What’s the Problem with Online Education?

Recent studies have demonstrated that online courses, properly handled, can meet and even exceed educational standards established by traditional face-to-face courses. So why aren’t more schools embracing this potentially powerful educational weapon?

Several barriers stand in the way of widespread use of online education. Some barriers relate to enrollment in distance education programs. Rezabek (as cited in Muilenburg & Berge, 2001) grouped these barriers into three broad categories. “Situational barriers result from an individual’s general situation or environment, and include such issues as transportation, age, time constraints, and family responsibilities. Institutional barriers are created by an institution’s programs, policies, and procedures, and include problems with admissions, registration, scheduling of courses, financial aid, and support services. Dispositional barriers result from an individual’ s personal background, attitude, motivation, learning style, and self-confidence.”

Also in the Muilenburg study, Leggett and Persichitte were cited as identifying five basic barrier categories to the implementation of technology in K12 classrooms: time, access, resources, expertise, and support. Muilenburg and Berg’s study, through the study of a myriad of other resources, developed their own list which ultimately identified a total of 64 categories of barriers which the authors used as survey questions for their study.

Berg (1998) identified multiple barriers to online education, including:

· "faceless" teaching

· fear of the imminent replacement of faculty by computers

· diffusion of value traditionally placed on getting a degree

· faculty culture

· lack of an adequate time-frame to implement online courses

· many distance learners who lack independent learning skills and local library resources

· lack of formalized agreements to sustain program commitment though difficulties and problems

· high cost of materials

· taxpayer ignorance of the efficacy of distance education

· lack of a national agenda, funding priority, and policy leadership

· increased time required for both online contacts and preparation of materials/activities

· the more technologically advanced the learning system, the more to go wrong

· non-educational considerations take precedence over educational priorities

· resistance to change

· lack of technological assistance

One definite barrier to online education is the attitude of the instructor toward technology. According to Christiea and Juradob (2009), educators have historically been slow to embrace emergent technology. “Older teachers required time to adapt to the use of overhead transparencies even when they instinctively knew that it was pedagogically smarter to show a picture of complicated equipment during a lecture than to try to describe it in words… It took time and a lot of trial and error before teachers made the next step to PowerPoint….” Christiea and Juradob went on to state that many teachers currently using PowerPoint technology were failing to use it for pedagogical reasons, but rather as speaker notes.  These users had not recognized the potential of the technology for illustration, engagement, or enhancement of their presentation. Similar problems exist with the current use of computer education.

Some might argue that it is fear of technology which impedes its general use more than any other barrier. “…the most critical obstacles reported in this survey appear related to persons' resistance to or fear of the many changes that must occur at the individual and organizational level. Add to these fears the lack of support for the changing roles of students and teachers and you have the ingredients that often lead to significant impediments to success in online education” (Berge, 1998).

Another key problem appears to be related to access. The best online program, if students are unable to access it, get it to work correctly on their home system or mobile device, or figure out how to use it, is worthless. This barrier is so pervasive, Lorenzo and Moore (2002) list access as one of the five pillars of quality online instruction. “One of the most comprehensive and experienced models of access-related issues can be found at the one of the oldest and largest providers of online education, UMUC… Merrily Stover, former Assistant Dean of Undergraduate Studies at UMUC, outlines the multifaceted structure of an institution focused on providing a full-range of services to make online learning easily accessible to students. For example, UMUC’s Student Success Center offers a full range of online orientations, 24-hour technical support, and easy web-based access to online courses and programs. The school’s Better Opportunities through Online Education Program helps low-income workers gain access to higher education.”

The good news is that educators are beginning to recognize the potential of the technology to provide high quality education to larger numbers of people. Institutes of higher education, public, private, and chartered K12 schools, and even state governments are beginning to offer, promote, and fund online education in vast numbers. Pedagogical changes are improving the quality of these programs, and organizations such as the Sloan Consortium are driving increased access and helping to overcome the digital divide. Unfortunately, it may take a generation for many of these barriers to be overcome. As digital natives graduate and join the ranks of educators and policy makers, I believe we will see a tremendous growth in online education and witness many of these barriers slipping away.

