Online or Not Online: The Question Persists

I had just left a Distance Learning committee meeting this week when Elizabeth Pitt, librarian, passed along a “Fast Fact” from College and Research News, October 2015. It summarizes the main findings of a Gallup poll commissioned by Inside Higher Ed last year that surveyed 2,799 faculty members and 288 academic technology administrators.

According to the summary, “A majority of faculty members with online teaching experience say those courses produce results inferior to in-person courses. They say most online courses lack meaningful student-teacher interaction. Only about one-quarter of faculty respondents (26 percent) say online courses can produce results equal to in-person courses.What should we make of these results?  

If even experienced online teachers believe by such a large margin that online education is inferior to face-to-face learning, should we question whether our efforts here at Lincoln to put together a distance education plan—the purpose of the DL committee meeting I had attended—are warranted?  At most should we be planning distance learning options only for those populations we cannot feasibly meet in person?  

Or is that majority opinion simply skepticism without foundation, our human preference for what has always been and our innate distrust of the new?  Do you come down on the side of the studies that have shown no significant correlation between mode of delivery and learning outcomes? 

So your question for today (come on, you know that you need to take a break from thinking about midterms) is a simple yes/no one.  Do you personally believe that online teaching and learning—assuming the necessary technology, course design, and instructional expertise—can be as effective as classroom-based instruction?  (Of course if you have any additional energy, I would love to hear the reasoning behind your answer, whichever side of the issue you champion.)

What We Teachers Worry About

Those of you who read Faculty Focus probably saw the following list in a recent posting. It categorizes the concerns expressed by new teachers, listed from most to least important. 

• Exhibiting command of the material (being able to answer student questions, give relevant examples)
• Balancing "teacherly" authority and student rapport
• Dealing with communication anxiety (public speaking)
• Engaging rather than boring students
• Managing students’ perceptions of teacher
• Juggling roles (teaching, research, service, life)
• Resolving grade complexities
• Being memorable
• Negotiating flexibility in policies, assignments
• Overcoming cultural differences between teacher and students

I was struck, when I read through this “top 10” list how little I worried about some of the issues but how much some of the others, after all my many years of teaching, still cause the occasional sleepless night.  I don’t spend much time anymore thinking about authority vs. rapport, for instance; my comfort level there developed over the years, as did my comfort level with student perceptions of me, whatever they may be.  Similarly, being appropriately--but not too--flexible in my demands and being able to resolve student grade protests do not cause me much concern any more; one learns from experience, I guess.  

On the other hand, despite my experience I still find myself struggling with how to get my tired, busy, adult students focused and engaged, and with each new  semester I still experience nagging doubts that I have prepared enough to show that I’m up to date and in command of new scholarship.

One item I would add to the list, that I never used to worry about, is just what my role in any given class period should be.  Am I  still, too often, being that sage on the stage even if I am standing off to the side and talking about material on students' computer screens?  Did I prepare enough material to keep the learning going?  Too much?  The wrong sort?

I’d be interested in hearing--wherever you might be in your teaching career trajectory--what worries you the most as you strive to be successful in your chosen profession. Or what you don't worry about at all.

Dragged Kicking and Screaming into Social Media

Full disclaimer:   I do have a FaceBook page (that I check a couple times a year…) but beyond that I admit that I pretty much limit my web-based communication to email. I’ve never felt compelled to “tweet” anything (which for all I know is now so yesterday, anyway) or use whatever else may be the flavor of the day in the apps world.

This semester, though, one of my students on the first day of class asked if he could collect everyone’s cell phone number to set up a “Group Me” class chat.  A bit reluctantly, I gave my cell phone number and waited to see what would happen.

Not surprisingly, I got a lot of “how u doin” and “boy Im tired” types of messages, ones that I just glanced at and hit Delete.  But gradually I began to see a real purpose.  One obvious use is as a place where a student can ask a general class-related question and I can answer right away, so that others don’t have to ask the same question.  (While I was typing this, a student texted to ask if Moodle was down and I let her and others know that it was fine at Lincoln’s end, while another student suggested a workaround.)   

Perhaps even more importantly, though, I think it’s a motivational tool.  Early this morning I was getting ready to head to campus when one student texted, “Good morning, wonderful people.”  A few class members chimed in with similar greetings.  While I was too busy getting things together so I could get on the road to write anything, I drove to school musing about how nice it was to have students thinking positively about class and classmates first thing in the morning and thinking that it would be an interesting research project to see if class satisfaction and course completion/persistence correlate at all with that sort of casual media use.

Do any of you have examples of constructive use of social media, whether formally for instruction or informally?   While I may be too old to use them, I’m still young enough to be curious!

I had to "go back" to school....

Guest Blogger:  James Wadley

So for all the years that I have been in school to get my doctorate and postgraduate certificate, it turns out that I have to “go back to school” in order to obtain a credential that will enable a smoother transition for the Master of Science in Counseling program to eventually become accredited here at Lincoln University.  The courses that I am taking online are Theories of Counseling and Human Development.  (The irony of me being a student at this time is that I am teaching Theories of Counseling this semester in the MSC program.) 

I am blogging because I just completed an assignment where I had to offer my opinion about a case and then offer two postings to the students in my cohort who also had to chime in on the same case. 

I am disappointed.  It feels like there is minimal interaction between myself and my cohort, and the responses on my thread are very superficial.  There seems to be a theme around response production that if someone responds to my post, they rarely exceed four sentences.  The readings from the text are okay….but do not contain some of the latest research/clinical findings and assumptions that move the field forward. 

I’ve been spoiled academically and have had nothing but face to face interaction with my peers, professors, and supervisors over the years.  I think what’s missing is the anecdotal accounts that provide depth. Shared face to face, classroom stories are woven with theory and invites critical discussion. This may not happen online since people in my cohort rarely revisit discussions beyond the minimal standard of posts.   I wish that my online experience could be different and possibly mirror face to face instruction.  I’m struggling to stay motivated, and so I decided that I was going to go ahead and knock out all of the assignments for the semester for these two classes between now and next weekend. No, this is not 7-1-7. I’m just bored and disenchanted….

I’m so glad our Lincoln MSC Counseling program is face to face and has 15 weeks of engaging semesters.  I wonder how entry-level therapists who complete this online program could ever develop the skills and competency to be effective and self-sustaining practitioners.  I just don’t see it.  Maybe something will change in my journey for another master’s degree.

If you have had a different online educational experience, please feel free to offer your thoughts and words of wisdom to me….

Searching for support…
James Wadley, Ph.D 
Chair, Graduate Counseling and Human Services Programs
Lincoln University

Expanding Our Role Model Role

The idea that as professors we should be good role models for our students is certainly not anything new or surprising.  We all take care to speak professionally, proofread our handouts carefully, demonstrate our scholarly integrity by citing sources for ideas we use, show up on time--and prepared--for class. etc.  An article by David Googlar in The Chronicle of Higher Education, though, did make me rethink that role model issue.   

Among other suggestions, Googlar advises that rather than just modeling expertise, we should also “model stupidity”—showing students that not knowing an  answer is an acceptable and important part of being a scholar and then showing them the thinking processes we use to try to find a reasonable answer.

“Almost everything we do in the classroom -- the way we speak, how we make use of technologies, what we demand of our students -- provides a model for them in some way,” Googlar argues.

Do you agree?  In what ways do you see yourself as a role model in the classroom? What are the actions/attributes/awarenesses that you consciously try to model as you teach?