majors are nearly all
highly motivated students who learn well on their own or in small groups. In a
course having a high proportion of unmotivated students there is generally more
need for live instructors to kick butt.
2015 Update
"When a Flipped-Classroom Pioneer Hands Off His Video Lectures, This Is What
Happens," by Jeffrey R. Young, Chronicle of Higher Education, January
7, 2015 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/When-a-Flipped-Classroom/151031/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
In a way, there are
two Norman Nemrows. There’s the real-life professor who spent much of his
career teaching accounting students at Brigham Young University. And there’s
the one I'll call Video Norm, the instructor immortalized in lectures on
accounting that he began recording nearly 15 years ago.
For more than a decade, students at BYU learned
from both Norms. About half of the class sessions for his
introductory-accounting course were "software days," when students watched
an hour or two of video lectures on their computers anywhere they wanted and
then completed quizzes online. The other class periods were "enhancement
lectures," in which students—as many as 800 at a time—gathered in a
classroom and did group work led by the actual Mr. Nemrow.
Back when it started, in 2000, this method of
reducing in-person classes and replacing them with videos and tutorials was
an innovation, but today it is a buzzword: the
flipped classroom.
A few years ago, the living, breathing Norman
Nemrow retired from the university. And that’s when things got interesting,
or at least more complicated, because students at BYU still learn from Video
Norm.
In fact, every student taking introductory
accounting at the university watches the video lectures, some 3,000 students
each year. And the in-person sessions? They’re now led by another accounting
professor, Melissa Larson, who has been thrust into the novel role of doing
everything a traditional professor does except the lecturing. The tough
question—and one of the biggest for the future of the flipped model—is
whether other professors will be willing or able to become sidekicks to
slick video productions.
Ms. Larson gets high marks on student evaluations
for leading group work in the large classroom sessions and answering
questions by email. But Video Norm remains the star.
That was clear when Mr. Nemrow showed up, in
person, at the end of the fall semester to give a guest lecture for the
introductory course. You’d think a Hollywood actor had come to campus.
Students showed up early to take selfies with the professor they had spent
so many hours watching on video.
"We got front-row seats," said Celeste Harris, a
junior in the course. "We said, we have to see what this guy is like in real
life."
How did Mr. Nemrow compare with the digital
version? "He’s a little older than when he recorded the videos," Ms. Harris
noted, "but it was actually one of the best lectures I’ve heard." It was
inspirational, she said, because Mr. Nemrow recounted the story of this
unusual accounting course, which has become a kind of legend on the campus.
From Business to Teaching
Mr. Nemrow started out as a businessman. He worked
at a consulting firm in California, then helped start a
real-estate-investment firm. But he was drawn to the classroom. For years he
taught accounting on the side, first as an adjunct at California State
University at Fullerton, then full time at Pepperdine University.
Around the time he turned 30, he sold his business
and decided to retire early. He didn’t want to do nothing, but he no longer
had to work for money, he says, even with a wife and five small children.
"I didn’t really have a burning desire to create
another business," he says. He took some art classes. He played a lot of
golf. "For a couple of years I was trying to kind of find myself," he
recalls. "I decided what I really wanted to do is probably teach."
So he called up the dean of the business school at
his alma mater, Brigham Young, and asked if there was a teaching spot for
him. He had a master’s degree but not a Ph.D., and at first the answer was
no. "When I told him I was willing to do it as a volunteer, his attitude
changed," Mr. Nemrow recounts, with a laugh. "He let me teach the intro
course for a year."
BYU hired Mr. Nemrow as a full-time professor. He
donated his salary to the university, he says. A devout Mormon, he saw the
work as a way to give back to the church. In his mind, that left his
teaching in the category of volunteer work. "I wanted to have complete and
total freedom, and I didn’t want to make a commitment to how long I’d be
there."
After several years of teaching the introductory
course, he says, he began to get tired of repeating himself and answering
the same questions. He considered writing a textbook and even drafted a
couple of chapters. "But I thought to myself, this isn’t as effective as
when I’m explaining it in person."
So, in 1998, he approached the university’s
fledgling instructional-technology group and pitched his idea to reformat
his course around a series of videos and computerized homework assignments.
"They were worried about getting funding, so I just put up the money
myself," about $50,000, he says.
After two years of development and some lobbying to
persuade the accounting faculty to let him try his flipped experiment, Video
Norm was born.
Mr. Nemrow says the software increased the number
of students he could teach at one time, while reducing the time it took him
to do it. And he says his surveys showed that 93 percent of his students
reported learning more effectively from the flipped format than from a
traditional one. Both his inner businessman and his inner philanthropist
thought: This is going to be big.
Hitting the Road
Mr. Nemrow believed that his system was simply
better than the old way, and he thought that once other accounting
professors saw it, they’d immediately adopt his videos and software rather
than the textbook-and-lecture method.
He started a company, Business Learning Software
Inc., to manage and update the videos and the delivery technology. True to
his desire to keep his teaching like volunteer work, he says, he donates any
profits to charities. Because the software and videos were developed at BYU,
the university owns them and gets a portion of any revenue from their sale.
And he made
all of the
videos for his intro course available free online.
Mr. Nemrow traveled to accounting departments and
academic conferences around the country, evangelizing his teaching approach
and his software. But, to his surprise, he found few takers.
Continued in article
Bob Jensen's threads on Tools and Tricks of the Trade (including flipped
classrooms) ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm
Learning Basic
Financial Accounting at Brigham Young University (BYU) From Homegrown Videos
Developer and Instructor: Norman Nemrow
[nemrow@byu.edu]
Title of Package of Eight CDs: Introduction to Accounting: The Language of
Business
Textbook: I think this package can be used along with virtually any basic
accounting textbook
Pedagogy: Students learn from video lesson modules before each class. The
video lessons display
the course instructor in video as well as accompanying
PowerPoint displays that are auto-
matically sequenced with the video. Students have nifty
options to both replay the previous
five minutes and to play the videos a double (2x) speed that
is an outstanding option
for reviewing previously-learned material.
Classes: Classes are more inspirational than perspirational (e.g., frequent use
of visiting speakers)
Outcomes: Purportedly students perform better vis-à-vis previous lecture
pedagogy without video.
See the following evaluation of learning:
"Variable Speed Playback of
Digitally Recorded Lectures: Evaluating Learner Feedback," by Joel D.
Galbraith
(joel_galbraith@byu.edu )
and Steven G. Spencer ---
http://www.enounce.com/docs/BYUPaper020319.pdf
Basic accounting students At BYU have great success learning accounting from
special videos ---
http://www.accountingcds.com/index.html
Contact Information:
Cameron Earl 801-836-5649
cameronearl@byu.edu
Norm Nemrow 801-422-3029 nemrow@byu.edu
Update message on November 3, 2005
Bob has posted our new website in an earlier post,
but the new URL to our new website describing our accounting tools is
www.accountingcds.com
We have a demo of VSP (the technology that speeds
up the video and audio) technology here:
http://www.accountingcds.com/learn/links/vspdemo.htm
Cameron Earl
BYU
Also see David Cottrell's approach at BYU --- http://www.business.uconn.edu/users/adunbar/AAA-CPE/AAA2003Cottrell.pdf
Master Educators Who Deliver Exceptional Courses or
Entire Programs
But Have Little Contact With Individual Students
Before reading this section, you should be familiar with the document at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#Teaching
Master educators can also be outstanding researchers, although research
is certainly not a requisite to being a master educator. Many master
educators are administrators of exceptional accounting education programs.
They're administrative duties typically leave little time for research,
although they may write about education and learning. Some master educators
are not even tenure track faculty.
What I've noticed in recent years is how technology can make a huge
difference. Nearly every college these days has some courses in selected
disciplines because they are utilizing some type exciting technology. Today
I returned from a trip to Jackson, Mississippi where I conduced a day-long
CPE
session on education technology for accounting educators in Mississippi
(what great southern hospitality by the way). So the audience would not have
to listen to me the entire day, I invited Cameron Earl from Brigham Young
University to make a presentation that ran for about 90 minutes. I learned
some things about top educators at BYU, which by the way is one of the most
respected universities in the world. If you factor out a required religion
course on the Book of Mormon, the most popular courses on the BYU campus are
the two basic accounting courses. By popular I mean in terms of thousands of
students who elect to take these courses even if they have no intention of
majoring in business or economics where these two courses are required.
Nearly all humanities and science students on campus try to sign up for
these two accounting courses.
After students take these two courses, capacity constraints restrict the
numbers of successful students in these courses who are then allowed to
become accounting majors at BYU. I mean I'm talking about a very, very small
percentage who are allowed to become accounting students. Students admitted
to the accounting program generally have over 3.7 minimum campus-wide grade
averages.
This begs the question of what makes the two basic accounting courses so
exceptionally popular in such a large and prestigious university?
- These two basic accounting courses are not sought out for easy
grades. In fact they are among the hardest courses for high grades at
BYU. I think that this is probably true in most business schools in the
nation.
- These two BYU courses are not sought out for face-to-face contact
with the instructor. The courses have thousands of students each term
such that most students do not see the instructor outside of class even
though he's available over ten hours per week for those who seek him
out. Each course only meets in live classes eight times per semester.
Most of the speakers in those eight classes are outstanding visiting
speakers who add a great deal to the popularity of the course. This is
often one difference between a course run by a master educator versus a
master teacher. A master educator often brings in top talent to inspire
and educate students.
- The courses undoubtedly benefit from the the shortage of accounting
graduates in colleges nationwide and the exceptional career
opportunities for students who want careers in accounting, taxation,
law, business management, government, criminal justice, and other
organizations. But these accountancy advantages exist for every college
that has an accounting education program. Most all colleges do not have
two basic accounting courses that are sought out by every student in the
entire university. That makes BYU's two basic accounting courses truly
exceptional.
- Some courses in every college are popular these days because they
are doing something exceptional with technology. These two BYU courses
increased in popularity when a self-made young man became a
multimillionaire and decided to devote his life to being a master
educator in these two accountancy courses at BYU. His name is Norman
Nemrow. He runs these courses full time without salary at BYU and is
neither a tenure track faculty member or a noted researcher at BYU. I
think he qualifies, however, as an education researcher even if he does
not publish his findings in academic journals. The video disks are
available to anyone in the world for a relatively small fee that goes to
BYU, but BYU is not doing this for purposes of making great profits. You
can read more about how to get the course disks at the following links:
- The students in these two courses learn the technical aspects of
from variable-speed video disks that were produced by Norman and a team
of video and learning experts. Cameron Earl is a recent graduate of BYU
who is part of the technical team that delivers these two courses on
video. Formal studies of Nemrow's video courses indicate that students
generally prefer to learn from the video relative to live lectures. The
course has computer labs run by teaching assistants who can give live
tutorials to individual students, but most students who have the video
disks for their own computers do not seek out the labs.
Trivia Question
At BYU most students on campus elect to take Norman Nemrow's two basic
accounting courses. In the distant past, what exceptional accounting
professor managed to get his basic accounting courses required at a renowned
university while he was teaching these courses?
Trivia Answer
Bill Paton is one of the all-time great accounting professors in history.
His home campus was the University of Michigan, and for a period of time
virtually all students at his university had to take basic accounting (or at
least so I was told by several of Paton's former doctoral students). Bill
Paton was one of the first to be inducted into the
Accounting Hall of Fame.
As an aside, I might mention that I
favor requiring two basic accounting courses for every student
admitted to a college or university, including colleges who do
not even have business education programs.
But the "required accounting
courses" would not, in my viewpoint, be a traditional basic
accounting courses. About two thirds or more of these courses
should be devoted to personal finance, investing, business law,
tax planning. The remainder of the courses should touch on
accounting basics for keeping score of business firms and
budgeting for every organization in society.
At the moment, the majority of
college graduates do not have a clue about the time value of
money and the basics of finance and accounting that they will
face the rest of their lives. |
There are other ways of being "mastery educators" without being master
teachers in a traditional sense. Three professors of accounting at the
University of Virginia developed and taught a year-long intermediate
accounting case where students virtually had to teach themselves in a manner
that they found painful and frustrating. But there are metacognitive reasons
where the end result made this year-long active learning task one of the
most meaningful and memorable experiences in their entire education ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/265wp.htm
They often painfully grumbled with such comments as "everything I'm learned
in this course I'm having to learn by myself."
You can read about mastery learning and all its frustrations at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#Teaching
Question
Should you share your knowledge on YouTube?
"Thanks to YouTube, Professors Are Finding New Audiences," Jeffrey R.
Young, Inside Higher Ed, January 9, 2008 ---
http://chronicle.com/free/2008/01/1159n.htm
One Web site that opened this week,
Big Think,
hopes to be "a YouTube for ideas." The site offers
interviews with academics, authors, politicians, and other thinkers. Most of
the subjects are filmed in front of a plain white background, and the
interviews are chopped into bite-sized pieces of just a few minutes each.
The short clips could have been served up as text quotes, but Victoria R. M.
Brown, co-founder of Big Think, says video is more engaging. "People like to
learn and be informed of things by looking and watching and learning," she
says.
YouTube itself wants to be a venue for academe. In
the past few months, several colleges have signed agreements with the site
to set up official "channels." The University of California at Berkeley was
the first, and the University of Southern California, the University of New
South Wales, in Australia, and Vanderbilt University soon followed.
It remains an open question just how large the
audience for talking eggheads is, though. After all, in the early days of
television, many academics hoped to use the medium to beam courses to living
rooms, with series like CBS's Sunrise Semester. which began in 1957.
Those efforts are now a distant memory.
Things may be different now, though, since the
Internet offers a chance to connect people with the professors and topics
that most interest them.
Even YouTube was surprised by how popular the
colleges' content has been, according to Adam Hochman, a product manager at
Berkeley's Learning Systems Group. Lectures are long, after all, while most
popular YouTube videos run just a few minutes. (Lonelygirl, the diary of a
teenage girl, had episodes that finished in well under a minute. Many other
popular shorts involve cute animals or juvenile stunts). Yet some lectures
on Berkeley's channel scored 100,000 viewers each, and people were sitting
through the whole talks. "Professors in a sense are rock stars," Mr. Hochman
concludes. "We're getting as many hits as you would find with some of the
big media players."
YouTube officials insist that they weren't
surprised by the buzz, and they say that more colleges are coming forward.
"We expect that education will be a vibrant category on YouTube," said
Obadiah Greenberg, strategic partner manager at YouTube, in an e-mail
interview. "Everybody loves to learn."
To set up an official channel on YouTube, colleges
must sign an agreement with the company, though no money changes hands. That
allows the colleges to brand their section of the site, by including a logo
or school colors, and to upload longer videos than typical users are
allowed.
The company hasn't exactly made it easy to find the
academic offerings, though. Clicking on the education category shows a mix
of videos, including ones with babes posing in lingerie and others on the
lectures of Socrates. But that could change if the company begins to sign up
more colleges and pay more attention to whether videos are appearing in the
correct subject areas, says Dan Colman, director and associate dean of
Stanford University's continuing-studies program, who runs a
blog
tracking podcasts and videos made by colleges and
professors.
In many cases, the colleges were already offering
the videos they are putting on YouTube on their own Web sites, or on Apple's
iTunes U, an educational section of the iTunes Store. But college officials
say that teaming up with YouTube is greatly expanding their audiences
because so many people are poking around the service already.
Continued in article
UC Berkeley and other major universities now offer hundreds of courses on
YouTube ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
Question
If you want to go on YouTube, how should you make your videos?
Jensen Answer
I recommend featuring computer screens that you narrate using Camtasia ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideos.htm
However, you can also get a digital video camera. I suggest that professors
consult their media departments on campus.
Question
Should you share your knowledge on YouTube?
"Thanks to YouTube, Professors Are Finding New Audiences," Jeffrey R.
Young, Inside Higher Ed, January 9, 2008 ---
http://chronicle.com/free/2008/01/1159n.htm
One Web site that opened this week,
Big Think,
hopes to be "a YouTube for ideas." The site offers
interviews with academics, authors, politicians, and other thinkers. Most of
the subjects are filmed in front of a plain white background, and the
interviews are chopped into bite-sized pieces of just a few minutes each.
The short clips could have been served up as text quotes, but Victoria R. M.
Brown, co-founder of Big Think, says video is more engaging. "People like to
learn and be informed of things by looking and watching and learning," she
says.
YouTube itself wants to be a venue for academe. In
the past few months, several colleges have signed agreements with the site
to set up official "channels." The University of California at Berkeley was
the first, and the University of Southern California, the University of New
South Wales, in Australia, and Vanderbilt University soon followed.
It remains an open question just how large the
audience for talking eggheads is, though. After all, in the early days of
television, many academics hoped to use the medium to beam courses to living
rooms, with series like CBS's Sunrise Semester. which began in 1957.
Those efforts are now a distant memory.
Things may be different now, though, since the
Internet offers a chance to connect people with the professors and topics
that most interest them.
Even YouTube was surprised by how popular the
colleges' content has been, according to Adam Hochman, a product manager at
Berkeley's Learning Systems Group. Lectures are long, after all, while most
popular YouTube videos run just a few minutes. (Lonelygirl, the diary of a
teenage girl, had episodes that finished in well under a minute. Many other
popular shorts involve cute animals or juvenile stunts). Yet some lectures
on Berkeley's channel scored 100,000 viewers each, and people were sitting
through the whole talks. "Professors in a sense are rock stars," Mr. Hochman
concludes. "We're getting as many hits as you would find with some of the
big media players."
YouTube officials insist that they weren't
surprised by the buzz, and they say that more colleges are coming forward.
"We expect that education will be a vibrant category on YouTube," said
Obadiah Greenberg, strategic partner manager at YouTube, in an e-mail
interview. "Everybody loves to learn."
To set up an official channel on YouTube, colleges
must sign an agreement with the company, though no money changes hands. That
allows the colleges to brand their section of the site, by including a logo
or school colors, and to upload longer videos than typical users are
allowed.
The company hasn't exactly made it easy to find the
academic offerings, though. Clicking on the education category shows a mix
of videos, including ones with babes posing in lingerie and others on the
lectures of Socrates. But that could change if the company begins to sign up
more colleges and pay more attention to whether videos are appearing in the
correct subject areas, says Dan Colman, director and associate dean of
Stanford University's continuing-studies program, who runs a
blog
tracking podcasts and videos made by colleges and
professors.
In many cases, the colleges were already offering
the videos they are putting on YouTube on their own Web sites, or on Apple's
iTunes U, an educational section of the iTunes Store. But college officials
say that teaming up with YouTube is greatly expanding their audiences
because so many people are poking around the service already.
Continued in article
BigThink: YouTube for Scholars (where intellectuals may post their
lectures on societal issues) ---
http://www.bigthink.com/
TED: Technology, Entertainment, and Design Lectures ---
http://www.ted.com/
UC Berkeley and other major universities now offer hundreds of courses on
YouTube ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
January 9, 2008 reply from David Fordham, James Madison University
[fordhadr@JMU.EDU]
Here's another question: I notice that education
academics are poo-poo'ing the "lecture" delivery methodology (in favor of
"active learning", "participatory education", "learner physical engagement",
etc.), but education *practitioners* are exponentially snowballing the
production of "sit down and watch me"-type of passive "entertainment"
delivery mechanisms....
