The Most Important Distance/Online/Hybrid Issues

Transcription

1 The Most Important Distance/Online/Hybrid Issues The Question In late July 2010, WCET members were asked to complete the following statement: Putting budgets aside, the most important issue confronting distance/online/hybrid education at my institution over the next two or three years is: In August, visitors to the WCET / Transparency by Design booth at Wisconsin s Conference on Distance Teaching and Learning were also asked to respond to the question. Summary and Compilation of Responses: Russ Poulin (rpoulin@wiche.edu) analyzed the responses and created the following categories. Even though we asked for the most important issue, several people provided more than one response. Many of those multiple responses were counted. Responses from the Wisconsin conference are listed in italics. Scalability (14) Scalability/capacity building 8 Managing expectations 4 Faculty load 1 Class size 1 Faculty (8) Faculty development and support 5 Faculty motivation 1 Instruction to match needs of current students 1 Teaching the same way as always 1 Quality (7) Quality and Instructional integrity 6 Academic integrity 1 Note: It is unclear what was meant by instructional integrity. It was often coupled with quality. Students (5) Improving student success/learning outcomes 3 Learner support 2 Technology (5) Maintaining innovation 2 Engaging instructional tools 1 Moving to mobile instruction 1 Proprietary CMS 1 1

2 Management (5) Funding models 2 Deciding where our focus should be 1 Data/research 1 Initiate and Sustain Collaboration of all partners 1 Marketing (2) Differentiation or our program from others 1 Marketing 1 Responses from the WCETDiscuss List instructional integrity and quality Bob Crook, LeCroy Center for Educational Telecommunications, Dallas County Community College District extensive training and timely support of faculty. The hardware and software do nothing by themselves. Instructors who are foremost skilled in online pedagogy, trained on effective use of the technologies, and well prepared for the time and effort required during delivery of an online/hybrid/distance class are the most important element for providing and maintaining high quality e learning environments for our students. Adequate support for a pedagogical/logistical/technological training program facilitated by qualified staff and colleagues to work with faculty in groups and individually is a challenge as e learning grows significantly (across traditional as well as online courses) and budgets have limitations. Thanks for asking! Tom Braziunas, North Seattle Community College Improving student success Steven G. Sachs, Northern Virginia Community College Measuring student learning outcomes, measuring program learning outcomes, and quality of the content and delivery Romy Hughes, Texas Christian University Expanding our program while maintaining and enhancing instructional quality Patricia D. Fenn, Ocean County College Academic integrity/accountability Edmund (Ted) Seidel, Texas A&M University Quality, integrity, and differentiating the University from the thousands of other on line offering of essentially the same course Ken Stafford, University of Denver instructor training and course quality John Howard, South Dakota State University Marketing our program Angela Leverett, University System of Georgia scalability, while maintaining quality at all levels Shirley Adams, Charter Oak Growth and scaling while maintaining quality Rob Robinson University of Texas at San Antonio As you can see our Chancellor has set a bold goal for us in the next 5 years and I can t do it without adequate resources, mainly in personnel Deb Gearhart, Troy University 2

3 Develop market driven program expansion with quality and integrity that incorporates best practices for maintaining student and faculty support Veronica Williams, Governors State University learning effectiveness and faculty development.both being intricately tied up in the other, but both being critical goals Ellen Waterman, Regis University Most important issue capacity building to facilitate the development and implementation of engaging online courses. Specifically, providing lightweight tools and technologies that faculty and instructors can make their own and connect with technologies students actually use, without being confined by monolithic LMS implementations that emphasize management over pedagogy David Porter, BCCampus Top 3 issues: data, data, data Colt Alton, International Hispanic Online University Moving the learning space for Nevada State s students to smartphone and ipad, Kindle, and Nook technologies Sam McCool, Nevada State College Learner support Asha Kanwar, Commonwealth of Learning (COL) Deciding upon what aspect of online learning our system should focus (degrees, remediation, bottleneck courses, etc.) Patricia Cuocco, California State University, Office of the Chancellor Innovation, Integrity and Academic Quality Jesus R. Rivas, Ph.D., TECANA AMERICAN UNIVERSITY (TAU) Educating ourselves institution wide (faculty/staff) on what best serves Generation III & IV student educational needs in order to move away from the silos (instructional, student services, administrative). The goal is to provide ALL students, online and face2face, comprehensive educational support irregardless of time and geographical boundaries to learning Susan Whitener, Associate Vice Chancellor, Educational Planning, West Hills Community College District Recent meta analysis published in the Journal of Online Learning and Teaching (June 2010) suggests students may actually perform better in online and distance learning. A key concluding statement from the study... "It is clear that the experimental probability of attaining higher learning outcomes is greater in the online environment than in the face to face environment. This probability is increasing over time. The future should call for different treatment of online learning by policy makers and regulatory agencies on one hand, and future research to examine DE learning by: academic subject, asynchronous / synchronous / blended methods etc. on the other." Link: Which may bring us back to capacity building, both professional and "appropriate" infrastructure. And an interesting tweet I read this morning in the same context: ""In India, when we want the elephant to grow, we feed the elephant. We don't weigh the elephant." attributed to an Indian educator. David Porter, Executive Director, BC Campus Finding a funding model that works well for deans and department heads. Myron Allen, University of Wyoming 3

