Online or Onsite? Teaching Mediation and Conflict Resolution

Transcription

1 Online or Onsite? Teaching Mediation and Conflict Resolution When I first started teaching online courses in mediation and conflict resolution in 2003 I had all the same reservations as everyone else did. How can you teach something with no real-time, face-to-face interaction when what you are teaching takes place mostly face-to-face and in real time? It s an inherent contradiction. In my eight years of online teaching, I ve found that three considerations contribute most to success: how closely an online course should resemble the weekly format of onsite courses; whether changes in technology and connectivity that have redefined the online environment should be incorporated into the course structure; how the responsibility students have for creating their own learning success increases for online courses. Let me state clearly that these comments are based only on what I learned from my experience with the courses I have taught. None of the courses focused on online mediation, so that area is not addressed. Law schools and other online programs might have very different approaches depending on their needs and populations, or they might use different software, or have bigger budgets, which will change the discussion. In a state school with shrinking budgets, expensive teaching materials are not part of our world. My decision to teach is based on my commitment to getting the skills and techniques of mediation into a wide range of situations besides court-ordered mediation, so while I may struggle with the limits, I also push to get past them. Why students study online. Students take courses online for reasons that are quite different from the reasons they take onsite courses. First, logistics. Some students can t be in the same place at the same time each week, so the lack of a fixed class schedule is the only way they can study. Deployed 1

2 military personnel, health care professionals, people on night shifts or who travel extensively, and people in all areas of law enforcement generally cannot participate in onsite classes. The lack of a fixed schedule allows students to work at their own convenience. Second, availability. Many students can t find onsite programs in their areas that meet their needs, for example, in Nepal where one of my students lives, so they study online or not at all. I am absolutely committed to helping people learn this material, so if I can reach someone in Nepal by teaching online, I will take that opportunity. In addition, studying online gives students the opportunity to work with experts who are not in their local area. Third, learning style. Some students don t need or want the face-to-face interactions of onsite courses, and they prefer studying independently. The online format simply suits their personalities, learning styles, or life circumstances best. Onsite programs are, in effect, limited to those who can show up and can work within the highly structured course environment. Online courses offer expanded opportunity and participation. The student population in the online program is much more divers because students all over the world participate, and the richness of their experiences adds enormously to the conversation. In addition, they take their new skills into very different workplaces, so the impact of mediation will grow. Course structure. The formal structure of onsite classes includes one particular criterion for success that is not part of an online course: attendance at a specific number of regularly scheduled, weekly meetings. I believe that the structure of online classes should take into account the reasons students take online courses in the first place logistics, availability, and learning style so I don t think the onsite structure translates all that well to online courses especially for this particular content. Online faculty members generally take one of two approaches to designing online courses: recreate as closely as possible the onsite experience familiar to both students and faculty, or 2

3 adapt the onsite structure and incorporate the best aspects of the technology on which online classes depend. Of course, the best of all possible worlds is the blended course, one in which much of the work is done independently and online and some live, on-site sessions are included. The onsite interaction creates relationships and provides the opportunity to do some of the role plays and simulations. There is a significant benefit to the blended course, but the logistical constraint means that most current online students couldn t participate. Some students determine the value of an online course by how closely it matches their previous onsite experience, however inappropriate that comparison may be. To recreate the onsite process, faculty members make weekly assignments and replace weekly discussions with weekly posts to discussion boards. This approach can work well depending on the course content, but it does not address the need for flexibility that is the primary reason students take online courses. The challenge is to find the best balance for both the students and the course content, a balance that may require more self-discipline from students than they are used to. During my first semester with 118 students, no experience and no training, I tried to recreate a classroom environment by conducting weekly, live, three-hour webinars, complete with a studio director and lots of guest speakers including a justice of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Many students logged on to the webinars and submitted questions, but I could not require real-time participation because the students were all over the world: Japan, Europe, the middle east. Instead, I could require that students watch the recording and write a response paper to my lecture. Recorded lectures and webinars made it easier for students to access and review the information on their own schedules, but the opportunity for real time questions or discussion was lost to those students. The next semester I lost the studio time, so I pre-recorded video lectures instead, posted them early in the course so that students could watch them at their own pace, and abandoned the weekly structure. In an attempt to replace the lost discussions, I tried another approach in a course on how war and ethnic conflict are portrayed in the media; I conducted a conference call 3