Could it be that accounting is not the only domain
with a disconnect between academics and practitioners?
Just a thought. ;-)
Having suffered through raising a terribly
attention-deficit child (and we know with certainty the early-childhood
cause of this particular case), I can't help but marvel at how the short
video clips (sound bites?) are catering to the learning styles of the
present hyperactive generation of learners. --- This begs another question:
Since much of human progress has resulted from in-depth understanding which
requires longer-term periods of study and contemplation for full
comprehension and synthesis, what long-term impact will the present ubiquity
of these "attention-deficit-reinforcing" delivery mechanisms have on the
development of intellect in the upcoming generation?
Will there be an evolutionary morphosis in the
process of human thought, some kind of change we haven't thought about or
foreseen, where human intellect might no longer require lengthy periods of
"gearing up mentally" in order to understand and comprehend and analyze and
synthesize complex ideas and thoughts?
Just a few musings by an old grey-haired has-been
who still enjoys sitting down in an easy chair and spending an hour or two
at a time with a printed book, and who just yesterday got really irritated
(privately) with a grad student who complained bitterly about the length of
a 17-page paper whose reading is required for next-week's class.
David Fordham
PBGH Faculty Fellow
James Madison University School of Accounting
January 9, 2008 reply from Richard J. Campbell
[campbell@VIRTUALPUBLISHING.NET]
Bob: If you do a search on
www.youtube.com
for "campbell79" you will see an accounting video I
put up a year ago on the basic accounting equation - it has over 9,000 hits.
When I have time, google has an adsense program in which I can monetize that
content by inserting ads.
Do a search for "susancrosson". She has a number of
videos.
Richard
January 9, 2008 reply from Steven Hornik
[shornik@BUS.UCF.EDU]
David,
With respect to your inquiry about short video clips and the potential
consequences. I have found that when I moved my lectures online, I
deliberately made them short, to cover just one or two main concepts. So
that a lecture that covers financial accounting transactions that might have
taken 1.5 hours or so in a traditional setting, can now be broken down into
4-5 shorter lectures.
In my experience students have a hard time concentrating for 1.5 hours on
accounting topics - I'm not the best lecturer, but the material isn't all
that stimulating at times either. So I tell my students when you can find
20 minutes of uninterrupted time, watch one of the lectures - give it your
undivided attention. Do this once a day if you have to and then by the end
of the week they will have listened/watched the entire lecture.
I'm not sure if this is reinforcing short attention spans or not, but I
think it provides students a much better way to concentrate on the
material. Then after watching a short video, they can spend quality time
thinking about the lecture, doing problems, etc. It's this time, the
working with the concepts, that to me seems the most important.
Just my 2 cents,
_____________________________
Dr. Steven Hornik
University of Central Florida
Dixon School of Accounting
407-823-5739
Second Life: Robins Hermano
http://mydebitcredit.com
yahoo ID: shornik
January 9, 2008 reply from Bob Jensen
Hi Steve,
You’ve just hit on the main comparative advantage of
asynchronous/hypermedia learning (in which video can play a major part).
Learners may focus on material when they are prepared to concentrate and
replay material over and over that they did not master in previous attempts.
Camtasia has
made the video more interesting by making lectures much more than video of
talking heads.
It really helps to have variable speed video to increase the efficiency
of the asynchronous learning process. Probably the greatest experiment of
this for all time can be found in the year-long basic accounting courses at
Brigham Young University (BYU) where virtually all technical matters in
basic accounting are learned asynchronously on video with the possible (but
not required) supplemental help from a textbook.
Much of the absolutely tremendous experimental work on asynchronous
learning (including BYU links on variable speed video) can be found at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm
Bob Jensen
Question
If you want to go on YouTube, how should you make your videos?
Jensen Answer
I recommend featuring computer screens that you narrate using Camtasia ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideos.htm
However, you can also get a digital video camera. I suggest that professors
consult their media departments on campus.
Question
What is the new YouTube for Intellectuals?
"'YouTube for Intellectuals' Goes Live," by Andrea L. Foster, Chronicle of
Higher Education, January 8, 2008 ---
http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/2646/youtube-for-intellectuals-goes-live?at
'YouTube for Intellectuals' Goes Live Amy Gutmann,
president of the University of Pennsylvania, talks about the importance of
racial, socioeconomic, and religious diversity at colleges in a
video on bigthink,
a new Web site that is meant to be a YouTube for intellectuals. In addition
to featuring academics, the site includes one- to two-minute videos from
politicians, artists, and business people.
According to an
article in Monday’s New York Times, the site was
started by Peter Hopkins, a 2004 graduate of Harvard University. He said he
hopes bigthink becomes popular among college students. David Frankel, a
venture capitalist, put up most of the money for the enterprise. Lawrence H.
Summers, a former president of Harvard, has invested tens of thousands of
dollars as well.
Bob Jensen's video search helpers are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Searchh.htm#Video
January 9, 2008 reply from Joseph Brady
[bradyj@lerner.udel.edu]
Judging from my quick scan this morning, this site
is not very much like YouTube, but the topics do look interesting.
Joe
Evaluation of ALN Experiments at
the University of Illinois
Bob Jensen's threads on assessments can be found at http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm
Update on August 12, 2000
Outcomes assessment of the
multi-million dollar, multi-year experiments on campus at the University of Illinois
regarding the efficiency and effectiveness of asynchronous learning classes vis-a-vis
traditional classes. (Listen to Dan Stone's
audio and download his Powerpoint Presentation). http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/000cpe/00start.htm
The main page for the ALN experimental plans and evaluations at the
University of Illinois can be found at http://w3.scale.uiuc.edu/scale/
Only one course had a cost savings goal, and you can read about is along with the
evaluation for the entire 1997 plan at http://w3.scale.uiuc.edu/scale/eval_plan.html
Click on http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/slide01.htm
to see Professor Oakley's PowerPoint slide on grade impacts in the course ECE
270 (Intermediate Microeconomics). Early
evidence indicates that students do as well or better in asynchronous courses
that do not meet in classrooms. Another PowerPoint slide
on the same page shows substantial increases in
communication between a student and the instructor(s) and other students.
Scale PowerPoint Overview --- http://www.aln.org/conference/proceedings/1996/96_oakley.pdf
Also see http://edtech.cites.uiuc.edu/FSIarchive/1997/presentations/ward2.ppt
"The SCALE Efficiency Projects," by Lanny Arvan et al --- http://www.alnresearch.org/Data_Files/articles/full_text/arvan2.htm
This paper presents evidence from nine
"Efficiency Projects" that were SCALE’s focus in the 1997-98
academic year. The Efficiency Projects were specifically aimed at using ALN to
achieve higher student/faculty ratios, without sacrificing instructional
quality. The study concentrates on data amassed for the fall 1997 semester.
Evidence was collected on the cost side, for ALN development and delivery, and
the performance/attitude side, from both student and faculty perspectives. The
study supports the view that when a sensible pedagogic approach is embraced
that affords the students with avenues to communicate about their learning,
ALN can produce real efficiency gains in courses without sacrificing the
quality of instruction.
Student evaluations for the Fall 1995 semester are summarized at http://w3.scale.uiuc.edu/scale/evaluations/fall95/index.html
It appears that over the years, the links to the SCALE
experiments are broken. Perhaps the study results are no longer freely online.
You can of course read my summaries and listen to Dan Stone describe the program
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm#Illinois
I kept the PowerPoint slides for one course (micro economics) in
the experiment at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/slide01.htm
That course was very typical of many of the outcomes on grading.
The principal investigator in the SCALE project was an economics
professor named Lanny Arvan. I suspect he will willingly cooperate with
researchers who really want to investigate his SCALE project ---
http://www.economics.uiuc.edu/people/larvan/
It was indeed a well funded research project.
The Sloan Foundation may also have some SCALE reports that Lanny
can point you to since much of the SCALE funding was Sloan money.
The Executive Summary reads as follows:
ALN Promoted ...
Increased communications
"I learned much more than I ever had due to the high interaction between
student/student and student/teacher."
Survey results revealed 51% of the students reported an increase in
communication with the instructor and 43% with other
students. Approximately 40% of the students reported an
increase in the quality of their interaction with the instructor. One professor
wrote, "I believe the quality of my interactions with students was the highest I have
ever experienced." Students liked "asking questions that couldn't be asked in
class," "better understanding different points of view," "the ease in
getting in touch with the professor," and "talking more to my peers."
Improved access to information
"Information when you want/need it."
Students liked having "personal control of information"
and "quick-response times from peers and students." They found that "on-line testing was easy and convenient," "study
material was easy to access," "material was never lost...and always
available," the Web served "as a great supplement to lectures," and they
could "pay more attention in class and worry less about taking
notes."
Added to learning environment
"It added flavor to course, broadened it beyond just the
classroom."
Students commented that ALN "was a new and exciting way to
learn" that "added depth" to the class. It also enabled them
"to be more prepared for class," gave them "a lot of time to learn out of
class," and allowed them "to work at own pace." Some students believed the
"on-line homework was a great experience" and that on-line quizzes were "a
good way to study for exams." Survey results indicated approximately 70% of the
students would like to take another course using computer conferencing. About 75% of the
responding students rated their overall experience with computer conferencing good, very
good, or excellent. Approximately 60% of the students reported an increase in the amount
of their learning due to the use of computer conferencing.
Facilitated the learning of computers
"Increased my knowledge and confidence with computers."
Approximately 70% of the students indicated on the survey an increase in their familiarity
with computers. Students reported "feeling less apprehensive about using
computers" and thought that their ALN course provided "a
good opportunity to learn more about computers."
If/When ...
Students/Instructors were adequately trained
"It might have affected the way I learned if I had been able to use it."
"Make a mandatory class on how to use the system."
Approximately 75% of the students responding to the survey found the use of FirstClass
[FC] or PacerForum [PF] to be easy or somewhat easy. However, there were students in all
but a few of the classes interviewed who expressed a desire for more or better training.
Students requested "more tutorial instruction," "better
documentation," and "written instructions on how to get it [FC] from home."
Some students thought their instructor should have "introduced it sooner in the
semester," provided a "mandatory class on how to use the system" and done a
better job of "explaining why we are doing it."
Students made an effort
"If you took the time to read what other class members had to say it was of great
benefit to me and what I learned."
On the survey, approximately 60% of the students reported using computer conferencing at
least once a week. Forty percent didn't use or minimally used conferencing. Females
reported using conferencing slightly more than did males.
About one half of the students used campus computer labs when using the computer, while
approximately one quarter used residence hall labs or accessed a computer in their
apartment or residence hall room. When asked about computer participation in the ten class
interviews typically a third to one half of the students indicated reading the postings of
their classmates.
Instructors made an effort
"If you are going to include it, give some sort of incentive to use it."
"Do more than just postings."
A consistent theme appears in the ten class interviews and survey results; most students
will participate in ALN activities when (a) they know how to participate, (b) it isn't too
difficult to do so, and (c) it is worth their time and effort. The first and third
conditions can be directly addressed by the instructor, whereas the second condition
requires campus support. Students seem to be less interested in participating when an
instructor "tacks on ALN to a course." In responding to various open-ended items
on the survey the students are asking instructors to "do more than just
postings," "to do more than answer questions," to use ALN "more than
once a week," to "increase interactive programs," and to "put useful
things/readings on FC."
There was sufficient access to computers
"It was more of a hassle than it was worth."
"The [modem] lines were always busy."
"It was hard to find an available computer."
Getting access to a computer was the most often cited complaint
on the survey and in all of the class interviews. As one student explained, "After
standing in line for an hour I don't have time to do anything more than post my own
work." "Busy phone lines" prevented some from working at home while others
on campus were frustrated with "filled computer labs." As one student summed up,
"Get more computers or get rid of it."
The computers and computer software were user-friendly
"Have less technical problems."
"Password didn't work."
"I couldn't login, so I stopped using it."
Overall, most students appeared to find the Web, PF or FC software to be somewhat easy to
use once they knew how to login and locate them at various computer sites. However,
"getting to the software" was difficult for some. Students in all of the class
interviews spoke of "system crashes," "inabilities to
login due to password problems," or "problems locating the programs at
the different sites on campus." For some students these difficulties discouraged
further use. Still other students wanted the software to do more. Their requests for
"an editor on PF," "better graphing capabilities on FC," "easier
ways to transfer files," and "better communication between FC and the Web"
addressed their needs for a more integrated computer package.
So what's next ... (what we will be watching)
Beyond computer conferencing
Essentially, ALN in the Fall of 1995 meant computer conferencing and course materials on
the Web. Already the SCALE faculty are talking to us about building on their fall
experience to use new technologies or to improve their use of those already tried. Said
one professor, "We still have room for improvement." New SCALE proposals also
reveal expanded definitions of ALN including the implementation of video conferencing,
interactive Web activities, and inter-institutional collaboration.
Improved access and training
Problems of computer access and technical difficulties will never go away entirely but
they should be reduced as computer site monitors gain experience, additional modems are
added to the campus infrastructure, lab sites are better prepared for student, using ALN
software, and students/faculty learn from their mistakes.
The economies of SCALE
This semester 58% of the faculty responding to the survey reported taking more time than
normal on their ALN courses. However, as faculty continue to refine
their use of ALN the campus should expect to see some savings in costs and time.
For example, two faculty members have told us of their plans to reduce the number of class
meeting times based on their use of computer conferencing in the fall, while another
professor is planning to co-teach a course with an instructor at another university.
Enhanced performance
Does ALN enhance student performance? At least three
professors believed the students in their ALN courses outperformed students in the past.
The evaluation team helped collect statistics for one professor wherein students who took
on-line quizzes outperformed those who didn't. For the spring semester we are working with
several professors who are structuring their courses to compare ALN and non-ALN taught
students in terms of achievement. We may find some answers to the opening question.
Other advantages and disadvantages of ALN are discussed
by me at http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/245ch02.htm#Asynchronous1
A PowerPoint slide show can be found in the PP Presentation link at http://www2.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/project/mediasource/COTT_CIT/index.htm
The first PP Presentation slide is at http://www2.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/project/mediasource/COTT_CIT/sld001.htm
An interesting paper by William H. Geoghegan
at IBM Academic Consulting is entitled "WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO INSTRUCTIONAL
TECHNOLOGY?" discusses some of the issues as to why the faculty are not yet adapting
to education technologies. Estimates run as high as 95% of higher education faculty are
not using these technologies. Geoghegan analyses social and diffusion barriers in
particular. The paper is at http://w3.scale.uiuc.edu/scale/links/library/geoghegan/wpi.html
Barriers to adaption appear to lie more with faculty and educational instututions than
with students.
"Study: Little Difference in Learning in Online and In-Class Science
Courses," Inside Higher Ed, October 22, 2012 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2012/10/22/study-little-difference-learning-online-and-class-science-courses
A
study in Colorado has found little difference in
the learning of students in online or in-person introductory science
courses. The study tracked community college students who took science
courses online and in traditional classes, and who then went on to four-year
universities in the state. Upon transferring, the students in the two groups
performed equally well. Some science faculty members have expressed
skepticism about the ability of online students in science, due to the lack
of group laboratory opportunities, but the programs in Colorado work with
companies to provide home kits so that online students can have a lab
experience.
Jensen Comment
Firstly, note that online courses are not necessarily mass education (MOOC)
styled courses. The student-student and student-faculty interactions can be
greater online than onsite. For example, my daughter's introductory chemistry
class at the University of Texas had over 600 students. On the date of the final
examination he'd never met her and had zero control over her final grade. On the
other hand, her microbiology instructor in a graduate course at the University
of Maine became her husband over 20 years ago.
Another factor is networking. For example, Harvard Business School students
meeting face-to-face in courses bond in life-long networks that may be stronger
than for students who've never established networks via classes, dining halls,
volley ball games, softball games, rowing on the Charles River, etc. There's
more to lerning than is typically tested in competency examinations.
My point is that there are many externalities to both onsite and online
learning. And concluding that there's "little difference in learning" depends
upon what you mean by learning. The SCALE experiments at the University of
Illinois found that students having the same instructor tended to do slightly
better than onsite students. This is partly because there are fewer logistical
time wasters in online learning. The effect becomes larger for off-campus
students where commuting time (as in Mexico City) can take hours going to and
from campus.
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on assessment are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Assess.htm
Update on Lanny Arvan: From SCALE Experiments to Blogs
Years ago economics professor Lanny Arvan directed the famous in a controlled
SCALE experiments comparing resident full-time students at the University of
Illinois taking onsite versus online courses from the same instructors using
common grade assessment procedures. Thirty courses across multiple disciplines
were examined across five years of experimentation ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm#Illinois
In spite of some technology glitches in those olden days, many students tended
to prefer taking the courses online. Typically, many more students moved from B
grades to A grades in online courses. However, there tended to not be much
difference for D and F students, indicating that lack of motivation and aptitude
cuts across online and onsite pedagogies in mostly the same way.
In one of my technology workshops Dan Stone (then from the University of
Illinois) gave us an overview that I still serve up his PowerPoint and audio
files ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/000cpe/00start.htm
"Teaching With Blogs, by Lanny Arvan, Inside Higher Ed, July
27, 2010 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2010/07/27/arvan
“It is my impression
that no one really likes the new. We are afraid of it. It is not only as
Dostoevsky put it that 'taking a new step, uttering a new word is what
people fear most.' Even in slight things the experience of the new is rarely
without some stirring of foreboding.”
--Eric Hoffer, Between The Devil And The Dragon
I tried the new in fall
2009,
teaching with student blogs, (look in sidebar and
scroll down) out in the open where anyone who wanted to could see what the
students were producing. The blogging wasn’t new for me. I’d been
doing that for almost five years. Having students
blog was a different matter. I had no experience in getting them to overcome
their anxieties, relaxing in writing online, learning to trust one another
that way. Normally I believe what’s good for the goose is good for the
gander. If I could blog comfortably and get something from that, so could
they. On reflection, however, I was very gentle with myself when I started
to blog. As an experiment to prove to myself whether I could do it, for
three full weeks I made at least one post a day, 500 to 600 words, a couple
of times 1,100 to 1,200 words. I didn’t tell a soul I was doing this. There
was no pressure on me to keep it up. It was out in the open, yet nobody
seemed to be watching. After those three weeks I felt ready. In the
teaching, however, at best I could ask the students to blog once a week. I
gave the students weekly prompts on the readings or to follow up on class
discussion. (See the
class calendar for fall 2009. The prompts
are in the Friday afternoon entries.) If I let them blog quietly to get
comfortable as I had done, the entire semester would expire before they were
ready to go public. There seemed no alternative but to have them plunge in.
The uncertainty about how
best to assist the students once they had taken the plunge created an
important symmetry between the students and me; we both were to learn about
how to do this well, often by first doing it less well. Though it was an
inadvertent consequence, of all my teaching over the past 30 years I believe
this course came closest to emulating the
Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education by
Chickering and Gamson. I learned to comment on the student posts, not with
some pre-thought-through response based on what I anticipated they’d write,
but rather to react to where they appeared to be in their own thinking.