4 Trying to keep innovation and collaboration in the forefront as different units retreat to their own turf and protect legacy models. Gary Langer, Minnesota State Colleges and Universities Not being on the teaching side I sometimes need to remind my colleagues that the technology is still only a tool. It is up to them to develop and deliver meaningful content. -- Michael Brown, Northern Wyoming Community College District Sheridan College / Gillette College / Buffalo Outreach The most important questions for me right now relate to a need for synthesized data developed in our field of practice (based on experience) that answer these questions: (1) What do we know about the best models to scale online degree programs? For example, what is optimal class size? How many annual starts work best? Etc. (2) What do we know about how much of our revenue should be consumed by fixed versus variable costs? Are their revenue thresholds where we optimize profitability? For example, if we are a $5 million program, what percentage of this revenue should be consumed by instructional and operational support costs? Does the proportion consumed by cost move downward as we increase revenues, e.g., to $10 million, or $20 million? (3) Are up to date synthesis papers available, designed for faculty, that (a) provide the state of what we know about online learning and (b) provide guidelines on best practices for teaching online. Patricia A. Book, Ph.D., University of Northern Colorado I second the statement that learner support is an important issue. I specifically point to the lack of it in many course syllabi, the absence of links to relevant websites like Study Guides at and Chemeketa CC Study Skills Resources at Also the absence of workshops to help online course instructors integrate learning and study strategies and Just in Time intervention in their courses. -- Frank L Christ, Emeritus CSU Long Beach Not only should the quality of the online content, delivery, and support of distance/online/hybrid education be equal (at the very least, equal) to traditional environments, but be perceived and accepted by the professoriate as such. David Kendrick, University of Northern Colorado My answer: managing expectations. Policy makers and some administrators expect to save and/or make money through distance/online education. Other administrators worry about online courses cannibalizing the regular FTE that drive formula funding. Faculty... well, get four faculty members in a group and you have at least six sets of expectations (and you all know what they are). Students and, increasingly, their parents expect to be able to take at least some courses online. Citizens (including potential non traditional students) expect access. In tight financial times, we are advised to quit trying to be all things to all people, but that way madness lies. The challenge is to be seen as being the right things to the right people. Whatever that may be.... Peg Wherry, Extended University, Montana State University I'll add a "ditto" for Peg's answer. Managing expectations Connie Broughton, WashingtonOnline, Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges 4

5 Bingo. It seems to me that what you describe here, Peg, is a conceptual framework in which a lot, perhaps most, of the other issues I ve seen raised fit. I may reuse your phrase of the right things to the right people at some point. Nicely put Keith F. Lynip, Continuing Education at The University of Montana I am also in complete agreement with Peg and other issues brought up by our colleagues. In addition,...tight budgets put additional pressures on our faculty to teach more, do more, while being offered very little or no incentives. This includes creating whole online courses "from scratch". Finding creative ways to motivate overloaded instructors is a challenge in itself Ana Thompson, Casper College Responses from the Wisconsin Conference on Distance Teaching and Learning (All responses were anonymous) To initiate and sustain the collaboration of all groups involved in online instruction and continuing education on our campus for planning, development, marketing and implementation. Proprietary CMS is an issue would like to see a move to open content. Budgets. The Economy! People trying to teach the same way they ve always taught, not using technology well. Trust Class size and maintaining balance b/c scheduling for both online and on campus is done in the same place. 5