4 almost every week. Students in time zones that matched a time zone of the continental Unites States were required to participate. Other students listened to the recording and wrote response papers. Yes, that contradicted the independence of online learning but other benefits became apparent. During the conference calls, students recounted conflicts with members of other ethnic or cultural groups with amazing honesty. There was something about the intimacy of the voice in your ear combined with the anonymity of not being able to see anyone that allowed extraordinary discussions. The reviews were generally positive, but the calls may have been too long. I will use them again in a revised format. This combination is the closest thing to a blended course I am able to create. Many faculty members believe in assigning group projects as a way of using the technology to simulate the real-time exchange of the classroom. Since many students join online classes to take advantage of the independence of the format, creating interdependence frustrates that preference. In addition, many students want to work alone and get credit for their work without having to deal with others who may not contribute at the same level, so this approach doesn t always work. The skill set to manage online collaboration may not be there, commented Ray Jimenez, Ph.D., an expert in online learning programs and author of three books on the topic. Disagreements may make the course one more problem to deal with rather than a positive experience. My first experience with groups included all these issues. I decided to try groups again anyway as a way of supporting the development of relationships among class members, which is harder to do online than it is onsite where students can talk face-to-face each week. I divided the class into five virtual groups, and made two group assignments. Everyone dutifully completed the first group assignment. Four of the five groups have almost no other exchanges among group members although I set up methods for online discussions they could use independent of assignments. The fifth group continued to try exchanges in the form of live chats both of which ended abruptly when the software failed. Feedback indicates that the groups may not have been large enough, something I didn t anticipate. With a small number of students in the group, when some of them are 4

5 unresponsive the discussion can die. Also, people s lives are busy. If work isn t required, it may not be done, so chatting never becomes a priority. I scheduled an open and optional conference call. I had an agenda and asked a lot of questions mostly about how they were finding the process because most of the students had no particular questions they wanted to ask. Again, the primary value of the call was the availability of real voices talking in real time. Seven students logged on so it was easy to manage the conversation. You may be thinking about using webinars. A webinar module is built into the software, but many students and I work on Macs. The software doesn t support all the features making it hard to use. And if students can t find their s, and some of them can t, they won t be able to use a webinar feature easily. Introducing too many new technology options can create the impression that you have to be super knowledgeable about technology to succeed. When that happens, the technology has interfered with the learning, and the point of the coursework is secondary to the process. My courses are now organized around concepts rather than weekly schedules and are divided into phases that last three or four weeks, something like a structured independent study. Within each phase, students complete reading assignments and listen to recorded lectures at their own pace, post required comments to the discussion boards, and write a paper or take a short quiz at the end of that phase. The interim deadlines for assignments are imposed to be sure that students keep up with the work rather than leave it for the last week of the semester. The ability to participate in real time role plays or simulations is a significant benefit of onsite courses that cannot be reproduced in an online course without expensive equipment. To approach that real time experience, instructors have required that students videotape themselves conducting a mediation, an attempt to recreate the live interaction of role plays. Sometimes the assignment can go awry. One student commented that she was very pleased with how her friends read the script she had written, an attempt that did not exactly replicate the non-scripted dynamic of mediation. In addition, not all students have access to video equipment, so the tape may not be a fair requirement. I don t try to reproduce the experience of live simulations or role plays online. Instead, I focus on concepts and then ask students to apply the concepts and analyze 5

6 conflicts they either observed or participated in. They are also asked to write about times when they were able to apply what they learned. The stories they report about jobs and marriages saved because of something they learned in class couldn t be more rewarding, demonstrating that the online approach doesn t necessarily have to be as abstract as it seems. Technology. Technology can be a barrier to opportunity, said Dr. Jimenez. Once we group students into a class, the technology ceases to contribute to its fullest since its inherent design is for self-use. Both the barriers and opportunities have to be addressed. The opportunities are those that make online learning possible independence, flexibility, and accessibility. Three aspects of technology have created the most difficult barriers for me: the skill level of both students and instructor. the complexity of the software. the support available from IT. Skill levels Online courses can be a shock to students who are new to the process, especially if they don t use much technology at work. Not only must they learn the content, but they have to learn how to learn in a very different process as well. Part of our task as teachers is to teach them new methods of learning. Students in online courses generally have to become much more familiar with technology than onsite students, as do faculty. Most communications are conducted online, so knowing how to use is a basic necessity, but you d be surprised at how many of our constantly connected students are confused by simple s. Telling students they must check their university accounts frequently may not do any good if they don t know how to find the account. Telling students to use APA format for their papers may not be enough guidance if they don t know how to format a word processing document. And not knowing the difference between a file name and a document title can really create confusion. I know how it feels not to understand a technical process, so I spend more time on technical issues with students than I should, but if students are to learn, the technical 6