(This
post provides a typical example. The student
introduced time management as a theme. My comment aimed to make her think
more about time management.) As natural as that is to do in ordinary
conversation, I had never done it before when evaluating student work.
Indeed, I didn’t think of these comments as evaluation at all. I thought of
them as response. In the normal course of my non-teaching work I respond to
colleagues all the time and they respond to me. This form of online
interaction in the class made it more like the rest of my interactions at
work.
Most of the students were
quite awkward in their initial blogging. Good students all, the class was a
seminar on "Designing for Effective Change" for the
Honors Program, but lacking experience in
this sort of approach to instruction, the students wrote to their conception
of what I wanted to hear from them. I can’t imagine a more constipated
mindset for producing interesting prose. For this class there was a need for
them to unlearn much of their approach which had been finely tuned and was
quite successful in their other classes. They needed to take more
responsibility for their choices. While I gave them a prompt each week on
which to write, I also gave them the freedom to choose their own topic so
long as they could create a tie to the course themes. Upon reading much of
the early writing, I admonished many of them to "please themselves" in the
writing. I informed them that they could not possibly please other readers
if they didn’t first please themselves. It was a message they were not used
to hearing. So it took a while for them to believe it was true. In several
instances they tried it out only after being frustrating with the results
from their usual approach. This,
as Ken Bain teaches us,
is how students learn on a fundamental level.
I'm crustier now than I
was as a younger faculty member. Nonetheless, I find it difficult to deal
with the emotion that underlies giving feedback to students when that
feedback is less than entirely complimentary to them. Yet given their
awkward early attempts at writing posts that’s exactly what honest response
demanded. It’s here where having the postings and the comments out in the
open so all can see is so important, before the class has become a
community, before the students have made up their minds about what they
think about this blogging stuff. Though both the writing and the response
are highly subjective, of necessity, it is equally
important for the process to be fair. How can a
student who receives critical comments judge those comments to be fitting
and appropriate, rather than an example of the insensitive instructor
picking on the hapless student? Perhaps a very mature student can discern
this even-handedly from the comments themselves and a self-critique of the
original post. I believe most students benefit by reading the posts of their
classmates, making their own judgments about those writings and then seeing
the instructor’s comments, finally making a subsequent determination as to
whether those comments seem appropriate and helpful for the student in
reconsidering the writing.
A positive feedback loop
can be created by this process. The commenting, more than any other activity
the instructor engages in, demonstrates the instructor’s commitment to the
course and to the students. In turn the students, learning to appreciate the
value of the comments, start to push themselves in the writing. Their
learning is encouraged this way. Further, since the blogging is not a
competition between the students and their classmates, those who like
getting comments begin to comment on the posts of other students. The
elements of the community that the class can become are found in this
activity.
Since on a daily basis I
use blogs and blog readers in my regular work, one of the original reasons
for me taking this approach rather than use the campus learning management
system was simply that I thought it would be more convenient for me. Also,
given my job as a learning technology administrator, I went into the course
with some thought that I might showcase the work afterward. Openness is
clearly better for that. However in retrospect neither of these is primary.
The main reason to be open is to set a good tone for the class. We want
ideas to emerge and not remain concealed.
Yet there remains one
troubling element: student privacy. Is open blogging this way consistent
with
FERPA? As best as I’ve been able to determine, it
is as long as students “opt in.” (I did give students the alternatives of
writing in the class LMS site or writing in the class wiki site. No student
opted for those.) My experience suggests, however, that is not quite
sufficient. If most students opt in, peer pressure may drive others to opt
in as well. More importantly, however, students choose to opt in when they
are largely ignorant of the consequences. Might they feel regret after they
better understand what the blogging is all about?
Continued in article
Bob Jensen's threads on blogs are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/ListservRoles.htm
Evaluation of ALN Programs at the
University of North Texas
On January 17, 2003, Ed Scribner
forwarded this article from The Dallas Morning News
Students Who Live
on Campus Choosing Internet Courses Syndicated From: The Dallas Morning
News
DALLAS - Jennifer
Pressly could have walked to a nearby lecture hall for her U.S. history class
and sat among 125 students a few mornings a week.
But the 19-year-old
freshman at the University of North Texas preferred rolling out of bed and
attending class in pajamas at her dorm-room desk. Sometimes she would wait
until Saturday afternoon.
The teen from
Rockwall, Texas, took her first college history class online this fall
semester. She never met her professor and knew only one of her 125 classmates:
her roommate.
"I take
convenience over lectures," she said. "I think I would be bored to
death if I took it in lecture."
She's part of a
controversial trend that has surprised many university officials across the
country. Given a choice, many traditional college students living on campus
pick an online course. Most universities began offering courses via the
Internet in the late 1990s to reach a different audience - older students who
commute to campus and are juggling a job and family duties.
During the last year,
UNT began offering an online option for six of its highest-enrollment courses
that are typically taught in a lecture hall with 100 to 500 students. The
online classes, partly offered as a way to free up classroom space in the
growing school, filled up before pre-registration ended, UNT officials said.
At UNT, 2,877 of the about 23,000 undergraduates are taking at least one
course online.
Nationwide, colleges
are reporting similar experiences, said Sally Johnstone, director of WCET, a
Boulder, Colo., cooperative of state higher education boards and universities
that researches distance education. Kansas State University, in a student
survey last spring, discovered that 80 percent of its online students were
full-time and 20 percent were part-time, the opposite of the college's
expectations, Johnstone said.
"Why pretend
these kids want to be in a class all the time? They don't, but kids don't come
to campus to sit in their dorm rooms and do things online exclusively,"
she said. "We're in a transition, and it's a complex one."
(EDITORS: BEGIN
OPTIONAL TRIM)
The UT Telecampus, a
part of the University of Texas System that serves 15 universities and
research facilities, began offering online undergraduate classes in
state-required courses two years ago. Its studies show that 80 percent of the
2,260 online students live on campus, and the rest commute.
Because they are
restricted to 30 students each, the UT System's online classes are touted as a
more intimate alternative to lecture classes, said Darcy Hardy, director of
the UT Telecampus.
"The
freshman-sophomore students are extremely Internet-savvy and understand more
about online options and availability than we could have ever imagined,"
Hardy said.
Online education
advocates say professors can reach students better online than in lecture
classes because of the frequent use of e-mail and online discussion groups.
Those who oppose the idea say they worry that undergraduates will miss out on
the debate, depth and interaction of traditional classroom instruction.
UNT, like most
colleges, is still trying to figure out the effect on its budget. The
professorial salary costs are the same, but an online course takes more money
to develop. The online students, however, free up classroom space and
eliminate the need for so many new buildings in growing universities. The
price to enroll is typically the same for students, whether they go to a
classroom or sit at their computer.
Mike Campbell, a
history professor at UNT for 36 years, does not want to teach an online class,
nor does he approve of offering undergraduate history via the Internet.
"People
shouldn't be sitting in the dorms doing this rather than walking over
here," he said. "That is based on a misunderstanding of what matters
in history."
In his class of 125,
he asks students rhetorical questions they answer en masse to be sure they're
paying attention, he said. He goes beyond the textbook, discussing such topics
as the moral and legal issues surrounding slavery.
He said he compares
the online classes to the correspondence courses he hated but had to teach
when he came to UNT in 1966. Both methods are too impersonal, he said,
recalling how he mailed assignments and tests to correspondence students.
UNT professors who
teach online say the courses are interactive, unlike correspondence courses.
Matt Pearcy has
lectured 125 students for three hours at a time.
"You'd try to be
entertaining," he said. "You have students who get bored after 45
minutes, no matter what you're doing. They're filling out notes, doing their
to-do list, reading their newspaper in front of you."
In his online U.S.
history class at UNT, students get two weeks to finish each lesson. They read
text, complete click-and-drag exercises, like one that matches terms with
historical figures, and take quizzes. They participate in online discussions
and group projects, using e-mail to communicate.
"Hands-down, I
believe this is a more effective way to teach," said Pearcy, who is based
in St. Paul, Minn. "In this setting, they go to the class when they're
ready to learn. They're interacting, so they're paying attention."
Pressly said she
liked the hands-on work in the online class. She could do crossword puzzles to
reinforce her history lessons. Or she could click an icon and see what Galileo
saw through his telescope in the 17th century.
"I took more
interest in this class than the other ones," she said.
The class, though,
required her to be more disciplined, she said, and that added stress. Two
weeks in a row, she waited till 11:57 p.m. Sunday - three minutes before the
deadline - to turn in her assignment.
Online courses aren't
for everybody.
"The thing about
sitting in my dorm, there's so much to distract me," said Trevor Shive, a
20-year-old freshman at UNT. "There's the Internet. There's TV. There's
radio."
He said students on
campus should take classes in the real, not virtual, world.
"They've got
legs; they can walk to class," he said.
Continued in the article at http://www.dallasnews.com/
Evaluation of ALN Experiments at
the New Jersey Institute of Technology
The New Jersey
Institute of Technology (NJIT) also received a Sloan Foundation ALN grant and to date
has conducted 26 courses as reported below by one of my students named Kattie Lawrence:
In 1998 NJIT was ranked nationally by Money
Magazine as the 6th top value for science and technology universities. The
school has 8,200 students enrolled with 76 different available degrees. Like UIUC,
NJITs ALN program is being funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The University
was given a grant to fund cyber classes, and the grant was extended in 1997 for an
additional three years. NJITs first experiments with ALN began in 1986, and during
its subsequent years of research NJIT has developed and trademarked its Virtual
ClassroomTM program, a specially tailored form of educational computer conferencing. This
program was used in combination with video in the creation of ALN courses. To date, there
have been 26 courses developed which make use of Virtual ClassroomTM and video (whether
that be pre-recorded lectures delivered to students on videotape, or via broadcast on a
cable channel or satellite, or videos using standard television courses.) Both on campus
students as well as distance students are able to take advantage of the Virtual
ClassroomTM (VC) system, and enrollment has consisted of a mixture of student types. For
distance learning, VC + video is used, while for on campus student VC is combined with
face to face classes. VC is a tool that may be used to add an asynchronous element to
classes, thus integrating this fairly new technological addition into courses.
Virtual ClassroomTM has proven very successful at NJIT, as
most ALN programs have across the world. The main focus of the ALN courses at NJIT is for
the major courses needed for bachelors degrees in Information Systems and Computer
Science. The most recent ALN option available at NJIT is the addition of the on-line B.S.
in Information Systems.
NJIT's reviews of distance learning and ALN are given
at http://www.njit.edu/DL/s6glance.html
Course materials and links to actual courses can be found at http://eies.njit.edu/~hiltz/ for Professor Hiltz
and http://eies.njit.edu/~turoff/ for
Professor Turoff. Research papers available on line are linked at http://eies.njit.edu/~turoff/#a5 . A
paper of particular interest is entitled "Alternative Futures for Distance Learning:
The Force and the Darkside" at http://eies.njit.edu/~turoff/Papers/darkaln.html
The most extensive reporting of the results of the NJIT experiments is
given by Roxanne Hiltz at http://eies.njit.edu/~hiltz/workingpapers/philly/philly.htm
where it is reported that (emphasis added):
New Jersey Institute of Technology has been
delivering college courses via an Asynchronous
Learning Network (ALN) system called the Virtual Classroom[TM] for a decade, using various
media mixes. Currently, two complete undergraduate degree programs are available via a mix
of
video plus Virtual Classroom, the B.A. in Information Systems and the B.S. in Computer
Science.
This paper presents preliminary findings about impacts on students, and touches on some
issues and potential impacts on faculty, individual universities, and the structure of
higher education. Overall ratings of courses by
students who complete ALN based courses are equal or superior to those for traditional
courses. Dropout or Incomplete outcomes are
somewhat more prevalent, while grade distributions
for those who complete tend to be similar to those
for traditional courses. For both students and faculty, more startup time devoted to
solving the "logistics" of ALN delivery seems to be required at the beginning of
courses. ALN delivery is not just a
"different" way of doing the same thing, however; it is likely to change the
nature and structure of higher education.
NJIT offers complete degree programs via
ACCESS/NJIT. These programs, however, rely heavily upon
"Tele-Lecture" components distributed on videotapes that students study at their
own time and place and replay as often as needed. There is also a The Computerized
Conferencing and Communications Center (CCCC) for conferencing at http://eies.njit.edu:5230/pub/cccc.html
Update Notes
I read the following for a scheduled program of the 29th Annual Accounting
Education Conference, October 17-18, 2003 Sponsored by the Texas CPA
Society, San Antonio Airport Hilton.
WEB-BASED AND
FACE-TO-FACE INSTRUCTION:
A COMPARISON OF LEARNING OUTCOMES IN A FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING
COURSE
Explore the results
of a study conducted over a four-semester period that focused on the same
graduate level financial accounting course that was taught using web-based
instruction and face-to-face instruction. Discuss the comparison of
student demographics and characteristics, course satisfaction, and comparative
statistics related to learning outcomes.
Doug Rusth/associate
professor/University of Houston at Clear Lake/Clear Lake
Bob Jensen's threads on comparisons and assessment are at http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on asynchronous learning are at http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm
Evaluation of Audit Education in NYU's Virtual College
The
Institute of Internal Auditors teamed up with New York
University's Virtual College. One of the key problems of traditional classes
that is overcome with virtual classes is discussed by the Director of Information
Technologies (Richard Vigilante) as follows:
Systems Auditing is characterized by two broad
categories of knowledge: Declarative and procedural. Declarative knowledge represents the concepts
of the field and is readily learned through traditional classroom lectures and
discussions. Procedural knowledge represents the process inherent in the field and
is best acquired through hands-on activities in collaborative teams of students simulating
real analyses and audits.
Faculty in our on-campus courses tried to get students to meet
after class and to team up on group projectsall
to little avail. Faculty consistently recounted the
students frustrating attempts to meet, only to have them spend more time agreeing on
a meeting time than actually meeting. The result was that too often professors are forced
to reduce key procedural concepts to declarative how-to lists.
NYUs Virtual College was designed to address access
problems facing its part-time auditing students and provide them with the same level of
dynamic, hands-on instruction that characterizes the best on-campus course, laboratory,
and faculty access available to full-time students. With 1.3 million in grant support from
The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, NYU has developed and delivered online multimedia
instruction in systems auditing to students PCs.
In the new multimedia telecourses, digital videos contain faculty
demonstrations, computer animation, and case study simulations to increase student mastery
and retention of concepts, methodologies, and tools. The teleprograms digital ISDN
phone lines provide a 128 Kbps connection to the Virtual College servers, projecting the
on-campus computer laboratory "look and feel" of sophisticated software
applications directly to the students and facultys PCs.
Richard
Vigilante, Director of Information Technologies, NYU Virtual
College
"Audit Education on The Information Superhighway"
IIA Educator, The Instute of Internal Auditors
May 1998, 3-5
Conclusion
Does technology have no discernable impact on learning?
I've never been a disciple of technology. For me cell
phones are multifunctional, multicolor devices that empower millions of us with
little worth saying to interrupt other millions of us who ought to have
something better to do. I don't want my car to talk to me, I don't want General
Motors to know my latitude and longitude, and I don't need a pocket-size liquid
crystal New York Times or instant access to thirty-second videos of
skateboarding dogs , , , Many American students aren't doing all that well
academically, and almost as many experts are peddling cures. Many prescribe
computers as the miracle that will rescue our kids from scholastic mediocrity.
That's why states like Michigan and Pennsylvania distributed laptops to
thousands of students. Maine led the parade by handing out laptops to every
seventh and eighth grader. Sponsors of the giveaways promised "higher student
performance." Unfortunately, the results have been disappointing. When the test
results of Maine students showed no improvement, boosters explained that it
would "take more time for the impact of laptops to show up." Inconveniently,
Maine's lackluster outcome only confirmed a rigorous international study of
student computer use in thirty-one countries, which found that students who use
computers at school "perform sizably and statistically worse" than students who
don't. Analysts warned that when computer use replaces "traditional learning
methods," it "actually harms the student." A review of California schools
determined that Internet access had "no measurable impact on student
achievement." A 2007 federal study concluded that classroom use of reading and
math software likewise yielded "no significant differences" in student
performance.
Peter Berger, "Stuck on the Cutting Edge," The Irascible Professor,
December 19, 2007 ---
http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-12-19-07.htm
Jensen Comment
Anecdotally technology can favorably impact learning. In my own case, it's had
an enormous positive impact on my scholarship, my research, and my publishing.
Number 1 are the communications and knowledge sharing (especially from listservs
and blogs) ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/ListServRoles.htm
Number 2 is the access to enormous databases and knowledge portals ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Searchh.htm
Number 3 is the tremendous increase in access provided by the campus
libraries for scholars who take the time and effort to determine what is really
there.
Number 4 is open courseware. The open courseware (especially shared lecture
materials and videos) from some of the best professors in our leading
universities such as 1,500 courses served up by MIT and 177 science courses
served up on YouTube by UC Berkeley are truly amazing. Critics of technology
have probably never utilized these materials ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
I think Peter Berger overlooks some of the positive outcomes of technology on
learning ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Assess.htm#WhatWorks
More importantly look at the SCALE experiments at the University of Illinois ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm#Illinois
Although I always like Peter Berger's essays, this time he also overlooks
much of the dark side of technology are learning ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm
Technology and learning have much more complicated interactions that are
superficially glossed over in this particular essay ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm
Students Evaluating the Lecture Pedagogy
"Lecture Fail?" by Jeffrey Young, Chronicle of Higher Education, January
24, 2012 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Lecture-Fail-/130085/?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
PowerPoint is boring. Student attention spans are
short. Today many facts pop up with a simple Google search. And plenty of
free lectures by the world's greatest professors can be found on YouTube.
Is it time for more widespread reform of college
teaching?
This series explores the state of the college
lecture, and how technologies point to new models of undergraduate
education.
Last month, we began inviting students across the
countries to fire up their Web cameras or camera-phones to send us video
commentaries about whether lectures work for them. Below are highlights from
the first batch of submissions, which are full of frustration with
“PowerPoint abuse” – professors’ poor use of slide software that dumps too
much information on students in a less-than-compelling fashion.
Continued in article
Bob Jensen's threads on Tools and Tricks of the Trade ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm
Most "vendor" universities feel that networked courses
should not be ported to curricula of other universities unless it becomes feasible to
effectively and efficiently deal with the messaging and chat line monitoring given student
tendencies toward high volumes of messaging in such courses. Hence, "customer"
universities may discover that cost savings are not as great as expected if, and when,
their programs seek to fill curricula gaps with the gold bridges of prestigious
universities and businesses that offer networked courses.
Virtually all analysts recognize the growth prospects of ALN courses
networked under the categories of "life long learning," "adult
education," "continuing education," or "continuous learning."