References

Berge, Z. L. (1998, Summer). Barriers To Online Teaching In Post-Secondary Institutions: Can Policy Changes Fix It? Retrieved May 3, 2012, from Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration: http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/summer12/berge12.html

Christiea, M., & Juradob, R. G. (2009). Barriers to innovation in online pedagogy. European Journal of Engineering Education, 273–279.

Lorenzo, G., & Moore, J. (2002, November). FIVE PILLARS OF QUALITY ONLINE EDUCATION. Retrieved May 3, 2012, from The Sloan Consortium: http://www.edtechpolicy.orgwww.edtechpolicy.org/ArchivedWebsites/Articles/FivePillarsOnlineEducation.pdf

Muilenburg, L., & Berge, Z. (2001). Barriers to Distance Education: A Factor-Analytic Study. The American Journal of Distance Education, 7-22.

Online Assessment: To Measure or Not to Measure

Assessment, both formative and summative is an important part of education. Unfortunately, distance education programs currently often lack appropriate strategies to test their effectiveness, which is one of the principle reasons for using formative assessments (Lockee et. al., 2002). It is essential that we consider ways to evaluate the effectiveness of online programs to ensure learning objectives are being met. 

Instructional design processes call for the development of assessment strategies early in the planning stages of a learning unit, whether online or face-to-face (Morrison et. al, 2011). Developing assessments along with your learning objectives can help you clarify what you want learners to learn, and can help you find appropriate ways to ensure your instruction is effective in meeting these objectives.

While it is necessary to measure the effectiveness of online courses, it is not always necessary or even productive to measure the effectiveness of every activity performed by students in an online environment. When attempting to measure student performance, some elements of online learning are difficult to score. So much goes on in online education, scoring all of it can be a monumental task. Bonk (2010) cautions listeners against attempting to grade everything students do online. While some tasks lend themselves to automated scoring, such as objective tests, constructed-response activities including blogs, discussion boards, and written assignments currently require human intervention to score (Saint-Germain, 2009). This type of assessment requires construction of a rubric to measure student performance. Scores are still often very subjective in nature. Bonk (2010) suggests alternatives to time-intensive grading of every such activity. Scoring of discussion board activity, for example, might simply be a participation grade. Students receive points for doing the activity, regardless of quality. Other scores might be based on a mixture of quality and quantity. Students expect and even demand feedback on their performance. When you do choose to score an online activity, be sure to supply meaningful feedback along with the score.

Effective online instruction will have built-in assessment measures to ensure the course is effective at meeting learning objectives, but effective online educators cannot and should not spend all their time scoring student activities for the sake of assigning a grade. It could be argued that new learning methods call for new educator strategies, and perhaps the time for measuring student performance by a score. Online education provides the opportunity for students to document learning through other means, such as through an ePortfolio or wiki site. Colleges and prospective employers can review such indicators to see a student’s growth over time, and these methods provide a much greater insight into the depth and diversity of a student’s learning experiences than a transcript of grades could every provide.

References

Bonk, Curtis (2010). Assessing Student Online Learning. Indiana University. Retrieved April 27, 2012 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nfDOPaw_8

Lockee, Barbara, Moore, Mike, and Burton, John (2002). Measuring Success: Evaluation Strategies for Distance Education. Educause Quarterly. Retrieved April 27, 2012 from http://bb91a.tamut.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-8367-dt-content-rid-107047_1/xid-107047_1

Morrison, G., Ross, S., Kalman, H., and Kemp, J. (2011). Designing Effective Instruction. John Wiley & Sons, NJ.