7 issues have to go away, and I am the one they contact first. At some point, no matter how I try to soften the message that my technical skills have reached their limit, suggesting that they contact IT for help can make students feel as if I don t care about the problem, which means not caring about them, and which is absolutely not the case. New students are particularly vulnerable to technical issues. The other problem is that students simply don t read instructions or look up answers on their own, or believe you when you tell them that not following instructions can cause the system to lose their exams. Use only Firefox to ensure receipt of your exam? It worked with IE before. Why did it dump my exam this time? Turn off all other programs and do not leave the exam because you have only one chance to take it? I got an I had to check. Can I have a second chance? Other excuses: The cat walked across the keyboard; I got a phone call and ran out of time; I typed everything in Word first. (These are all real.) The process of learning often requires a change in mindset, so we are not only teaching content, but a new way of learning a tall order, commented Dr. Jimenez. This semester my students are new to the program, new to the discipline, new to graduate work, and brand new to the process. Helping them be successful in the program means helping them be successful with the technology. For some students, that process will be very long and arduous. Software Software for our program has been upgraded and is more sophisticated, and at the same time, more frustrating. The software has modules for groups, live chats, webinars, wikis, blogs, journals, online exams and surveys, and probably a lot of other things I haven t even seen. The assumption is that people used to the constant connection and instant communications in other situations want the same thing in their classes. I m not sure I agree. Not everyone has experienced all the social media available, despite what the commercials tell you. Not every organization or profession uses technology the same way, so assuming everyone, including the instructor, is equally adept is not valid. 7

8 The difference in levels of expertise and comfort with software may also be a generational issue. Many graduate students are going back to school and are older than the plugged-in generation, and their work may not have required them to engage in technology very much. Different degrees of initial expertise level out after a few semesters, but the first exposure to the software can be a tough adjustment. And then there is the question of the instructor s time. The more you assign, the more you have to read and grade. If an assignment has been made, the only respectful response is to pay attention to it. If you are teaching part-time, do you have time to read all the blogs, diaries, papers, exams, and posts and let the single course become a fulltime job? Support If there is one rule about online teaching it is that you have to have good support services to have a successful course. Your IT department has to be, sympathetic, expert, and quick. Technology creates problems that cannot be addressed by the instructor, so frustration levels are very high for both students and teachers. Systems go down all the time, none of them convenient. Sometimes even scheduled maintenance seems to be done on a schedule that has little to do with teaching. One year every access code for students, faculty, and administrators was changed on the day classes started. So many people tried to update their access codes that the site crashed. Technology failures during tests are maddening. Students panic and the instructor scrambles to find a way to ensure a fair process when some students need access to the exam a second time. Last semester that took three extra days of pure technology workarounds on my part. General technology issues require ongoing attention that take away from teaching the material. Failures in basic components like live chat and exams don t encourage me to use more complex functions. Sometimes technical support assumes a knowledge base about technology that is inaccurate, and their advice to users is too complex to follow. The prospect of technology glitches can be such an impediment that good teachers give up in favor of what they know works, the semester-long, onsite course. Participants 8

9 comfort level with technology, or at least the frustration that goes with it, must be a primary consideration in the success of the course. Student responsibility. Whether students are in online or onsite courses, they have to create the learning environment they want, one that works best for their learning style. They have to take more initiative to manage the process, the relationships and the content than do onsite students, requiring more maturity and self-sufficiency. The instructor won t necessarily be able to identify and address student needs without the interaction of the classroom. For example, students who like the structure of onsite courses may be uncomfortable with the greater flexibility sometimes written into online courses. For students who miss the weekly approach, I have suggested that they create a personal weekly schedule. If something changes, they can adjust their learning without needing permission from me. Many students miss the interaction of debating issues in class. Frankly, so do I. For these students, live chats might work, or they can use s. I am going to try conference calls again because my written comments on papers cannot possibly convey my enthusiasm for their work or for the discipline, and until I hear the students voices, I may not be fully aware of issues that concern them. Students who want more contact with faculty members have to generate it. There are no classes to stay after to chat, no office hours to drop in on. I was told that online students want a very detailed syllabus and all the course material posted by the beginning of the course. Apparently, not posting new material periodically felt to some students like insufficient contact. I will address that, but I also wonder why only one student asked to schedule a phone call. In addition, students want that contact to be reasonably consistent, so distributing a document, posting a comment, or creating a new audio or video lecture about every two weeks seems to keep the connection current. I will also schedule onsite office hours every few weeks so that students who are local can drop by. The one change that I will incorporate into all classes is being quicker to ask for a phone number and arrange a time to talk, no matter how many time zones away a student may be. Hearing each other s voices in real time absolutely changes the student/teacher 9

10 dynamic for the better, and requesting the number demonstrates concern for the student that an can t. All of us who teach want to use the best techniques to give our students the most rewarding experience possible. Using advances in technology can be a benefit, especially something like an online library for a student, in, say, South Korea. On the other hand, an advance in technology can be more trouble than it is worth, but that is for each teacher to assess. I continue to teach online despite the frustrations because I think it is important for everyone to learn these skills, and if the choice is between online learning or no learning, then I ll keep teaching online. 5/23/11 9:31 AM 10