Growth opportunities become more and more practical as digital television, wireless
communication networks, and other technologies become common place around the world. Internet 2
will link campuses with enormous transmission capacities. Whereas on-campus
traditional education has relatively flat growth prospects, the industry of network
learning has immense and profitable growth opportunities. Furthermore, the need for
"customer" universities to fill curricula gaps will fuel the fires of
distributed education.
But high quality network (distributed education) courses will be
labor intensive in terms of dealing with student messaging and evaluation of student work.
Faculty or equivalent experts must be online to evaluate student written and oral
communications. Studies have shown that messaging explodes exponentially if asynchronous
network courses are to maximize learning effectiveness. Whether or not the
"labor" (faculty, graduate students, or hired guns) will be provided by the
"vendor" (say MIT) or the "customer" (say Trinity University) is a
matter of conjecture. Most likely, the cost of an imported ALN course will be less than
cranking up a traditional or ALN course on campus. However, the cost of
"faculty" will not be significantly reduced if the networked course is intended
to maximize its potential with greatly increased communications beyond those found in a
traditional course on campus.
Hypermedia materials development costs are also very high. Vendors
will probably seek high prices to help recover such costs. If respected universities
contract with ALN vendors to bridge curriculum gaps, the online courses must be much more
than text-based documents. The courses must use the latest networking technologies
combined with CD databases to overcome bandwidth limitations of the Internet. Before long,
DVD discs will replace the CDs and contain hours of full-screen, full-motion video to
accompany server-controlled ALN courses.
The concluding point is that by Year 2000 there will be a vast array
of credit and non-credit ALN courses of very high quality. Many of these will be available
from top universities and corporations around the world.
Traditional universities that cling to only limited, and possibly
outmoded, courses will find themselves lost in a trail of Internet star dust.
Strategies should be formed to bridge curriculum gaps with ALN contracts.
This article stresses that ALN is not a cheap alternative in terms of faculty. Early
experiments show that students will make more demands on faculty time using ALN that they
did in traditional classroom pedagogy. However, students will learn more and communicate
better if ALN is used properly with highest quality hypermedia materials and online
communication links to faculty.
Fostering Deeper Learning: Risks of Teaching More Than You Know
(Copy of Selected Email Messages)
As students commenced on their projects in ACCT
5341 in Spring of 1998, I received the following email message:
Dr J,
I am having problems with this project, as I am sure most of the
class is, because I have done a lot of research (and could write a good research paper)
but I have NO IDEA how to be creative in the measurement of risk. I keep thinking
something will come to me, but so far it hasnt. I wish I could email you my topic
today like we are supposed to, but I dont have one. I am worried because there is
only a little over a month left, and I do not have a clue how to attack this paper. I have
thought about writing a case involving the measurement of foreign currency risk, but right
now I dont think I have enough understanding of it to determine if I could write a
good case on it. Please understand that although this email is not quite what you wanted
(ie I dont have a topic) I am trying to understand this project and produce
something creative
After the course ended, I received the following is a comment by one of my graduate
students on a course evaluation form where the student gave me the lowest possible rating:
Dr. Jensen is an effective facilitator but
the topics were
quite difficult conceptually, and I was taught more by other students and on my own.
Another gave me the lowest possible rating with the following comment:
Despite how much I disliked the course, I learned more than I
expected. Definitely a necessary course!
A student (who gave me a high rating) may in subtle way be admitting that it is
difficult for students to take responsibility for their own learning in ambiguous
environments:
Yes, we could have used more explanations at times. First few
weeks of class we all wondered what we were talking about.
This graduate class grumbled all the time about the ambiguities and work loads of ACCT 5342 in the Fall and ACCT 5341 in the Spring.
Students had high anxieties about doing research. But the projects that constituted
over 50% of the grade in both courses are among the best projects that I have ever
encountered in 33 years of teaching (mostly graduate students) in four universities.
Students cursed under their breath during their many hours of discovery learning, but
their work will be an inspiration to accounting theory educators and students for years to
come. Fall Semester projects are relational databases that cannot be made available at
this point in time. However, financial instruments derivatives projects from Spring
Semester can be viewed and/or downloaded by clicking
here.
My students proposed innovative solutions to problems that international accounting
standard setters have not been able to resolve for years. This was a great class in terms
of ultimate performance of nearly all of the students.
One problem about making students take responsibility for their own learning is that it
seems so foreign to them and requires a lot of more sweat! But if the ultimate
rewards are immense, what is wrong with ambiguity and discovery learning? Huge problems
center upon risks to the instructor. If I wasn't 60 years old and fully tenured, I would
probably be forced to go back to spoon feeding and wiping up memorized regurgitation of
answer book solutions to CPA Examination problems. This would certainly be an easier out
for me and make me better loved by students facing tough CPA Examinations after
graduation. It would also make it easier to meter their grades every week during the
semester, which is something they seem to be very keen on.
What is good about students taking responsibility for their own learning? Probably the
best thing that can be said for it is that it prepares students for the ambiguities of
life after graduation day. One thing that really does please me is that one student in
particular had troubles with regurgitation examinations during her entire five years at
Trinity University (including some tough examinations that she scored low on in other
courses this year). In my courses she soared like an eagle, because she loved research
(probably to a fault from the standpoint of her time) and did outstanding work for me. At
the other extreme, one of the top g.p.a. regurgitators in the class can memorize anything
and received the highest average in some of her other courses. She submitted the worst
project in my course and received the lowest grade that I gave all year.
Which of these two students is best prepared for life?
As for me --- I taught them more than I
know! Makes me the meanest sob in the valley.
Bob
Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob) http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-736-7347 Fax: 210-736-8134 Email: rjensen@trinity.edu
Learning Styles Sites
January 1, 2009 message from Pat Wyman
[raisingsmarterchildren@gmail.com]
Hello Bob,
Happy New Year! Your name came up through a google
alert, attached to my website and the complimentary learning styles
inventory at
http://www.howtolearn.com
It is on your page, from the community at
http://www.elearninglearning.com/learning-styles/microsoft/&query=www.howtolearn.com
I want to thank you for this is and if there is any way I can contribute
to your blog and yours to mine, articles, interviews, etc. I'd love to
connect with you.
You're doing wonderful work!
Warmly,
Pat Wyman, M.A.
-- Pat Wyman Best selling author, Learning vs.
Testing Co-Author,
Book Of The Year In the Medicine Category, The Official Autism 101 Manual
University Instructor of Continuing Education, California State University,
East Bay Founder,
http://www.HowToLearn.com and
http://wwwRaisingSmarterChildren.com
Winner, James Patterson PageTurner Award Get your copy of Learning vs.
Testing with complimentary materials at http://www.learningvstesting4.html
Get Tips For Raising A Smarter Child at
http://www.RaisingSmarterChildren.com
"There are two ways you can live your life - one as
if nothing is a miracle, and the other as if everything is a miracle."
Albert Einstein
Bob Jensen's threads on assessment and learning ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on metacognitive learning ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/265wp.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on asynchronous learning ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on education technology ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm
===========================================================================================
-----Original Message-----
From: rblyston@trinity.edu [SMTP:rblyston@trinity.edu]
Sent: Friday, May 15, 1998 12:33 PM
To: Tiger Talk
Subject: Fwd: Re: What's in a name
To the Trinity community:
Recently I posed a question to another list as to the difference between
the use of the terms instructor and teacher. The response below was
thought provoking. I wonder if anyone at Trinity would care to comment
on Dr. Machin's "comments."
Blystone in Texas
*********************************
Subject: Re: What's in a name
Sent: 5/15/98 10:20 PM
Received: 5/15/98 6:18 PM
From: Nancy Machin, nancym@centaur.cc.purduenc.edu
Reply-To: Biolab, biolab@hubcap.clemson.edu
To: Multiple recipients of list, biolab@hubcap.clemson.edu
Blystone's "interesting use of semantics" is one of my pet topics. I am
liable to go on a major rant when I hear a student complain that "he's not a good
teacher." That's not his job. He's a professor, not a teacher. His job is to gain as
much knowledge as possible in his field and profess that knowledge to the students. He is
not trained to teach (how many hours do education students spend learning teaching
techniques compared with the in-at-the-deep-end TA experience of most university faculty).
Any teaching he might do, in the sense of helping the students learn, is above and
beyond the call of duty (although we all know that if he doesn't "teach" there
will be reprimands from the administration and no promotions or raises to say nothing of
the fact that the vast majority really want to help their students learn as evidenced by
so many of the postings on this list).
A professor is a source of information. It is up to the student to learn as much as
possible from that source. Based on Blystones's "interesting use of semantics"
the main difference between
high school and college is who has the major responsibility for effecting the transfer
of knowledge: the teacher or the student.
*******************************
Nancy Machin
Biology Lab Tech
Purdue University North Central
nancym@mail.purduenc.edu
*******************************
Dr. Hertels reply is reproduced below:
Bob Jensens intuitions about transfer of training into the real world are
supported by findings in cognitive psychology. What he calls "discovery
learning" (assuming that it is followed up by "corrections" or
"feedback") transfers much better than does memory-oriented training (Needham
and Begg, 1991, in a journal entitled Memory & Cognition). We also have evidence that
the learner tends to perceive the opposite direction of the difference between the two.
Anybody interested can check out a chapter by Robert Bjork in a 1992 (?)
volume by Metcalf and Shimamura call Metacognition.
Paula Hertel phertel@trinity.edu
Department of Psychology voice: 210 736 8380
715 Stadium Drive fax: 210 736 8386
San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
*********************************************************
Note from Bob Jensen:
The Robert Bjork book (actually Bjork and Bjork) referred
to above is described at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0121025705/002-6705839-4009411
(esp. Chapters 14 and 15)
The Metcalf and Shimamura book is described at
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262132982/002-6705839-4009411
Also see
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262531488/002-6705839-4009411
(esp. Part III)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0897749901/002-6705839-4009411
(Cooperative Learning)
http://www.ecom.unimelb.edu.au/ecowww/fost.html
(Fostering Deeper Learning) In this document, Carol Johnston in the Economics
Department at the University of Melbourne states the following:
All teachers bring to the classroom or lecture theatre an inbuilt
informal theory of teaching. This theory, which may be either consciously stated or
implicit in what the teachers do, has implications for the way in which students learn.
Fox (1983) asked newly appointed polytechnic teachers what they meant by 'teaching'. As a
result he identified four basic theories underlying the approaches to teaching of
polytechnic staff. First, the transfer theory, in which the subject matter is viewed as a
commodity that can be transferred into an empty vessel waiting to receive it,
ie. the
student's mind. If certain students do not learn, despite the fact that the commodity has
been transferred, it is because the vessel in this case is a leaky one. This amounts to the view that it is the student's fault if they do not
learn. Where teaching materials are well prepared,
effectively organised, and imparted, teachers are considered to have done all they can.
A second theory relates to the 'shaping' of the students mind into some predetermined
form. This view sits easily with the notion of teaching as training rather than educating.
Teachers, with this informal theory, use verbs such as 'develop' and 'produce' to describe
the student learning outcomes of their teaching. Fox classifies these two theories of
teaching as 'simple' theories which are more likely to be held by the less experienced or
non-reflective teacher. Here there is a simple relationship between teaching and learning.
If a topic has been taught it must therefore have been learnt. An essential feature of
these two theories is that it is the teacher who is in control of the commodity to be
transferred and who determines the shape of the finished product.
The third type of theory, a 'developed' theory is one which takes the view that the
student and teacher are undertaking a journey of discovery together. This is the notion of
the 'shared adventure' that Baird (1992) develops in his exploration of science teaching
in Victorian secondary schools. The teacher's role according to this 'travelling' theory
is to act as a knowledgeable and experienced guide and fellow explorer in the journey of
education. Here a range of perspectives are explored, there is no 'right' body of
knowledge to be learnt and the expectation is that the teacher will learn along with the
students. Svensson and Hogfors (1988) extended this view in their work with engineering
students where they concluded that encouraging students to consider a variety of
alternative conceptions is an important element in bringing about lasting conceptual
change in the learner.
The growing theory, the final type identified by Fox, is
also a developed theory in the sense that students make a significant contribution to
their own learning in terms of its pace, direction, objectives and process. The growing
theory takes into account the past experiences, learning and knowledge of the student. It
is flexible in its outcomes both in terms of the overall direction and the extent or level
of that outcome. In travelling and growing developed theories the teacher's role has
changed from being an infallible expert responsible for a final product to being a guide
who is more responsive to the context in which the learning is occurring.
___________________
Acknowledgment: I am grateful to Frederick L. Neuman from the faculty at the University of
Illinois for informing me about their Sloan Foundation ALN grant and the intensity of
student messaging in the asynchronous learning experiments being conducted at the
University of Illinois. Added information can be obtained by entering the acronym ALN in
the search box at http://www.cba.uiuc.edu/index.html.
Click
Here to View Working Paper 265 on Metacognition and Fostering Deeper Lerning
Concerns in Designs and Evaluations of
Computer Aided Education and Training:
Are We Misleading Ourselves About Measures of Success?
Appendix 1
Links to Some Key Web Sites
December 19, 2008 message from Carolyn Kotlas
[kotlas@email.unc.edu]
2008 SURVEY OF ONLINE EDUCATION IN THE U.S.
"Staying the Course: Online Education in the United
States, 2008" by I. Elaine Allen and Jeff Seaman, is the sixth in a series
of annual reports on a study conducted by the Babson Survey Research Group
for the Sloan Consortium. Using responses from over 2,500 colleges and
universities, the study sought answers to several questions on online
education:
-- How many students are learning online?
-- What is the impact of the economy on online
enrollments?
-- Is online learning strategic?
-- What disciplines are best represented online?
The complete report is available at
http://sloanconsortium.org/publications/survey/pdf/staying_the_course.pdf
The Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C) is a consortium of
institutions and organizations committed "to help learning organizations
continually improve quality, scale, and breadth of their online programs
according to their own distinctive missions, so that education will become a
part of everyday life, accessible and affordable for anyone, anywhere, at
any time, in a wide variety of disciplines." Sloan-C is funded by the Alfred
P. Sloan Foundation. For more information, go to http://www.sloan-c.org/
The Babson Survey Research Group at Babson College
(Wellesley, MA, USA) "conducts regional, national, and international
research projects, including survey design, sampling methodology, data
integrity, statistical analyses and reporting." For more information, go to
http://www3.babson.edu/eship/aboutblank/
......................................................................
STUDY OF ASYNCHRONOUS AND SYNCHRONOUS E-LEARNING
METHODS
"The debate about the benefits and limitations of
asynchronous and synchronous e-learning seems to have left the initial
stage, in which researchers tried to determine the medium that works
'better' -- such studies generally yielded no significant differences.
Consequently, instead of trying to determine the best medium, the e-learning
community needs an understanding of when, why, and how to use different
types of e-learning."
In "Asynchronous and Synchronous E-Learning" (EDUCAUSE
QUARTERLY, vol. 31, no. 4, October–December 2008), Stefan Hrastinski writes
on the "benefits and limitations of asynchronous and synchronous
e-learning." He provides useful tables comparing the two to help instructors
understand when, why, and how to use these delivery modes.
The paper is available at
http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/EQM0848.pdf (PDF format)
and
http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Quarterly/AsynchronousandSynchronou/47683
(HTML format).
EDUCAUSE Quarterly, The IT Practitioner's Journal
[ISSN 1528-5324] is published by EDUCAUSE, which has offices in Boulder, CO,
and Washington, DC. Current and past issues are available online at http://www.educause.edu/eq/
See also:
"Exploding the Myths of Synchronous E-Learning" By
Clive Shepherd INSIDE LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES, November 2008
http://www.learningtechnologies.co.uk/magazine/article_full.cfm?articleid=291&issueid=29
"Live events have immediacy, they facilitate
networking, they act as targets by which activities must be completed, and
they're simpler to design and support."
Bob Jensen's threads on asynchronous learning are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm
......................................................................
"ACADEMIA.EDU" NETWORKING SITE
Earlier this fall, a team of people from Oxford,
Stanford, and Cambridge Universities launched the website, Academia.edu,
which does two things:
-- It shows academics around the world structured
in a "tree" format, displayed according to their departmental and
institutional affiliations.
-- It enables academics to see news in their area
of research.
The site's founders are hoping that Academia.edu
will eventually list every academic in the world, including faculty members,
post-docs, graduate students, and independent researchers. People can add
their departments and themselves to the tree. Individual entries can list
the academic's research interests, papers and books, websites, talks,
courses taught, and CVs.
To view the site and to add your entry and/or
department, go to
http://www.academia.edu/
Bob Jensen's threads on education technology are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm
Bob Jensen's Guides to Online Programs --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/245progs.htm
Elite Universities and Professors Partner With Online
Corporations
Elite universities and professional schools are scrambling to "leverage
their brands" and make extra money through online education --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/245prest.htm
Rick Hall's Listserv, Archives, and Conferences
A listserv that deals with these distance education courses, development issues,
and assessment issues is maintained by Rick Hall at WWWDEV@hermes.csd.unb.ca. . The archives are at
http://leahi.kcc.hawaii.edu/org/wwwdev/logs/.
The list is run by Rik Hall at the University of New Brunswick in Canada. Rik also runs
the NAWEB conference --- see http://www.unb.ca/web/wwwdev/naweb98/
Top Education Technology Links
The Web of
Asynchronous Learning Networks.
EdWeb
Sloan-C Catalog of On-Line Educational Programs The Sloan ALN Consortium
Catalog is a compilation of on-line degree and certification programs offered
by universities, colleges, and community colleges who are members of the Sloan
Consortium. http://www.sloan-c.org/catalog
Asynchronous Learning Networks publications:
ADEC --- http://www.adec.edu
/
ADEC is:
an international consortium of state universities and land grant
institutions providing high quality and economic distance education programs
and services via the latest and most appropriate information technologies.
Primary emphasis is on programs relating to:
- Food and
Agriculture
- Children, Youth
and Families
- Community/Economic
Development
- Distance
Education & Technology
- Environment and
Natural Resources
- Nutrition and
Health
- Others
Asynchronous Learning Networks home page --- http://www.aln.org/index.htm
Bob Jensen's Bookmark Links (http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob.htm#Top1)
Links to Online Courses and
Programs
Online Paradigm
Shift in Education
Bob Jensen at Trinity University
Hundreds of links to
international online training and education programs ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/crossborder.htm
Below is an older listing
(some links are now broken)
Prestige Universities
Prestige Universities and
Corporate Partnerships
Corporations Serving Up
Credit and Certificate Courses
Online Universities
Graduate Programs
- General Electric, Motorola, AT&T and
1,600 other onsite and online corporate-managed programs
- University Access --- http://www.universityaccess.com/
- All
India Institute Of Management Studies - offers management diploma
courses through correspondence.
- Athabasca
University - MBA program offering lessons in disk format and electronic
learning systems on-line.
- Athabasca
University Centre for Innovative Management - MBA program offering
lessons in disk format and electronic learning systems on-line.
- Auburn
University Graduate Outreach Program - offers video-based graduate
degree programs in engineering and business.
- Colorado
State University College of Business
- Frederick
Taylor University - offers distance learning undergraduate and graduate
degree programs in management and business administration.