Saint-Germain, Michelle (2009). Assessment Quickies #6: Matching Assessment to Teaching and Learning. California State University. Retrieved April 27, 2012 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0S22TOBZGIM&feature=related

Playing Games in the Classroom – the Role of Simulations and Game Play in K12

I have long been a proponent of the use of video-games in education. As a mother of students with learning challenges, I was often surprised at the intensity my sons applied to their video-game pursuits; failing and retrying a multitude of times without hint of frustration. This same intensity was absent from their school applications. My sons frequently failed to apply themselves to a school based assignment out of fear of failure no more threatening than that which they faced undauntingly during gaming. Seeing this contradictory behavior made me realize that something about the virtual environment of their games engaged them more deeply in the process while disengaging them from the stigma associated with failure. They approached the game with a determination to conquer it. I am convinced that this engagement and determination is what is missing from traditional educational approaches. If we can find a way to simulate that through educational use of game play in the classroom, I believe we can revolutionize education.

Few studies have been conducted on the effective use of video-based game play in the classroom. Part of the reason for this is the negative attitude toward game play by educators in general. “Many school leaders and teachers react negatively to video games and gaming culture, bashing video games as diversionary threats to the integrity of schooling or as destructive activities that corrupt moral capacity and create a sedentary, motivation-destroying lifestyle” (Halverson, 2005). Halverson goes on to say that the problem is exacerbated by the standards-driven environment we have embraced in the light of No Child Left Behind and other such legislation. “Standards specify what to teach; school leaders and teachers construct efficient pedagogies and learning environments to teach it.”

An and Bonk (2009) discuss the components necessary for developing educational games that will engage student in learning. They are proponents of a context-based rather than content-based approach. By this the authors mean that learning needs to be authentic and meaningful, surrounding a realistic situation or problem, rather than disconnected facts to be committed to rote memory. “Context is more important than content since learning is a process of ‘developing abilities to see, think, do and be in the world,’ rather than accumulating discrete facts (Squire, 2005b, p. 19).” This seems to be in direct opposition to the standards-based curriculum of the classroom, which demands a content-first approach. However, if approached correctly, I believe video-games and simulations can be used to teach directly to standards and can improve student retention and learning.

Steen (2008) cites research that demonstrates that learning increases proportionately with our interaction with the material. According to his example, a teacher utilizing visuals with lecture and textbook reading assignments might expect students to retain 50% of the materials being taught. This teacher can dramatically increase student retention to 70% by incorporating a class or small group discussion. Learning increases to 80% if students are allowed to experience the material. This is the realm of the video-game.

Part of the resistance to video-game use in the classroom is that there is not an efficient way to assess or measure learning, and in fact, students might learn at different rates or fail to apply what they have learned to school-related concepts. Halverson (2005) states that video games “provide inefficient and unpredictable environments for learning school-based material and have learning outcomes that are difficult to map onto curriculum standards. Learning in endogenous video games can be a protracted and indirect affair with a steep learning curve when compared with standard curriculum units on mathematical fractions, Egyptian history, or European expansion.”

Halverson (2005) goes on to explain that the cure for this lies in the way teachers facilitate the lesson. He feels that teachers can extract valuable lesson plans from existing commercial video games through several steps. His first suggestion involves mapping the learning potentials of commercial games to existing standards-based content. “Commercial endogenous games require an integrated lesson design that incorporates the depth of gaming insights into standards-based school environments.”

The second step outlined is to change the structure of the traditional classroom to allow for facilitation of learning from the game to derive the desired content. “The role of the learning environment in a traditional school setting is to provide a context to make structured content accessible to students; the role of the learning environment in an endogenous game-based setting is to scaffold prompts for helping students construct legitimate analogies between what can be learned in the game and what schools need to teach” (Halverson, 2005).

