I realize that Christopher's post dealt with the idea of sponsors stepping up to fund courses that were at risk of being cancelled due to budget limitations. But Annette's reply raised a different issue -- one that I keep confronting. She said "... I envision: a few enterprising people getting very rich teaching maybe 50 or 100 online courses a semester--same course offered through many colleges nationwide..." As if a few people could really teach 50 or 100 courses a semester!
For some reason people who do not teach online courses tend to view the online format as simply the construction of "robot courses" with videotaped lectures and automated testing. Once such courses are set up, the students take them in a self-paced manner and the instructor has nothing to do -- no "teaching" required. As one of my intro psyc students said on ratemyprofessor.com , "I took his class online, and he never had to lift a finger, the $165 book came with a web site that did everything (right down to midterms and the final)." This student could not have been more wrong but her impression matches that of some of my colleagues who feel we are getting away with something when we offer classes online. In their minds teaching is the giving of lectures; if you don't have to go into class to lecture then you aren't doing your job as a teacher. The comments on this thread about how distance education requires more time/effort of the instructor just doesn't sink in. Until it does, those of us willing to provide the online option simple won't get much respect. The reality is that high-quality online teaching requires a new skill set for instructors. Canned lectures are often of little value -- the students simply don't watch them. What is required instead is an online teacher presence. We are still working out the details but teacher presence appears to involve such actions as : (1) individual comments to each student in response to each homework submission, (2) personal messages to individual students acknowledging their work to date and encouraging future effort, (3) facilitating online class discussion in a way that stimulates (rather than dampens) group discussion of course material, (4) periodic messages to the class as a whole evaluating progress and providing direction for the work ahead, and (5) quick response to all student quiries indicating course-related concerns. Research to date indicates that online teacher presence is a critical feature of high-quality online instruction. But engaging in the actions described above becomes a serious challenge when class enrollments approach 100 or more. Recent articles in Inside Higher Education and Chronicle of Higher Education indicate that some major universities are beginning to take a serious look at online instruction (formerly viewed as a teaching mode engaged in only by cash-strapped community colleges). But as I read the articles, it seems that online education is still viewed as nothing more than traditional lecture mode with the lectures placed on the web, maybe followed by a brief chat session. I don't get it. Don't any of these "ivy-league" types bother to read the research on instructional methodology? IMHO we all are going to witness an expansion of pedagogical strategies to encompass interactive web-based techniques of teacher-student communication, online simulations, broader acceptance of ebooks, and so on. And this should all be to the students' advantage. But the hurdles entailed in such progress are associated with a substantial degree of inertia, disbelief, misunderstanding, misinformation, and perhaps a bit of fear of the unknown. Is it just me or do some of you suffer from the same angst with this issue? Side note to Annette: I am sure you are well aware of the points I just made, so please don't think I placed you among the misinformed folks who have not experienced online instruction. You just happened to be the one who pushed my button on this issue. --Dave ___________________________________________________________________ David E. Campbell, Ph.D. d...@humboldt.edu http://www.humboldt.edu/~campbell/psyc.htm --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