- Heriot-Watt
University - self-paced, independent study, MBA program. No GMAT or
Bachelor's degree required.
- Indiana
Wesleyan University - a 46 credit degree with only two 3-day on-site
sessions.
- Keller
Graduate School of Management Online Educational Center
- Open
University Business School, The - provider of distance management
education.
- Rushmore
University
- Sheffield
Hallam University - Master of Business Administration in finance;
information technology, human resource, or general management; marketing;
and management consultancy.
- University
of Asia - offers bachelor, masters, and doctoral degrees in
international business via distance learning.
- University
of Colorado at Colorado Springs
- University of
Northern Washington
- University
of Texas at Dallas - MIMS - Masters of International Management Studies.
Offering distance learning and internat'l business.
- University
of Wisconsin - Whitewater - offers an online MBA program.
- Western
Carolina University - offers an online masters degree program in project
management.
- Others ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm
Advantages of
Asynchronous Learning Modules and Courses
Ways to
Avoid the Disadvantages of Asynchronous Learning Modules and Courses
Appendix 2
Messages About ALN Courses
An Online Course in Accounting
Theory
http://www.people.memphis.edu/~dspice/7120/acct7120.html
University of Wisconsin
From the University of Wisconsin
Distance Education Clearinghouse ---
http://www.uwex.edu/disted/home.html
The Distance Education Clearinghouse is a
comprehensive and widely recognized Web site bringing together distance
education information from Wisconsin, national, and international sources.
New information and resources are being added to the Distance Education
Clearinghouse on a continual basis.
The Clearinghouse is managed and maintained by the
University of Wisconsin-Extension, in cooperation with its partners and
other University of Wisconsin institutions.
Jensen Comment
This site has glossaries and many links to other distance education sites.
Bob Jensen's links to distance education sites are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm
An Online Course From the Harvard
Law School
Some leading universities are commencing to experiment with online
courses available to the general public. The following email message discusses an
experimental online course from the Harvard Law School:
The Berkman Center for Internet &
Society at Harvard Law School is offering a new experimental online course open to the
public. Professor William W. Fisher will moderate the cybercourse on "Intellectual
Property in Cyberspace."
Fisher, an expert in copyright, patent,
and trademark law, says the course will "address the controversial and volatile
question of who should own what on the Internet." Among the topics the course will
consider are: How should Internet domain names be assigned? Should creators of material
posted on the Net be able to object when their creations are mangled or misrepresented?
How should the law deal with situations in which multiple authors contribute to the
creation of material on the Net? Should Internet service providers be liable for copyright
infringement when they unwittingly carry copyrighted materials without the permission of
their owners?
Fisher and a team of Harvard Law School
Teaching Fellows have developed six week-long modules designed to expose students to the
latest court decisions, legislation and scholarship on intellectual property issues raised
by the emergence of the Internet. Students will present and refine their own views on
these issues by participating online in a variety of virtual seminars and threaded
conferences. The course is the second in a series of online courses to be offered by the
Berkman Center, and has been made possible by a donation from the Boston law firm of Hale
and Dorr LLP.
"The course is part of our ongoing
effort to learn more about how the Internet can best facilitate distance learning and
community-building, and how Internet teaching techniques can substantively augment more
traditional pedagogy," says Professor Charles Nesson, Director of the Berkman Center.
Jonathan Zittrain, Executive Director of the Center, adds, "As pragmatists, we want
to find out which software and hardware tools are likely to make teaching easier and more
powerful, not more time-consuming and frustrating."
The course is free and open to the public,
but the total number of registrants is limited. No credits or certificates will be
offered. The course is not part of the Harvard Law School academic curriculum, and phone
inquiries should not be directed to the Law School registrar's office; rather, more
information can be found on the Berkman Center web site, http://cyber.harvard.edu, or the course
web site at http://property.berkmancenter.org.
Registration begins on March 25 and the course will last until the middle of May.
The Berkman Center for Internet &
Society at Harvard Law School charts, and in some ways attempts to shape, the explosive
development of the globally networked environment (a.k.a. cyberspace). The Center's
philosophy is that in order to understand this new environment one must actually build out
into it, a form of self-active study.
Source: The Berkman Center for Internet
& Society at Harvard Law School Contact: Donna Wentworth, Berkman Center for Internet
& Society, 617-495-7547 --
Thanks to my student for making
me aware of this program. His name is Joshua Miller and he briefly discusses his
experience at taking the course. His web document is at http://www.resnet.trinity.edu/users/jmiller/frame/proj2.htm
While Josh was taking my BUSN 2311 Computers in Business Course,
he also enrolled in the above Harvard Law School Course.
Click here to read about his experience in this course
An ALN Online Course Sponsored by the American Chemical Society
Hi Ben,
Dr. Ben Plummer telephony: 210 736 7384 Trinity University FAX: 210 736
7569 Department of Chemistry email: bplummer@trinity.edu
San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
What is interesting about your message is that this online course is
"sponsored" by the American Chemical Society. That must lend the course a
considerable amount of prestige.
I am adding your message to my Working Paper 255. I doubt that it will be long until my
main academic society of interest, The American Accounting Association, will be sponsor
online courses. However, my AAA is not yet as far along as your ACS.
Thank you for this message about a new chemistry course online. This fits in with the
general theme of my Asynchronous Learning Network
trends document.
I have long contended that elite universities, along with many other universities, will
soon be providing ALN courses for other universities to fit into curricula. What I
envision is that local university faculty will handle the ALN messaging of
"local" students and monitor the examinations even though the course is given
online from an external host.
Thanks,
Bob
Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob> http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen Jesse H.
Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration Trinity.University, San Antonio,
TX 78212-7200 Voice: 210-736-7347 Fax: 210-736-8134
Original Message-----
From: Benjamin Plummer [SMTP:BPlummer@trinity.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, March 04, 1998 9:43 AM
To: rjensen Subject: On-Line Course: Pharmaceuticals, Their Discovery, Regulation and Bob,
Another interesting development from our professional society for on-line learning.
Ben
>From: "Dr. Jim Beard" (jbeard@catawba.edu) >Organization: Catawba College
>To: cur-l@mcs.anl.gov
>Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 08:39:21 EST5EDT
>Mime-Version: 1.0
>Subject: On-Line Course: Pharmaceuticals, Their Discovery, Regulation and
>Priority: normal >Sender: owner-cur-l@mcs.anl.gov
>Precedence: bulk
> · Pharmaceuticals, Their Discovery, Regulation and Manufacture · OLCC-3 >
· This is an invitation to register your school for the
On-Line Chemistry Course for Upper Division Chemistry Students (Prerequisite - one year of
organic chemistry) to be held during the Fall term of 1998. The on-line activities will be
scheduled for September 14 to November 25, 1998. The title of the course will be
"Pharmaceuticals, Their Discovery, Regulation and Manufacture."
The course is sponsored by the American Chemical Society,
Division of Chemical Education's Committee on Computers in Chemical Education (CCCE). In
this course, the Internet will be used for discussions among students (student Listserv
and WebBoard), faculty (faculty Listserv and WebBoard) and experts, all from around the
world.
Topics may include but not necessarily be limited to: >
· 1. Drug discovery including computer-aided design, combinatorial · chemistry and
other, earlier strategies > · 2. Development of clinically useable drugs including
optimization of · novel lead structures and assessment of pharmacodynamics, safety and ·
efficacy of promising drug candidates > · 3. "Case studies" of the
development and use of certain classes of · widely used drugs including analgesics,
antidepressants, · anti-inflammatory drugs, antibiotics, AIDS and anti-cancer compounds
> · 4. The FDA approval and FDA regulated testing process
Process and Content Related Goals of the Pharmaceuticals
Course > · 1. To provide an opportunity for students to investigate · frequently used
processes for discovery and manufacture of · pharmaceuticals used as drugs for man and
other animals > · 2. To provide the opportunity for students to gain an understanding
of · the general procedures for drug testing, its limitations, analysis, · use and
regulation > · 3. To provide an electronic forum which permits students to · interact
with professionals who are involved with · the processes in #1 and #2 > · 4. To
provide an environment in which students will interact · locally and at a distance to do
brain-storming, data-gathering, data · analysis and problem-solving > · 5. To provide
a forum for discovery of and discussion of industry's · interaction with its regulatory,
client and physical environment · (including such items as government inspections, user
complaints and · hazardous waste handling
Responsibilities of Participants: > · Students will
participate in collaborative learning assignments where · they can practice division of
labor, teamwork, and individual · responsibility. The Listservs and WebBoards will be
used for the · discussion of concepts and processes. > · Instructors at local sites
will guide "traditional" literature searches · as well as on-line
data-gathering. On-line, students will be guided by · faculty and each other in their
exploration of the content of this · course. On-line questions from faculty will
sometimes require critical · thinking about industrial procedures in terms of a personal
values · framework > · It is the responsibility of each participating institution to
register · students and to provide college credit for the course.
The role of the · OLCC organizing committee and the CCCE
is limited to assistance in · organizing and administering electronic aspects of the
course. The · American Chemical Society will neither provide credit nor assess any ·
fees. It is suggested that students receive three semester hours of · credit for the
course. It is the responsibility of each local faculty · member to assign grades to their
students. It is anticipated that a · national electronic evaluation will be administered.
However, local · faculty are encouraged to provide an evaluative process also. >
>For further information about previous on-line courses like this, see >the Web
Pages for OLCC-1 at http://www.py.iup.edu/college/chemistry/chem-course/webpage.html
and additional information and evaluations of OLCC-1 at http://www.clarkson.edu/~rosen2/olcc.html.
Further information can >also be obtained by contacting
the course coordinator: > · Dr. Lindy Harrison · Department of Chemistry · York
College of Pennsylvania · York, PA 17405-7199 · 717-846-7788 X1210 · aharriso@eagle.ycp.edu
Those interested in participating in this OLCC-3 course
during the >Fall of 1998 should complete the pre-registration form and send >it to
the OLCC-3 registration coordinator, Dr. James Beard, e-mail: >jbeard@catawba.edu. >
>*********************************************************** · Pharmaceuticals, Their
Discovery, Regulation and Manufacture > · Fall 1998
> · On-Line Course Registration Form > >RESPONDENTS ARE ASKED TO EXPAND SPACES
AS NECESSARY TO ANSWER >QUESTIONS. > >Institution: > >Mailing Address: >
>City: > >State: > >Primary Course Instructor: > >Email Address: >
>Business Phone: > >FAX Number: > >Home Phone (Optional>:>
>Field(s> of Interest: > >Other Instructor(s> Involved (if any>: >
>Email Address(es>: > >Business Phone Number(s>: > >Field(s> of
Interest:
> >Estimated Number of Students: > >Fall 1998 Calendar: > · Semesters or
Quarters: > · Beginning Date: > · Fall Break (other than Thanksgiving, if any>:
> · Last Regular Class Day Before Exams: > >Indicate the type and approximate
size of your institution. > >Large University ___ Mid-Size Univeristy ___ >
>Small University or College ___ Other ___ (Explain> > >Public Institution ___
Private Institution ___ > >Less than 1000 undergraduate students ___ > >1000
to 5000 undergraduate students ___ > >5000 to 10000 undergraduate students ___ >
>Over 10000 undergraduate students ___ > >All students will be expected to have
access to E-mail and the >World Wide Web. > >What type of E-mail system do you
have? > >What web browser do you use? > >Return this form to (jbeard@catawba.edu>.
Online Biology: Email
Message From Brad Stith
From: Brad Stith <bstith@carbon.cudenver.edu
Subject: online courses
Sender: owner-cur-l@mcs.anl.gov
Our Biology department held a meeting to discuss our
participation in the "Online course" program (a program that, over the past few
years, has grown to involve over 1000 students per semester). I would like to summarize
the meeting and ask for input from CUR members
Main points:
1. three teachers (biology of cancer, cell biology,
genetics; see
http://www.cuonline.edu)
believe that Online teaching was as rigorous as their in-classroom lecture course
(although one teacher had only 3 min of audio per week, the teachers did not feel that
they had to use "sound bites" or "dumb down" the course to conform to
the online method of presentation). One teacher had both a lecture class and an online
class and found that the students in the online class performed as good or better on the
same exams.
2. although the initial start up cost is significant, an
online course offers the potential
for large profit for the university. At present, our
online course instructors are often not tenure-track and are paid very little per course
(and the university does not have to provide classroom, etc.). This may mean that students
will not even appear on campus (will they prefer online courses to lecture classes?), the
role of faculty and the structure of departments will be redefined (one of our future
instructors is located half-way across the country). In the opinion of one teaching
advisor (obtained after the meeting), the online courses "will not end" lectures
as we know them, but is merely another tool.
3. the updating of an online course requires a significant
amount of time yet there is
no money to support this maintenance (there is extra start
up money available). In a subsequent conversation with experienced online teachers, the
belief was that there was more "one on one" interaction between teacher and
student (usually by email) and that larger classes literally "max-out" the
teachers time. Biology is currently limiting online enrollment to about 22-24
students.
The present system requires that the online teacher scan
in all images on their own and forward these images and text files to the online
administrators. There were still many technical problems and concerns. Concerns: confusion
in operating procedures, and that one cannot tell who is still in the class.
4. The chat room was not successful in the experience of
the teachers. If more
than a few people were involved, the conversation became
difficult to follow and lead. Large courses of 50 to 300 students may not be able to
utilize this method of communicating with students. Posting of threaded discussions
(email) were found to be valuable.
5. As active learning (students working in lecture halls
in groups to answer
questions raised during lecture) is currently emphasized
yet online learning often means that the student is sitting alone going through written
material. In a subsequent discussion, one online teacher requires that students work in
teams.
6. The online method requires the teacher to place what is
essentially their own
"textbook" online. One advantage of online
teaching would be that if a student needed to review basic material for earlier required
courses, the teacher could put in a "click here for background info..." This
would require immense effort and the course would (like lecture courses) be developed or
improved over a period of years.
Dr. Brad Stith
Associate Professor
University of Colorado-Denver
Biology 171
PO Box 173364 (for FED EXP:1224 Fifth St.)
Denver, CO 80217
tele: 303-556-3371; fax: 303-556-4352
bstith@carbon.cudenver.edu NEW web site: http://www.cudenver.edu/~bstith
The Amazing Way Children Can Organize to Teach Each Other
"Jaw-dropping: a talk about "lightweight learning," by Sugata Mitra at
Google's London office, Schmoller, November 2009 ---
http://fm.schmoller.net/2009/10/jawdropping-a-talk-by-sugata-mitra-at-googles-london-office.html
Sugata is
Professor of Educational Technology at Newcastle University and he
will be one of the three keynote speakers at the
2010 ALT Conference
between 7 and 9 September 2010. [Disclosure - I
work for ALT part time.] Since the late 1990s Sugata Mitra he has been
running empirical experiments to see what happens when children are able
to use an Internet connected PC, usually in a public space, and always
on the basis of several sharing the PC, usually in groups involving a
wide age range. Most but not all of his experiments have been in areas
of poverty, with much of the research having taken place in impoverished
areas of India.
Here are some of Sugata's findings, some of
which are covered in
Remote Presence: Technologies for ‘Beaming’ Teachers Where They Cannot
Go, from the August 2009 issue of the Journal
of Emerging Technologies in Web Intelligence [680 kB PDF], as well as in
the 2007 TED talk at the foot of this piece. What follows is a lightly
and probably too quickly cleaned up version of the notes I took during
Sugata's talk.
- Groups of children can learn to use
computers and the Internet, without the support of adults.
- Over 300 children can become computer
literate in 3 months with 1 public access computer.
- The computer needs to be in a safe public
place that the children associate with safety, free time, and play.
- Children will self-organise their
learning. Mitra "does not know how this happens".
- Alongside becoming computer literate, the
children improve their maths and english, improve their social
values, get better at collaborating, improve their school
attendance, reduce their drop out rates.
- Depending on how the computer is set up,
and the software and content it has, Mitra has observed and tested
children doing various things including teaching themselves
functional English, algebra, biotechnology, and improving their
pronunciation of English.
These results are replicable, in many different
parts of the world where "hole in the wall" experiments have been
carried out; and such "learning stations" can be provided in countries
like India at an all in cost of around 0.03USD per child per day.
Some readers will be asking themselves "is
this relevant to education in countries like the UK?". Yes,
according to Sugata, describing a February 2008 experiment he conducted
in Gateshead, in the North East of England, where ten year old children
(who each had a laptop, but who seemed not to be benefiting) were put in
groups of four, with one laptop per group, and with ground rules
encouraging them to reach consensus and to listen out for progress on
neighbouring tables, and to claim it as their own. (Sugata quipped "that
is how scientific research works...") In 20 minutes (45 for the
slowest) the children had solved several questions from the GCSE
chemistry examination (normally taken by a minority learners of 16), by
collaborative learning using Google, Wikipedia, Ask Jeeves, Ask,
Answerbag, etc.
Tests of these children several months later
showed that their learning (but their understanding?) was retained. Why?
According to Sugata, having to learn collaboratively and to reach
consensus is the key to the success of this approach.
Onsite versus Online
Universities in the 21st Century
Is the University of Phoenix really better
positioned for the 21st Century than "many non-elite, especially private,
traditional academic institutions?"
"Remaking the Academy", by Jorge Klor de Alva, Educause Review,
March/April 2000, pp. 21-40.
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0023.pdf
As education moves toward the certification of
competence with a focus on demonstrated skills and knowledge— that is, on
“what you know” rather than on “what you have taken” in school—more
associations and organizations that can prove themselves worthy to the U.S.
Education Department will likely be able to gain accreditation. This increased
competition worldwide—from, for instance, corporate universities, training
companies, course content aggregators, and publisher media
conglomerates—will put a premium on the ability of institutions not only to
provide quality education but to do so on a continuous and highly distributed
basis and with convenient access for those seeking information, testing, and
certification. In short, as education becomes a continuous process of
certification—that is, a lifelong process of earning certificates attesting
to the accumulation of new skills and competencies—institutional success for
any higher education enterprise will depend more on successful marketing,
solid quality assurance and control systems, and effective use of the new
media than on production and communication of knowledge. This is a shift
that I believe University of Phoenix is well positioned to undertake, but I am
less confident that many non-elite, especially private, traditional academic
institutions will manage to survive successfully.
That glum conclusion leads me to a final observation:
societies everywhere expect from higher education institutions the provision
of an education that can permit them to flourish in the changing global
economic landscape. Those institutions that can continually change, keeping up
with the needs of the transforming economy they serve, will survive. Those
that cannot or will not change will become irrelevant, will condemn misled
masses to second class economic status or poverty, and will ultimately die,
probably at the hands of those they chose to delude by serving up an education
for a nonexistent world. Policy Issues for the New Millennium March 30–31,
2000 Washington, D.C., Renaissance Hotel Networking 2000 is the premier
conference on federal policy affecting networking and information technology
for higher education. The conference engages higher education and government
policy leaders in constructive dialogue on the latest policy issues posed by
information technology and network development. Detailed information and an
online registration form for Networking 2000 are available at Deadline for
early registration: www.educause.edu/netatedu/contents/events/mar2000/
I don't think Jeoge Klor de Alva and I agree on the
roles of what I called Type 2 (onsite) versus Type 1 (online) universities in
the 21st Century. I wrote the following in the April 4, 2000
edition of New Bookmarks at http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book00q2.htm#EducationIntangibles
Education
Intangibles:
Will accountants "rule the world" of the future of educational
institutions?