Next, Halverson (2005) suggests using the built-in risk-taking and controlled failure of the games as an authentic measurement for assessment of learning. “Designing environments to integrate games into schooling can thus draw on the assessment devices already built into games. The technology of multi-player gaming, for example, generates tangible records of prior game moves in the form of discussion threads that can be used to spark reflection on the assumptions behind earlier game moves (see, for example, the Rise of Nations Universe site). Learning environment designers can use these public representations of game-based information to discuss school-based learning outcomes. The arguments players develop online to defend in-game moves open valuable windows into the players' thinking processes. The outcomes of game-play also provide authentic artifacts of student learning that can be used as summative evaluations of learning.”

Halverson’s (2005) final suggestion may seem a bit over the top, but it makes sense if educators are to attend to the other suggestions. He proposes that in order to best learn how to use commercial games in education, educators need to play them. “…nowhere is the current generational gap in technology greater than in game literacy, and while asking school leaders and teachers to play commercial video games may be a stretch, integrating game-based learning experiences in their professional development may help them see the merits of gaming from the inside.”

I am convinced that educators need to devote some time to research the potential for use of commercially available video-games for education, and instructional designers need to become aware of the need for authentic game-based learning experiences and build games designed to meet standards-based instructional needs which are engaging for students to play.

References

An, Yun-Jo and Bonk, Curtis J. (2009). Finding that SPECIAL PLACE: Designing Digital Game-Based Learning Environments. TechTrends, Vol. 53, No. 3.

Halverson, Richard (2005). What Can K-12 School Leaders Learn from Video Games and Gaming? Innovate. Retrieved April 22, 2012 from http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=81.

Steen, Henry L. (2008). Effective eLearning Design. Merlot Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, Vol. 4, No. 4.

Exemplary Online Educators and a Community of Inquiry

The readings this week centered around best practices for educators in online teaching. Two of the readings (Garrison et. al., 2000; Perry & Edwards, 2005) discuss the importance of creating a “community of inquiry” in an online learning environment. Garrison defines three intersecting areas which create this community; namely a social presence, a cognitive presence, and a teaching presence.

Although the remaining reading by Liu et. al. (2005) examined actual practice rather than developing theory, the authors categorized instructor roles into four categories to determine how instructors interact with students and the learning environment. Three of the four categories, in my opinion, overlap the areas established by Garrison. The four roles listed by Liu were Pedagogical, Social, Managerial, and Technical.

The pedagogical role intersects with Garrison’s idea of the cognitive presence. The instructor interacts with the course to provide content and interacts with the students to facilitate learning. “The pedagogical roles of online instructors revolve around facilitating educational process for students’ understanding of critical concepts, principles, and skills. Such tasks include encouraging students’ knowledge-sharing and knowledge-building through interactive discussion, designing a variety of educational experiences, providing feedback, and referring to external resources or experts in the field.” Perry and Edwards (2005) focus on the cognitive presence of the teacher, examining three characteristics of online teachers within the cognitive domain. Exemplary online teachers were found to be challengers, affirmers, and influencers. These traits overlap well with the roles of feedback-giver and interaction-facilitator described by Liu in the pedagogical arena.

I feel that the courses I’ve taken with Dr. Aworura have had strong cognitive presence. Dr. A. does an excellent job of creating a “triggering event” (Garrison et. al., 2000) and facilitating students’ discussion and exploration of the topic to allow us to connect and apply new ideas.

Obviously, the social presence and the social roles of instructors overlap. Interestingly, although Garrison shows this to be of equal and overlapping importance to the other two areas in a community of inquiry, Liu’s report indicates that this area tends to be looked at as of less or minor importance by many of the online educators involved in that study. Liu cited lack of awareness of the importance of this role, concern about time constraints, and lack of technology as reasons for this apparent apathy toward developing a social presence.

In our program, I feel that great importance has been placed on the social aspects of our learning community. We take time at the beginning of each course to greet and get to know one another. Because of this, I’ve come to know many of my fellow students in a casual way and have a picture of them in my mind when I’m discussing course material with them. Our class discussions are strong, lively, and interactive. Students engage in “expressive but responsive, skeptical but respectful, challenging but supportive” (Garrison et. al., 2000) discussions where we encourage one another to think outside the box and dig deeper for understanding. I have enjoyed these exchanges and grown as a person because of them. Group activities have allowed us opportunities to work with one or more students in a closer way. Although the dynamics of asynchronous communication often complicate this process (and in some cases make it downright impossible), I have worked in several groups where we have had a great flow of ideas and have complemented one another’s strengths. This collaborative learning meets the goal specified in Garrison as drawing “learners into a shared experience for the purposes of constructing and confirming meaning.”