I was challenged by the recent
TigerTalk exchanges on the emerging dominance of economics and accounting in
higher education. Although I still have hundreds of unopened email
messages, I did encounter messages from Dr. Spinks (English) and Dr. Meyer
(Director of Trinity University's Library)
Unfortunately, I agree that accountants
should never "rule the world." Actually business firms and
educational institutions have much more in common than non-accountants tend to
realize. The race of Ivy League institutions to capitalize on their logos
by partnering with corporations like UNext and Pensare is only the tip of the
iceberg in this age of technology. But the value of their logos and other
assets cannot be realistically accounted for due to the many intangibles that
defy accounting.
If you aggregate all the prices of all
the shares of companies traded in the world markets, the tangible assets that
accountants account for on balance sheets tally up to only 17% of business
"value." The other 83% is comprised of intangible assets
(largely a business firm's human resources, intellectual capital, organizational
synergy, name recognition, goodwill, leadership, and R&D) that we do a
miserable job of accounting for in business firms. In not-for-profit
organizations, and especially educational institutions, accountants perform
even worse, because the proportion of intangible assets is even higher in those
institutions. Anyone interested in problems of accounting for intangibles
should take a look at http://www.fastcompany.com/online/31/lev.html
The problem with curriculum design is
that it tries to turn intangibles into tangibles. For instance, the
term "Western Culture" is intangible and ambiguous. Adding specific
courses with specific content to the "Western Culture Curriculum" is
in some sense an attempt to "account for" what qualifies as tangible
learning of an intangible topic. In spite of our efforts to declare these
"tangible" curriculum requirements, intangibles in the curriculum and
other areas of living and learning dominate as much or more as intangibles
dominate in business firm valuation. In this context, curriculum design is
a form of accounting for intangibles that becomes more and more hopeless as we
attempt to turn intangibles into tangibles.
I think we give Trinity University
students the full measure of what they bargained for even if they don't realize
all they bargained for when they first appear on campus. The curriculum is only
a part, albeit vital part, of living and learning while they are here. It is
generally the most stressful aspect of college life, because satisfying the
curriculum is where students discover that there is so much to be learned, and
so little time in which to learn, from faculty with integrity and standards for
demonstrating that learning takes place at equal or higher levels relative to
our own peer competitors. To do anything less would be the
real "bait and switch," because if the curriculum becomes too
easy or irrelevant in changing times, then respect for a Trinity degree plunges.
The point here is that if you base
predictions on 17% or less of the "total" data, then you hardly stand
on sound footing for making predictions. One of the main problems accountants
have in dealing with intangibles is that, relative to tangible assets,
intangible assets are very fragile. Today you have them, but tomorrow they may
disappear without even being stolen in a legal sense. For example, I suspect
that Bill Gates is far less concerned about the anti-trust lawsuit than he is
about emerging signs of inability of Microsoft's "intangibles" to
prosper in a networked world of e-Commerce, ubiquitous computing, and wireless
technologies. Virtually all universities have been shocked by the paradigm
shift in distance learning and are now worried about whether their
"intangibles" can prosper in the new "McLearn" paradigm.
Having said this, I think that there
will be two types of higher education institutions in the future. Type 1
will be run like a business whether it is a corporation or a traditional
university with web training and education programs. This is what I will
call a McLearn online university. Type 2 is a traditional onsite
university brimming with more intangibles.
McLearn online universities (or
traditional universities operating like businesses) will provide certificate and
degree programs from anywhere in the world. They will be very efficient and
reasonably effective for topical coverage. The world will flock to them just as
the world flocks to fast food restaurants for convenience, price, efficiency,
and sometimes a craving for the food itself (e.g. a taco salad or a milk shake)
that just seems right for the time. They may also have nutritious items on the
menu. See Maitre d'Igital's cafe at http://www.technos.net/.
In the same context, McLearn's online knowledge bases will proliferate and
become spectacular due to the billions of dollars that will be available for
building such knowledge bases.
Business is not
an evil thing per se. Outstanding research takes place in the
private sector as well as the public sector. Outstanding performances (music,
theatre, film, etc.) take place in the private sector as well as the public
sector. Even though we view Hollywood as blatantly commercial, some of our
finest works of art have appeared in commercial films. The power of films and
television to impact upon culture is both magnificent and scary. On the
magnificent side, do you think there ever has been anything more powerful than
Hollywood in fighting bigotry in the hearts and minds of succeeding generations
following the Civil War? The same will be said, ultimately, for global and
life-long learning in McLearn online universities. In fact, for certain
types of learning there is little doubt that corporations can and are doing a
better job than the public sector (e.g., the success of Motorola University in
delivering technical engineering training and education to the Far East.
See http://mu.motorola.com/.)
Be that as it may, McLearn online
universities will have a difficult time putting together a cost-effective total
education menu that competes with Type 2 onsite universities like Trinity
University. This is largely due to intangibles that lie outside the grasp of
McLearn online curriculum. It happens that some of our best Type 2 onsite
students are also varsity athletes, musicians, actors, etc. Athletic competition
and artistic performances are part and parcel to living and learning for many
students. McLearn universities may have online debates and chess
competitions, but these will never take the place of the roar of the fans,
slapping your buddy on the butt with a wet towel, getting chewed out by a
tempered coach, having your boyfriend or girlfriend in the audience even if you
only have a bit part in a performance, etc. McLearn online university will
probably never find a way of making a bottom-line profit on building and running
a chapel, having faculty that students consider friends as well as teachers, and
having students learn about what real life is all about with loves gained and
lost, living in rumor mills, enduring insults, helping someone who has lost the
way, and learning to deal with greater diversities in life styles, and cultures.
Accountants will not rule the world at
large. And curriculum designers will not rule the university at large. We
are only bit players in immense productions in Type 2 onsite universities.
And we may need some of those cursed marketing metaphors that indicate
how living and learning universities differ from learning universities.
Providing a student with a chapel, a theatre, a concert hall, a playing field, a
dormitory, and a geology professor named Glenn Kroeger can all be described as a
"service" in a broad sense. Students are our "clients"
in a very broad sense. But neither our "service" nor our
"clients" constitute very good business in an accounting sense,
because more than 83% of the value of our service to clients is intangible and
subject to circumstances outside our control.
Serendipity rules supreme in a Type 2 onsite education. There's no
accounting for serendipity. What we do best is to create an environment
where serendipity has more opportunity. Perhaps this is one of the main
distinctions between training and education. In this context,
curriculum design is necessary to a point but should never become too structured
or too specific as a "tangible" asset in either the online or the
onsite universities.
Bob (Robert E.) Jensen Jesse H. Jones
Distinguished Professor of Business Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212
Voice: (210) 999-7347 Fax: (210) 999-8134 Email: rjensen@trinity.edu
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
-----Original
Message----- From: c. w. spinks [mailto:cspinks@Trinity.edu]
Sent: Friday, March 31, 2000 12:44 PM
To: rmeyer@Trinity.edu; tigertalk@Trinity.edu Subject:
RE: Windmill #3: Blade 3 (marketing metaphors)
Nah, Rich, I'm not
caught . If a University is an economic enterprise like a corporation, then it
may be true, but that was my whole point, the university ain't that kinda
beast.
Beside economic
theorists don't really have a outstanding track record on predictions,
definitions, or stipulations. What else would you expect of folk who have
expropriated an energy quotient into economic theory? Efficiency (other than
in a physical sense as an energy quotient) is still metaphoric and as hard to
define as "service" and equally in need of clarification of its
hidden assumptions.
If accountants
rule the world, I am sure "bottom-line" is a primary value,
and if these economic theorists (not all are efficiency readers), then I am
sure efficiency is the primary value, but neither set of rules is privileged
to the point of disallowing discussion of the consequences of the rules.
I surely will be
caught in one of these verbal spins as my own gaminess collapses, but I don't
think so yet.
bill
-----Original
Message-----
From: owner-tigertalk@Trinity.Edu [mailto:owner-tigertalk@Trinity.Edu]
On Behalf Of Richard Meyer
Sent: Friday, March 31, 2000 12:03 PM
To: tigertalk@TRINITY.EDU
Subject: RE: Windmill #3: Blade 3 (marketing metaphors)
-- snip--
Alas, Bill, you may
be stuck. Economic theory predicts that institutions that emerge do so as the
result of their provision of greater efficiency. The consumer metaphor may be
the most efficient one to communicate the concept of a university. -- Rich
Appendix 4
Virtual University Gazette
>From the June 1 issue of EDUCOM Update:
"*Free Monthly Electronic Newsletter. The Virtual University Gazette, for distance
learning professionals, covers new online learning programs, innovative
corporate/university initiatives, the business of distance ed, tips and techniques for
teaching online, and jobs and business opportunities. The emphasis is on adult,
professional, and university-level education in each issue. Issues are archived at http://www.geteducated.com/vugaz.htm. To
subscribe, send the word SUNSCRIBE to vug@oaknetpub.com."
PublicPolicy Implications and the Digital Future
In November 1997, Educom sponsored a conference that is reported at http://www.educom.edu/program/nlii/keydocs/policy.html
There are many public policy implications of networked learning and other
emerging technologies. One of these is the "Digital Future" quoted below:
Digital Future
Society's higher education requirements are
undergoing a fundamental transformation. A rapidly growing student population is becoming
older and increasingly diverse. In addition, the new economy requires a workforce capable
of handling an exploding knowledge base. Industries are looking to higher education
institutions to provide the necessary education and training. There is financial pressure
too: colleges and universities must control and even reduce costs, as well as manage new
competitive dynamics, while responding to growing demands. On their own, each of these
factors is significant; collectively they challenge fundamental higher education
strategies and practices as we approach the 21st century.
Emerging digital technology, especially the Internet, is ideally suited to meet the new
learning needs. What follows is a set of assumptions about the digital future:
The communications, computing, and information
industries are converging in the digital environment. This environment will include a convergence of sound, video, and data with
synchronous and asynchronous communication. Digital technology will continue its rapid
ascent as analog technologies continue to decline. The Internet is predicted to grow:
conservative estimates put the number of today's Internet users at around 50 million;
predictions are for over 1 billion users before the end of the decade. An expansion in
bandwidth, expected to see the most revolutionary change in the next decade, will allow
such things as the delivery of multimedia directly to the home.
The rate at which new technologies are penetrating
business and the home can be expected to increase.
Increasingly, we are experiencing the permeation of new technologies and network use
throughout society. Proficiency in using technology is now for all practical purposes a
required competency in the workforce; it is becoming another basic skill. Currently, 65
percent of all workers use some type of information technology in their jobs. This will
increase to 95 percent by the year 2000. Entering students arrive on campus "network
savvy" and graduates move into a world increasingly reliant on networked
communications.
Networks and networked information will lead to
disintermediation, disaggregation, diffusion, and differentiation. Computer networks offer the possibility of disintermediation --
that is, when the consumer can access services and information directly rather than going
through an intermediary. All of our modern technologies with rapid diffusion rates -- high
consumer acceptance -- have been personal and disintermediated. Technology drives us
toward disaggregation, information products and services being broken apart and repackaged
to cater to consumer's desires, which in turn enables mass customization. It also enables
differentiation; products and services can be combined and used in different ways for more
than one purpose to meet different needs.
The Impact on Higher Education
A learning infrastructure based on digital technology offers more than just education as
usual on the Internet. It offers a set of extraordinary new tools: self-paced, multimedia
modules that deliver leading pedagogy; in-depth outcome assessments; and online
interaction with fellow students and teachers that facilitates continuous feedback and
improvement. The following describes some of what the digital future holds in store for
higher education:
Disaggregation unbundles the instructional process. Technology enables us to disaggregate the place, the content, the
delivery, and judgments about the quality of education. By separating instruction from
assessment, teaching from degree granting, content development from content
delivery, and even service from compliance on the part of the government, traditional
roles are redefined and new ones emerge.
The Internet expands learning opportunities. Distance learning technologies, such as the Internet, and to a
lesser extent, cable and satellite-based systems, enables learners to access education
whenever and wherever they want. Online experiences offer educational opportunities to
millions of learners previously constrained by time, location, and other factors.
The Internet enhances choice and challenges
regulation. The Internet lowers the threshold
of entry to the higher education marketplace for new commercial and nonprofit educational
providers by eliminating many barriers. The development of ever more effective electronic
modes of delivering education at a distance and the explosive growth of networks will
continue to erode the geographic hegemony of higher education and continue to challenge
current state regulatory mechanisms. Students will be more likely to select educational
institutions based on offerings, convenience, and price than on geography.
Interactive multimedia and other technologies will
change how we think about providers and whom we regard as providers. Learning resources that were once only available through education
institutions will appear in retail stores in the form of multimedia software and other
computer-based courseware. Consumers will be able to purchase learning products
independently and learn at their convenience, collectively spending millions of dollars on
education each year. This purchasing power will have a tremendous impact on who controls
learning.
Education will no longer take place within the silos
of individual institutions (or even their virtual equivalents). Instead education will occur within a dynamic global marketplace of
customers and suppliers. With its emphasis on creativity and competition, this marketplace
will enable a wide range of players -- universities, media, publishers, content
specialists, technology companies -- to market, sell, and deliver educational services
online.
A New Vision: A Global Learning
Infrastructure
We envisage a global learning infrastructure -- a student-centric, virtual, global web of
educational services -- as the foundation for achieving society's learning goals. This
contrasts with the bricks-and-mortar, campus-centric university of today; it even goes
beyond the paradigm of the virtual university, which remains modeled on individual
institutions. The global learning infrastructure will encompass a flourishing marketplace
of educational services where millions of students interact with a vast array of
individual and institutional suppliers. It will be delivered through multiple technologies
including the Internet, broadband cable, and satellite. It is being developed in phases,
but will ultimately cross all institutional, state, and national borders.
The global learning infrastructure draws its
capabilities from digital technology and the Internet. It could not have existed five years ago -- but it will be
pervasive five years from now. At the technology core of the global learning
infrastructure are fully interoperable modules and an enabling infrastructure which will:
Extend access to virtually anyone including old and
young, part- and full-time. Provide
convenient anytime/anywhere/anyhow access to support continuous education. Deliver
high quality, self-paced, customized, world-class content and pedagogy. Be
cost effective, dramatically reducing the two biggest costs of the current system: faculty
and physical plant. Capitalize on market forces to achieve these goals and provide
the flexibility to respond to evolving requirements.
Undoubtedly, individual institutions will exploit these technologies to advance their
programs. But without conscious, concerted effort, the results will be a continuation of
today's inadequate, piecemeal solutions. The challenge -- and extraordinary opportunity --
is to develop an integrated global learning infrastructure to meet the educational needs
of the 21st century.
R. H. Heterick, Jr., J. R. Mingle, and C. A.
Twigg
"The Public Policy Implications of a Global Learning Infastructure"
http://www.educom.edu/program/nlii/keydocs/policy.html
Appendix 7
Michael Zatrocky PowerPoint File on Trends and Issues for the 21st
Century
Trends and Issues for the 21st Century
Michael Zastrocky, ResearchDirector
Gartner Group
Presented at The Consortium of Liberal arts Colleges (CLAC) Annual Meeting
June 26, 1998
Appendix 8
University of Phoenix
"U. of Phoenix Reports on
Its Students' Academic Achievement," by Goldie Blumenstyk, Chronicle of
Higher Education, June 5, 2008 ---
http://chronicle.com/daily/2008/06/3115n.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
The University of Phoenix is often derided by
traditional academics for caring more about its bottom line than about
academic quality, and every year, the annual report issued by its parent
company focuses more on profits than student performance.
The institution that has become the largest private
university in North America is releasing its first "Annual Academic Report,"
which it will make available on its
Web site
today. The university's leaders say the
findings show that its educational model is effective in helping students
succeed in college, especially those who are underprepared.
Freshmen at the University of Phoenix enter with
reading, writing, and mathematical skills that are, on average, below those
of other college students, but according to data from standardized tests,
Phoenix students appear to improve in those skills at a greater rate than do
students at other colleges.
And in a comparison of students who enter college
with "risk factors" that often contribute to their dropping out, Phoenix's
rates of completion for a bachelor's degree were substantially higher than
for institutions over all.
William J. Pepicello, president of the
330,000-student university, said those and other findings shared in advance
with The Chronicle show that the 32-year-old, open-access institution
is fulfilling its goals.
"This ties into our social mission for our
university," said Mr. Pepicello, in an interview at the company's
headquarters here. "We take these students and we do give them a significant
increase in skills."
Phoenix for years has been extensively measuring
and monitoring student progress for internal purposes, using the data to
change the content and design of its courses or to reshape its approach to
remedial education.
It decided to develop and publish this
report—distinct from the financial reports that its parent company, the
$2.6-billion Apollo Group Inc., regularly provides—as "a good-faith attempt
on our part" to show the university's commitment to growing public demand
for more accountability by institutions of higher education, said Mr.
Pepicello.
He and other university leaders fully expect some
challenges to the findings, but they say the institution, by publishing the
report, is showing its willingness to confront scrutiny of its educational
record from within academe. "It lets us, in a public forum, talk to our
colleagues about what we do and how well we do it," said Mr. Pepicello.
The introduction this academic year of a test that
could be administered to both campus-based and distance-education
students—the Measure of Academic Proficiency and Progress exam by the
Educational Testing Service—also made this kind of reporting possible, he
said. Nearly two-thirds of Phoenix students attend online.
Patrick M. Callan, president of the National Center
for Public Policy and Higher Education, said that although he had not yet
seen Phoenix's data, its decision to publish such a report was "a very
positive development."
He has urged colleges to be open in their reporting
on themselves. Even if the university has chosen to release data that put it
in the best light, as others often do, Mr. Callan said the report will be a
significant piece of the national debate over what value an institution can
add to a student.
"For higher education, it is a positive and useful
and constructive approach," Mr. Callan said. Publication of the report, he
added, was in line with other efforts by the university "to be part of the
discussion on the outcomes of higher education." Those efforts include the
university's recent creation of a research center on adult learners (for
which Mr. Callan is an unpaid adviser).
A Mixed Report Card
In the report, some of those outcomes look better
than others.
"It certainly is not perfect," said Mr. Pepicello
of some of the test scores. "It is where we are."
In its report, Phoenix shows the results from its
1,966 students who took the MAPP test this year, compared with the national
sample of more than 376,000 students from about 300 institutions.
The results show that in reading, critical
thinking, and writing, its freshmen scored below those of the population
over all, but the difference between those scores and those of its seniors
was greater than for the population at large. The difference was more marked
in mathematics, although the university's freshmen and seniors' scores were
both notably lower than those of the whole test-taking pool.