The teaching presence isn’t a perfect match with the managerial roles. Some of what Garrison defines as a teaching presence overlap more with the pedagogical role, but instructional management is a part of the teaching presence as defined, and the parallel is apparent. “When education based on computer conferencing fails, it is usually because there has not been responsible teaching presence and appropriate leadership and direction exercised” (Garrison et. al., 2000). The roles of conference manager and organizer and planner expressed by Liu are useful in establishing leadership and direction, but Garrison’s reference to building understanding may fall more into the cognitive presence.

In our program, I have seen Dr. A. establish and maintain a strong teaching presence. Even during my first couple of courses, when Dr. A. experienced a situation which took her outside the country into areas of limited internet connectivity, although she struggled to stay on top of all her teaching responsibilities, she was quick to respond to student messages, offered direction, and provided a well-organized environment and well-facilitated discussions. In contrast, I have taken online courses where the teaching presence was weak and where I felt isolated, like I was learning on my own. I do not feel these courses were as successful in stimulating my critical thinking skills, and I felt slighted, like I wasted my time in the class and could have learned as much without the tuition charge.

I work with teachers in other departments whose online courses amount to little more than “a correspondence course via email” (Roberts & Br anna n as cited in Perry and Edwards, 2005). These courses fail to establish any social presence, and the cognitive and teacher presences are limited. Students work in isolation on problems. Teaching is often limited to reading the text and completing assignments and assessments. Those teachers with a stronger understanding of the dynamics of online learning may offer multimedia support, additional offline resources, Powerpoint slide presentations of instructor notes, etc., but fail to establish any kind of community and do not facilitate discussion among students. It may be that the courses being offered do not lend themselves well to a rich online environment. I would be interested to sit in the face-to-face courses of these instructors to find out if their traditional classrooms are focused on lecture and also lack discussion and student interaction.

The only area discussed by Liu for which there was not a parallel described in the Garrison model is the technical role. This role also lacks a parallel in traditional education. Educators have been asked to fill a role for which they are under-qualified and unpaid. This is an unfortunate side-effect of online learning. Even under the best of circumstances with well-designed courses on robust learning platforms, students and teachers can experience technical difficulties beyond their control. Operating system and browser incompatibility, problems with plug-ins, viruses, and scheduled or unscheduled server shut-down can interrupt the flow of an online course, prevent the instructor from using powerful tools, and wreak havoc with student access. When students lack the skills necessary to troubleshoot their problems, the teacher is forced into the role of technical support and often has to try and resolve student issues, redirect their inquiries, or find a work-around solution. In a small college like A&M Texarkana, there may be a lack of funds or resources to provide actual technical support staff. In future definitions of exemplary online educators, there may be a greater emphasis placed on the instructor’s ability to support the students with technical problems, although I do not feel this should ever become a routine part of their job description.

References

Garrison, D. Randy, Anderson, Terry, and Archer, Walter (2000). Critical Inquiry in a Text-Based Environment: Computer Conferencing in Higher Education. The Internet and Higher Education 2(2-3). Elsevier Science Inc.

Liu, Xiaojing, Bonk, Curt, Magjuka, Richard, Lee, Seung-hee, and Su, Bude (2005). Exploring Four Dimensions of Online Instructor Roles: A Program Level Case Study. American Education and Communication Technology (AECT) International Conference.

Perry, Beth and Edwards, Margaret (April 2005). Exemplary Online Educators: Creating a Community of Inquiry. Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education-TOJDE Volume: 6, Number: 2.