Bill Wynne, MAPP test product specialist, said that
without knowing more about the makeup of the comparative samples and other
information, he could not characterize the statistical significance of the
gains the university was reporting, except that they were at least as good
as those reported by the national cross section. "The magnitude of the
change is in the eye of the beholder," he said.
Mr. Pepicello said he wished the seniors' scores
were higher, particularly in math, but he considered all of the findings
positive because they indicated that students improve when they attend.
"This doesn't embarrass me," he said. "This is really good information for
us to really improve our institution."
(Phoenix did not track the progress of individual
students, but MAPP officials said the university's pool of freshmen and
seniors taking the test was large enough and random enough to justify its
using different groups of students for comparisons.)
In another test, involving a smaller pool of
students, the Phoenix students' "information literacy" skills for such tasks
as evaluating sources and understanding economic, legal, and social issues
were also comparable to or significantly higher than the mean scores in
several categories. Adam Honea, the provost, said the findings from the
Standardized Assessment of Information Literacy Skills test, developed at
Kent State University, were important to the institution since "information
literacy is a goal of ours."
Continued in article
Bob Jensen's threads on asynchronous learning are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm
Keep in mind that the University of Phoenix has a combination of onsite and
online degree programs.
Bob Jensen's threads on controversies of education
technology and online learning are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on online training and education
alternatives are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/crossborder.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on higher education controversies
are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm
The Chronicle's Goldie Blumenstyk has covered
distance education for more than a decade, and during that time she's written
stories about
the economics of for-profit education,
the ways that online institutions
market themselves, and the demise
of
the 50-percent rule. About the
only thing she hadn't done, it seemed, was to take a course from an online
university. But this spring she finally took the plunge, and now she has
completed a class in government and nonprofit accounting through the University
of Phoenix. She shares tales from the cy ber-classroom -- and her final grade --
in a podcast with Paul Fain, a
Chronicle reporter.
Chronicle of Higher Education, June 11, 2008 (Audio) ---
http://chronicle.com/media/audio/v54/i40/cyber_classroom/
·
All course materials (including textbooks) online; No additional
textbooks to purchase
·
$1,600 fee for the course and materials
·
Woman instructor with respectable academic credentials and
experience in course content
·
Instructor had good communications with students and between
students
·
Total of 14 quite dedicated online students in course, most of
whom were mature with full-time day jobs
·
30% of grade from team projects
·
Many unassigned online helper tutorials that were not fully
utilized by Goldie
·
Goldie earned a 92 (A-)
·
She gave a positive evaluation to the course and would gladly take
other courses if she had the time
·
She considered the course to have a
heavy workload
I must be psychic, because I've been saying this all along ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm
So has Amy Dunbar ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/002cpe/Dunbar2002.htm
"The Medium is Not the Message," by Jonathan Kaplan, Inside Higher Ed,
August 11, 2009 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2009/08/11/kaplan
Also see
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm#Introduction
A few weeks ago, the U.S. Department of Education
released a report that looked at 12 years' worth of education studies, and
found that online learning has clear advantages over face-to-face
instruction.
The study, "An Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A
Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies," stated that “students
who took all or part of their class online performed better, on average,
than those taking the same course through traditional face-to-face
instruction.”
Except for one article,
on this Web site,
you probably didn’t hear about it -- and neither did anyone else.
But imagine for a moment that the report came to the opposite conclusion.
I’m sure that if the U.S. Department of Education had published a report
showing that students in online learning environments performed worse,
there would have been a major outcry in higher education with calls to shut
down distance-learning programs and close virtual campuses.
I believe the reason that the recent study elicited so little commentary is
due to the fact that it flies in the face of the biases held by some across
the higher education landscape. Yet this study confirms what those of us
working in distance education have witnessed for years: Good teaching helps
students achieve, and good teaching comes in many forms.
We know that online learning requires devout attention on the part of both
the professor and the student -- and a collaboration between the two -- in a
different way from that of a face-to-face classroom. These critical aspects
of online education are worth particular mention:
- Greater student engagement: In an
online classroom, there is no back row and nowhere for students to hide.
Every student participates in class.
- Increased faculty attention: In most
online classes, the faculty’s role is focused on mentoring students and
fostering discussion. Interestingly, many faculty members choose to
teach online because they want more student interaction.
- Constant access: The Internet is open
24/7, so students can share ideas and “sit in class” whenever they have
time or when an idea strikes -- whether it be the dead of night or
during lunch. Online learning occurs on the student’s time, making it
more accessible, convenient, and attainable.
At Walden University, where
I am president, we have been holding ourselves accountable for years, as
have many other online universities, regarding assessment. All universities
must ensure that students are meeting program outcomes and learning what
they need for their jobs. To that end, universities should be better able to
demonstrate -- quantitatively and qualitatively -- the employability and
success of their students and graduates.
Recently, we examined the
successes of Walden graduates who are teachers in the Tacoma, Wash., public
school system, and found that students in Walden teachers’ classes tested
with higher literacy rates than did students taught by teachers who earned
their master’s from other universities. There could be many reasons for
this, but, especially in light of the U.S. Department of Education study, it
seems that online learning has contributed meaningfully to their becoming
better teachers.
In higher education, there
is still too much debate about how we are delivering content: Is it online
education, face-to-face teaching, or hybrid instruction? It’s time for us to
stop categorizing higher education by the medium of delivery and start
focusing on its impact and outcomes.
Recently, President Obama remarked, “I think there’s a possibility that
online education can provide, especially for people who are already in the
workforce and want to retrain, the chance to upgrade their skills without
having to quit their job.” As the U.S. Department of Education study
concluded, online education can do that and much more.
But Kaplan above ignores some of the dark side aspects of distance education and
education technology in general ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm
The biggest hurdle, in my opinion, is that if distance education is done
correctly with intensive online communications, instructors soon become burned
out. In an effort to avoid burn out, much of the learning effectiveness is lost.
Hence the distance education paradox.
Jerry Trites in Nova Scotia forwarded the link below:
"Online learning boosts student performance," by Don Tapscott, Grownup
Digital, August 20, 2009 ---
http://www.grownupdigital.com/index.php/2009/08/online-learning-boosts-student-performance/
The U.S. Department of Education has just released
a report comparing traditional face-to-face classroom instruction to
learning supplemented or completely replaced by online learning. The
conclusion: “Students who took all or part of their class online performed
better, on average, than those taking the same course through traditional
face-to-face instruction.”
The most effective teaching method blended
face-to-face learning with online learning. The study notes that this
blended learning often includes additional learning time because students
can proceed at their own pace and lets them repeat material they find
difficult.
The 93-page report, entitled an Evaluation of
Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of
Online Learning Studies, was conducted by SRI International. Researchers
looked at more than a thousand studies conducted between 1996 to 2008.
Analysts then screened these studies to find those that (a) contrasted an
online to a face-to-face condition, (b) measured student learning outcomes,
(c) used a rigorous research design, and (d) provided adequate information
to calculate an effect size.
Most of the comparative studies were done in
colleges and adult continuing-education programs of various kinds, including
medical training, higher education and corporate training. The researchers
said they were surprised to find so few rigorous studies of K-12 students,
so the report urges caution when applying the results to younger students.
Barbara Means, the study’s lead author and an
educational psychologist at SRI International, was quoted on the New York
Times’ website that “The study’s major significance lies in demonstrating
that online learning today is not just better than nothing - it actually
tends to be better than conventional instruction.”
The story notes that until fairly recently, online
education amounted to little more than electronic versions of the old-line
correspondence courses. That has really changed with arrival of Web-based
video, instant messaging and collaboration tools. The study was limited to
research of Web-based instruction (i.e., eliminating studies of video- and
audio-based telecourses or stand-alone, computer-based instruction).
The real promise of online education is providing
learning experiences that are more tailored to individual students than is
possible in classrooms. In Grown Up Digital, I describe this as
“student-focused” learning as opposed to traditional “teacher-focused”
broadcast techniques with the teacher in front of a large class. The story
correctly notes that online learning enables more “learning by doing,” which
many students find more engaging and useful.
The moral of the story: Students would be better
served with much of the curriculum being online. And to repeat what I said
in the book, this does not mean a diminished role for teachers. Their time
would be freed up to give extremely valuable one-on-one teaching.
August 28, 2009 reply from Bob Jensen
One of the most successful distance education programs in the world, in
my viewpoint, is the masters degree program headquartered in Vancouver
called the Chartered Accountancy School of Business ---
http://www.casb.com/
If you live in Western Canada, you obtain your
CA designation by enrolling in the CA School of Business. The CASB
program is flexible, combining the successful completion of a series of
online modules with a three-year term of professional experience. Find
out more about our program.
Some years back I was one of the outside reviewers brought in to examine
CASB. I was impressed by the quality of this degree program and the tough
standards of the program.
CASB is one of the few competency-based graduate programs in the world.
By competency-based I mean that instructors have inputs in designing
examinations for all students in the program, but at the same time, have no
input in grading individual students. There can be no instructor-option
subjective factors when assigning grades, which means no changes in grade
for effort and interpersonal relationships.
The success of the CASB program, however, is a bit biased as is the
success of the ADEPT Masters of Engineering distance education program in
Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. Firstly, students admitted to
these programs were top undergraduate students majoring in very difficult
concentrations. Secondly, in the case of the CASB, the students are all
employed full time in Chartered Accountancy firms and are under heavy
pressure to do well at all stages of the three year program.
Students do meet face-to-face on some weekends (monthly?) for some live
classes --- case studies and examinations..
One other competency-based distance education program that has been
booming in recent years is Western Governors University in the U.S. ---
http://www.wgu.edu/
Most other distance education programs allow instructors more latitude in
assigning grades.
Bob Jensen
The one thing to keep in mind is that there is no one pedagogy that is best
in all circumstances. And our best students are probably going to get A grades
under any pedagogy ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#AssessmentIssues
The failing of distance education lies more in the instructors than the
students. If done well, distance education tends to burn out instructors and
takes an extraordinary amount of time relative to teaching onsite. If done
poorly, the culprit is most likely the tendency to assign part-time or otherwise
non-tenured instructors to the distance education courses. At the other extreme
we have the dregs of the tenured faculty assigned to the distance education
division.
The really bright spots in distance education are the times when the
practicing professionals who are really good at their craft take on a distance
education course either as a public service or as an experiment to see how they
like teaching. The University of Phoenix has been good at attracting some top
professionals.
The
Chronicle of Higher Education
has extensively studied performance of distance education
One such study was conducted by senior editor Blumenstyk
The Chronicle's Goldie Blumenstyk has covered distance education for more
than a decade, and during that time she's written stories about
the economics of for-profit education,
the ways that online institutions
market themselves, and the demise
of
the 50-percent rule. About the
only thing she hadn't done, it seemed, was to take a course from an online
university. But this spring she finally took the plunge, and now she has
completed a class in government and nonprofit accounting through the University
of Phoenix. She shares tales from the cy ber-classroom -- and her final grade --
in a podcast with Paul Fain, a
Chronicle reporter.
Chronicle of Higher Education, June 11, 2008 (Audio) ---
http://chronicle.com/media/audio/v54/i40/cyber_classroom/
·
All course materials (including textbooks) online; No additional
textbooks to purchase
·
$1,600 fee for the course and materials
·
Woman instructor with respectable academic credentials and
professional experience in course content
·
Instructor had good communications with students and between
students
·
Total of 14 quite dedicated online students in course, most of
whom were mature with full-time day jobs
·
30% of grade from team projects
·
Many unassigned online helper tutorials that were not fully
utilized by Goldie
·
Goldie earned a 92 (A-)
·
She gave a positive evaluation to the course and would gladly take
other courses if she had the time
·
She considered the course to have a
heavy workload
There is strong empirical support for online learning,
especially the enlightening SCALE experiments at the University of Illinois ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm#Illinois
August 11, 2009 reply from Steve Markoff
[smarkoff@KIMSTARR.ORG]
Bob:
I've always believed that the
role of the teacher is one of FACILITATOR. My role in the classroom is
making it EASIER for information to move from one place to another - from
point A to point B. This could be from textbook to student, it could be
from the outside world to the student, from another student to the student,
from the student him or herself to that same student AND from teacher to
student (me to them). In defining the word 'teaching', I think many people
overemphasize the last transition that I mentioned, thinking that the
primary movement of information is from them(the teacher) to the students.
In fact, it constitutes a minority of total facilitated information flow in
a college classroom. I think this misunderstanding leads many to
underestimate the value of other sources in the education process other than
themselves. Online content is just one of many alternative sources.
Unfortunately, online formats do
allow certain professors to hide behind the electronic cloak and
politely excuse themselves from the equation, which greatly hurts the
student. Also, online formats can be fertile ground for professors who lack
not only the desire to 'teach' but the ability and thus become mere
administrators versus teachers.
steve
Hi John and Pat and Others,
I would not say that out loud to Amy Dunbar or Denny Beresford that they’re
easy graders ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/002cpe/02start.htm
I would not say that out loud to the graduates of two principles of
accounting weed out courses year after year at Brigham Young
University where classes meet on relatively rare occasion for inspiration
about accountancy but not technical learning ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#BYUvideo
Try to tell the graduates of Stanford University’s ADEPT Masters of
Electrical Engineering program that they had an easier time of it because
the entire program was online.
There’s an interesting article entitled how researchers misconstrue
causality:
Like elaborately plumed birds … we preen and strut and display our
t-values.” That was Edward Leamer’s uncharitable description of his
profession in 1983.
“Cause and Effect: Instrumental variable help to isolate causal
relationships, but they can be taken too far,” The Economist, August
15-21, 20098 Page 68.
It is often the case that distance education courses are taught by
non-tenured instructors, and non-tenured instructors may be easier with
respect to grading than tenured faculty because they are even more in need
of strong teaching evaluations --- so as to not lose their jobs. The problem
may have nothing whatsoever to do with online versus onsite education ---
ergo misconstrued causality.
I think it’s very rewarding to look at grading in formal studies
using the same full-time faculty teaching sections of online versus onsite
students. By formal study, I mean using the same instructors, the same
materials, and essentially the same examinations. The major five-year,
multimillion dollar study that first caught my eye was the SCALE experiments
on the campus of the University of Illinois where 30 courses from various
disciplines were examined over a five year experiment.
Yes the SCALE experiments showed that some students got higher grades
online, notably B students who became A students and C students who became A
students. The online pedagogy tended to have no effect on D and F students
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm#Illinois
Listen to Dan Stone’s audio about the SCALE Experiments ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/000cpe/00start.htm
But keep in mind that in the SCALE experiments, the same instructor of a
course was grading both the online and onsite sections of the same course.
The reason was not likely to be that online sections were easier. The SCALE
experiments collected a lot of data pointing to more intense communications
with instructors and more efficient use of student’s time that is often
wasted in going to classes.
The students in the experiment were full time on campus students, such that
the confounding problems of having adult part-time students was not a factor
in the SCALE experiments of online, asynchronous learning.
A Statement About Why the SCALE Experiments Were Funded
ALN = Asynchronous Learning
We are particularly interested in new
outcomes that may be possible through ALN. Asynchronous computer networks
have the potential to
improve contact with faculty,
perhaps making self-paced learning a realizable goal for some off- and
on-campus students. For example, a motivated student could progress more
rapidly toward a degree. Students who are motivated but find they cannot
keep up the pace, may be able to slow down and take longer to complete a
degree, and not just drop out in frustration. So we are interested in what
impact ALN will have on outcomes such as time-to-degree and student
retention. There are many opportunities where ALN may contribute to another
outcome: lowering the cost of education, e.g., by naturally introducing new
values for old measures such as student-faculty ratios. A different kind of
outcome for learners who are juggling work and family responsibilities,
would be to be able to earn a degree or certification at home. This latter
is a special focus for us.
Alfred P. Sloan
Foundation's Program in
Learning Outside the Classroom at
http://w3.scale.uiuc.edu/scale/
Another study that I love to point to was funded by the Chronicle of
Higher Education. Read about when one of the Chronicle’s senior
editors took a Governmental Accounting Course at the University of Phoenix
during which the instructor of the course had not idea that Goldie
Blumenstyk
was assessing how difficult or how easy the course was for students in
general. I think Goldie’s audio report of her experience is still available
from the Chronicle of Higher Education. Goldie came away from the
course exhausted.
The Chronicle's Goldie Blumenstyk has covered
distance education for more than a decade, and during that time she's
written stories about
the economics of for-profit education, the ways that online institutions
market themselves, and the demise of
the 50-percent rule. About the only thing she hadn't done, it seemed,
was to take a course from an online university. But this spring she finally
took the plunge, and now she has completed a class in government and
nonprofit accounting through the University of Phoenix. She shares tales
from the cy ber-classroom -- and her final grade --
in a podcast with Paul Fain, a Chronicle reporter.
Chronicle of Higher Education, June 11, 2008 (Audio) ---
http://chronicle.com/media/audio/v54/i40/cyber_classroom/
· All course
materials (including textbooks) online; No additional textbooks to purchase
· $1,600 fee for the
course and materials
· Woman instructor
with respectable academic credentials and experience in course content
· Instructor had
good communications with students and between students
· Total of 14 quite
dedicated online students in course, most of whom were mature with full-time
day jobs
· 30% of grade from
team projects
· Many unassigned
online helper tutorials that were not fully utilized by Goldie
· Goldie earned a 92
(A-)
· She gave a
positive evaluation to the course and would gladly take other courses if she
had the time
·
She considered the course to have a heavy workload
"U. of Phoenix Reports on Its Students' Academic
Achievement," by Goldie Blumenstyk, Chronicle of Higher Education,
June 5, 2008 ---
http://chronicle.com/daily/2008/06/3115n.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
The 2006 National Survey of Student Engagement, released November 13,
2006, for the first time offers a close look at distance education, offering
provocative new data suggesting that e-learners report higher levels of
engagement, satisfaction and academic challenge than their on-campus peers
---
http://nsse.iub.edu/NSSE_2006_Annual_Report/index.cfm
"The Engaged E-Learner," by Elizabeth Redden, Inside Higher Ed,
November 13, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/11/13/nsse
August 27, 2009 reply from Patricia Walters
[patricia@DISCLOSUREANALYTICS.COM]
This email actually has a lot of related but
seemingly unrelated questions. Thanks in advance.
Anyone know what type of compensation schools like
the University of Phoenix offer to their instructors?
Is this compensation similar to adjunct
compensation at most regular Universities?
My assumption is that full-time faculty
compensation is comparable regardless of whether they teach on- or "off-"
line but I could be mistaken.
Anyone know what the normal course load would be
for an on-line instructor? (Amy?) Is is comparable to their colleagues in
off-line classrooms?
As someone who spends much of her "free" time
learning her avocations in workshops and off-line classes (even though
youtube has good knitting videos), this is a whole new world for me.
The closest I've come to on-line teaching is
collaborative review sessions for my exec students. I decided that these
"in-between" calls and on-line sessions were essential if I was going to
keep them on track during the month between in person classes. These
sessions were actually more work for me than calling them into the classroom
because all of the "lecture slides" had to be prepared "in good form" in
advance.
Pat
August 27, 2009 message from Amy Dunbar
[Amy.Dunbar@BUSINESS.UCONN.EDU]
Hi Pat,
I can respond to a couple of your questions:
>My assumption is that full-time faculty
compensation is comparable regardless of whether they teach on- or "off-"
line but I could be mistaken.
>Anyone know what the normal course load
would be for an on-line instructor? (Amy?) Is is comparable to their
colleagues in off-line classrooms?
I teach four sections of ACCT 5571, Taxation
for Business Entities. Three sections are in the summer and have between 85
and 105 students total. We cap sections at 35 students. I teach one
section in the fall, and occasionally I have an overload for a FTF PhD
seminar. Our offload courses are paid at the same rate whether they are
online of FTF.
I just finished reading a couple archive
articles on online teaching from the Chronicle of Higher Education, one
write who hated online teaching and another who loved it. I am one who
loves online teaching, but I miss being the “sage on the stage” on
occasion. But that’s because of my wants, not because I think it is a more
effective way to teach. There are ways to overcome every obstacle the
negative article described, with perhaps time being the toughest one to
handle. I have noticed, however, over the years that students use AIM, my
chat tool of choice, to contact me less often, but instead work with other
students online more often. Perhaps my materials are becoming better over
time, so there is less confusion. I created my own online text with links
to spreadsheets, videos, and self-tests incorporated in the modules. In
addition, I create new homework sets every semester because I know my old
ones are out there in cyberspace. I do not charge any textbook fee because
my modules are personal, incorporating pictures of grandchildren on
occasion, and certainly humor here and there. I really enjoy playing with
technology, so teaching online gives me a chance to explore new ways of
providing learning tools.
Perhaps the biggest advantage we have at UConn
is that we have TAs for our MSA courses. My TA was one of my top students,
and he applied to become my TA after he earned his MSA. He handles one of
the 3 scheduled nights of office hours, works on the homework sets (either
he writes them and I review them or vice versa), and he grades the three
Excel projects after I run them through a grading macro. I generally go
online at various times besides the scheduled office hours, which run from 7
to 10 three nights a week, with the deal that if anyone is online needing
help we stay online to help. Thursdays are my toughest days because I am
frequently on until 11 or 11:30. I also log on AIM when students set up a
time they want to meet.
My students meet at least once a week in a
group chat session, and they post the chats on the group boards (or forums
as some instructors call them).. The most time consuming thing that I do is
read the chats which sometimes go on for several hours, depending on how
lengthy the homework quizzes are. I create a summary of the week, using
snippets of chat that made me laugh, cry, or go omg. I do not use the
student names, but as the semester goes on they try to figure out what will
get captured in the summary of the week. I also can figure out where
students are having trouble when more than one group is struggling with an
issue, and I can respond by revising the content module. I also have boards
that are dedicated to the content modules, the homework (quizzes), projects,
and exams. I praise students who find errors or confusing wording. The
course is very interactive. At the end of the semester, I feel the same
pangs of loss that I felt when my FTF classes ended. In many ways, I know
my online students better and many stay in touch.
That was way more than you wanted to know, but
I get carried away when I talk about online teaching. And now I am going
back to my vacation. Today is the last day in an awesome week at Bar Harbor
Maine in Acadia and Bristol Rhode Island in Colt State Park.
Amy
UConn
Appendix 9: Gender Differences
And I always thought little boys were built out of "snakes and snails."
"The Puzzle of Boys: Scholars and others debate what it means to grow up
male in America," by Thomas Bartlett, Chronicle of Higher Education's
Chronicle Review, November 22, 2009 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Puzzle-of-Boys/49193/
My son just turned 3. He loves trains, fire trucks,
tools of all kinds, throwing balls, catching balls, spinning until he falls
down, chasing cats, tackling dogs, emptying the kitchen drawers of their
contents, riding a tricycle, riding a carousel, pretending to be a farmer,
pretending to be a cow, dancing, drumming, digging, hiding, seeking,
jumping, shouting, and collapsing exhausted into a Thomas the Tank Engine
bed wearing Thomas the Tank Engine pajamas after reading a Thomas the Tank
Engine book.
That doesn't make him unusual; in fact, in many
ways, he couldn't be more typical. Which may be why a relative recently
said, "Well, he's definitely all boy." It's a statement that sounds
reasonable enough until you think about it. What does "all boy" mean?
Masculine? Straight? Something else? Are there partial boys? And is this
relative aware of my son's fondness for Hello Kitty and tea sets?
These are the kinds of questions asked by anxious
parents and, increasingly, academic researchers. Boyhood studies—virtually
unheard of a few years ago—has taken off, with a shelf full of books already
published, more on the way, and a new journal devoted to the subject. Much
of the focus so far has been on boys falling behind academically, paired
with the notion that school is not conducive to the way boys learn. What
motivates boys, the argument goes, is different from what motivates girls,
and society should adjust accordingly.
Not everyone buys the boy talk. Some critics, in
particular the American Association of University Women, contend that much
of what passes for research about boyhood only reinforces stereotypes and
arrives at simplistic conclusions: Boys are competitive! Boys like action!
Boys hate books! They argue that this line of thinking miscasts boys as
victims and ignores the very real problems faced by girls.
But while this debate is far from settled, the
field has expanded to include how marketers target boys, the nature of boys'
friendships, and a host of deeper, more philosophical issues, all of which
can be boiled down, more or less, to a single question: Just what are boys,
anyway?
One of the first so-called boys' books, Michael
Gurian's The Wonder of Boys, was not immediately embraced by publishers. In
fact, it was turned down by 25 houses before finally being purchased by
Tarcher/Putnam for a modest sum. This was in the mid-1990s, and everyone was
concerned about girls. Girls were drowning in the "sea of Western culture,"
according to Carol Gilligan. In Reviving Ophelia, Mary Pipher bemoaned a
"girl-poisoning" culture that emphasized sexiness above all else.
Boys weren't the story. No one wanted to read about
them.
Or so publishers thought. The Wonder of Boys has
since sold more than a half-million copies, and Gurian, who has a master's
degree in writing and has worked as a family counselor, has become a
prominent speaker and consultant on boys' issues. He has written two more
books about boys, including The Purpose of Boys, published this year, which
argues that boys are hard-wired to desire a sense of mission, and that
parents and teachers need to understand "boy biology" if they want to help
young men succeed.
Drawing on neuroscience research done by others,
Gurian argues that boy brains and girl brains are fundamentally dissimilar.
In the nature versus nurture debate, Gurian comes down squarely on the side
of the former. He catches flak for supposedly overinterpreting neuroscience
data to comport with his theories about boys. In The Trouble With Boys, a
former Newsweek reporter, Peg Tyre, takes him to task for arguing that
female brains are active even when they're bored, while male brains tend to
"shut down" (a conclusion that Ruben Gur, director of the Brain Behavior
Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania, tells Tyre isn't supported by
the evidence). Gurian counters that his work has been misrepresented and
that the success of his programs backs up his scientific claims.
Close on Gurian's heels was Real Boys, by William
Pollack. Pollack, an associate clinical professor of psychology at Harvard
Medical School and director of the Centers for Men and Young Men, writes
that behind their facade of toughness, boys are vulnerable and desperate for
emotional connection. Boys, he says, tend to communicate through action.
They are more likely to express empathy and affection through an activity,
like playing basketball together, than having a heart-to-heart talk.
Pollack's view of what makes boys the way they are is less rooted in biology
than Gurian's. "What neuroscientists will tell you is that nature and
nurture are bonded," says Pollack. "How we nurture from the beginning has an
effect." Real Boys earned a stamp of approval from Mary Pipher, who writes
in the foreword that "our culture is doing a bad job raising boys."
Pollack's book, like Gurian's, was an enormous
success. It sold more than 750,000 copies and has been published in 13
countries. Even though it came out a decade ago, Pollack says he still
receives e-mail every week from readers. "People were hungry for it," he
says.
The following year, Raising Cain, by Dan Kindlon,
an adjunct lecturer in Harvard's School of Public Health, and Michael
Thompson, a psychologist in private practice, was published and was later
made into a two-hour PBS documentary. Their book ends with seven
recommendations for dealing with boys, including "recognize and accept the
high activity level of boys and given them safe boy places to express it."
The book is partially about interacting with boys on their own terms, but it
also encourages adults to help them develop "emotional literacy" and to
counter the "culture of cruelty" among older boys. It goes beyond academic
performance, dealing with issues like suicide, bullying, and romance.
Perhaps the most provocative book of the bunch is
The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men, by
Christina Hoff Sommers. As the subtitle suggests, Sommers believes that
she's found the villain in this story, making the case that it's boys, not
girls, who are being shortchanged and that they need significant help if
they're going to close the distance academically. But that does not mean,
according to Sommers, that they "need to be rescued from their masculinity."
Those books were best sellers and continue to
attract readers and spirited debate. While the authors disagree on the
details, they share at least two broad conclusions: 1) Boys are not girls,
and 2) Boys are in trouble. Why and how they're different from girls, what's
behind their trouble, and what if anything to do about it—all that depends
on whom you read.
A backlash was inevitable. In 2008 the American
Association of University Women issued a report, "Where the Girls Are: the
Facts About Gender Equity in Education," arguing not only that the alleged
academic disparity between boys and girls had been exaggerated, but also
that the entire crisis was a myth. If anything, the report says, boys are
doing better than ever: "The past few decades have seen remarkable gains for
girls and boys in education, and no evidence indicates a crisis for boys in
particular."
So how could the boys-in-trouble crowd have gotten
it so wrong? The report has an answer for that: "Many people remain
uncomfortable with the educational and professional advances of girls and
women, especially when they threaten to outdistance their peers." In other
words, it's not genuine concern for boys that's energizing the movement but
rather fear of girls surpassing them.
The dispute is, in part, a dispute over data. And
like plenty of such squabbles, the outcome hinges on the numbers you decide
to use. Boys outperform girls by more than 30 points on the mathematics
section of the SAT and a scant four points on the verbal sections (girls
best boys by 13 points on the recently added writing section). But many more
girls actually take the test. And while it's a fact that boys and girls are
both more likely to attend college than they were a generation ago, girls
now make up well over half of the student body, and a projection by the
Department of Education indicates that the gap will widen considerably over
the next decade.
College isn't the only relevant benchmark. Boys are
more likely than girls to be diagnosed with attention-deficit disorder, but
girls are more likely to be diagnosed with depression. Girls are more likely
to report suicide attempts, but boys are more likely to actually kill
themselves (according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 83
percent of suicides between the ages of 10 and 24 are male). Ask a
representative of the AAUW about a pitfall that appears to
disproportionately affect boys, like attention-deficit disorder, and the
representative will counter that the disparity is overplayed or that girls
deal with equally troubling issues.
But it's not statistics that have persuaded parents
and educators that boys are in desperate straits, according to Sara Mead, a
senior research fellow with the New America Foundation, a public-policy
institute. Mead wrote a paper in 2006 that argued, much like the later AAUW
report, that the boys' crisis was bunk. "What seems to most resonate with
teachers and parents is not as much the empirical evidence but this sense of
boys being unmoored or purposeless in a vaguely defined way," Mead says in
an interview. "That's a really difficult thing to validate more beyond
anecdote." She also worries that all this worrying—much of it, she says,
from middle-class parents—could have a negative effect on boys, marking them
as victims when they're nothing of the sort.
Pollack concedes, as Mead and others point out,
that poor performance in school is also tied to factors like race and class,
but he insists that boys as a group—including white, middle-class boys—are
sinking, pointing to studies that suggest they are less likely to do their
homework and more likely to drop out of high school. And he has a hunch
about why some refuse to acknowledge it: "People look at the adult world and
say, 'Men are still in charge.' So they look down at boys and say, 'They are
small men, so they must be on the way to success,'" says Pollack. "It's
still a man's world. People make the mistake of thinking it's a boy's
world."
If the first round of books was focused on the
classroom, the second round observes the boy in his natural habitat. The new
book Packaging Boyhood: Saving Our Sons From Superheroes, Slackers, and
Other Media Stereotypes offers an analysis of what boys soak in from TV
shows, video games, toys, and other facets of boy-directed pop culture. The
news isn't good here, either. According to the book, boys are being taught
they have to be tough and cool, athletic and stoic. This starts early with
toddler T-shirts emblazoned with "Future All-Star" or "Little Champion."
Even once-benign toys like Legos and Nerf have assumed a more hostile
profile with Lego Exo-Force Assault Tigers and the Nerf N-Strike Raider
Rapid Fire CS-35 Dart Blaster. "That kind of surprised us," says one of the
book's three authors, Lyn Mikel Brown, a professor of education and human
development at Colby College. "What happened to Nerf? What happened to
Lego?"
Brown also co-wrote Packaging Girlhood. In that
book, the disease was easier to diagnose, what with the Disney princess
phenomenon and sexy clothes being marketed to pre-adolescent girls. Everyone
was worried about how girls were being portrayed in the mass media and what
that was doing to their self-esteem. The messages about boys, however, were
easier to miss, in part because they're so ubiquitous. "We expect a certain
amount of teasing, bullying, spoofing about being tough enough, even in
animated films for the littlest boys," Brown says.
For Packaging Boyhood, the authors interviewed more
than 600 boys and found that models of manhood were turning up in some
unexpected places, like the Discovery Channel's Man vs. Wild, in which the
star is dropped into the harsh wilderness and forced to forage. They're
concerned that such programs, in order to compete against all the stimuli
vying for boys' attentions, have become more aggressively in-your-face, more
fearlessly risk-taking, manlier than thou. Says Brown: "What really got us
was the pumping up of the volume."
Brown thinks boys are more complicated, and less
single-minded, than adults give them credit for. So does Ken Corbett, whose
new book, Boyhoods: Rethinking Masculinities, steers clear of
generalizations and doesn't try to elucidate the ideal boyhood (thus the
plural "masculinities"). Corbett, an assistant professor of psychology at
New York University, wants to remind us not how boys are different from
girls but how they're different from one another. His background is in
clinical psychoanalysis, feminism, and queer studies—in other words, as he
points out in the introduction, "not your father's psychoanalysis."
In a chapter titled "Feminine Boys," he writes of
counseling the parents of a boy who liked to wear bracelets and perform a
princess dance. The father, especially, wasn't sure how to take this,
telling Corbett that he wanted a son, not a daughter.
To show how boys can be difficult to define,
Corbett tells the story of Hans, a 5-year-old patient of Sigmund Freud, who
had a fear of being castrated by, of all things, a horse. Young Hans also
fantasizes about having a "widdler," as the boy puts it, as large as his
father's. Freud (typically) reads the kid's issues as primarily sexual, and
his desire to be more like his father as Oedipal. Corbett, however, doesn't
think Hans's interest in his penis is about sex, but rather about becoming
bigger, in developing beyond the half-finished sketch of boyhood. "Wishing
to be big is wishing to fill in the drawing," Corbett writes.
Corbett disputes the idea that boys as a group are
in peril. They have troubles, sure, but so do other people. Treating boys as
problems to be solved, rather than subjects to be studied, is a mistake, he
says, and much of the writing on boys "doesn't illuminate the experience of
being a boy, but it does illuminate the space between a boy and a parent."
The experience of being a boy is exactly what Miles
Groth wants to capture. Groth, a psychology professor at Wagner College, is
editor of Thymos: Journal of Boyhood Studies, founded in 2007. An article he
wrote in the inaugural issue of the journal, "Has Anyone Seen the Boy?: the
Fate of the Boy in Becoming a Man," is a sort of call to arms for
boyhood-studies scholars. For years, Groth says, academics didn't really
discuss boys. They might study a certain subset of boys, but boys per se
were off the table. "I think there was some hesitancy for scholars to take
up the topic, to show that they're paying attention to guys when we should
be paying attention to girls," says Groth. "Now I think there's less of that
worry. People don't see it as a reactionary movement."
Continued in article
Jensen's Helpers for Case Writers
August 28, 2009 message from Patricia Walters
[patricia@DISCLOSUREANALYTICS.COM]
Here's an apropos question given recent threads.
What do you believe are the best resources
available for learning how to write a good accounting case?
Are there any online resources?
(I should have checked Bob's website first!)
Pat
August 28, 2009 reply from Bob Jensen
Hi Pat,
Becoming a case writer might entail a career shift in your “case.”
The number one thing that leads to great cases is access to information
inside a corporation or not-for-profit organization. It’s here where the
most prestigious universities with powerful alumni (e.g., Harvard, Wharton,
Stanford, etc. have a valuable edge). The rest of us have to do the best we
can.
Of course the prestigious schools also have professional case writing
experts who work alongside faculty, such that professors who really want to
write successful cases also have an edge when being on the faculty of
prestigious universities like Harvard, Wharton, and Stanford.
Having said this, there are countless cases that emerge from Cactus Gulch
Colleges of this world. Much depends upon the dedication to case writing and
case writing organizations ECCH ---
http://www.ecch.com/
My hero in this regard in Marilyn Taylor who got me involved in a number of
NACRA teaching workshops (my job was only to make presentations on education
technology). Marilyn is a management professor (University of Missouri in Kansas City) who has
been very active in the North American Case Research Association. Among
other things NACRA meets to critique each others’ cases, and critique they
do. This can lead to much better case writing if you’ve got a tough skin for
constructive criticism.
The NACRA home page is at
http://www.nacra.net/nacra/
Most really active faculty in NACRA have made a career choice to concentrate
writing efforts on cases. As a result they are great writers who seldom
appear in TAR, JAR, or JAE. But they do get their case published and enjoy
each others’ company.
NACRA reminds me of the annual poet critiquing conference that meets for a
couple of weeks every summer down the road from where I live --- in the
Robert Frost farmhouse museum. See my photograph and commentary on this way
of learning to write poetry ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2007/tidbits070905.htm
The top case writers from Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton are not likely to
be active in NACRA, Active people in NACRA are more apt to come from Babson,
Bentley, Northeastern, and state universities like South Carolina.
Over the last four years
in my capacity as the Associate Editor of the Case Research Journal I
have reviewed numerous cases. Many of them had considerable potential but
were poorly developed. This is unfortunate because even though there is no
standard formula for writing effective cases there are certain guidelines
which I believe consistently lead to better cases. Therefore, at the request
of the North American Case Research Association, the purpose of this paper
is to discuss some of the guidelines I use when reviewing cases. I will
organize my discussion around the four criteria the Case Research Journal
uses for evaluating cases: (1) case focus, (2) case data, (3) case
organization, and (4) writing style.
"WRITING A PUBLISHABLE CASE: SOME GUIDELINES," by James J.
Chrisman ---
http://www.wacra.org/Writing%20a%20Publishable%20Case%20-%20Some%20Guidelines.pdf
From Emory University
Study Skills Tip Sheets & Advice ---
http://www.college.emory.edu/home/academic/learning/studyskillsconsultations/tips.html
Advice From Students
Study Skills Tip Sheets
Links to Academic Resources
Bob Jensen's threads on Tools and Tricks of the Trade ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm