Creating an effective online learning environment: a shift in the pedagogical paradigm.

Gupta, Sanjay ; Eastman, Jacqueline K. ; Swift, Cathy Owens 等

ABSTRACT

The emergence of the Internet and the World Wide Web has significantly changed every aspect of business. Education, too, has changed considerably as evidenced by the exponential increase in online courses. Online courses offer numerous advantages over traditional courses to administrators, instructors, and students. However, while the use of online courses is increasing, it remains unclear whether the pedagogical and learning approaches, that are required to make these courses effective, are keeping pace with the ability to deliver such courses.

The primary objective of this paper is to describe the growth and development of distance education, discuss the three dimensions of teaching online courses, examine some of the issues and concerns for faculty teaching online courses, and provide some implications for faculty either teaching or considering teaching online courses.

INTRODUCTION

Distance education has experienced exponential growth in the past decades. An increasing number of universities, both large and small, currently offer entire degree programs in a distance learning environment. More than half of the 2,215 four-year colleges and universities in the U.S. offer distance-learning courses (Gubernick and Ebeling 1997; Vasarhelyi and Graham 1997). In 1998 there were 710,000 students taking distance education classes and that number is expected to climb to 2.2 million in 2002 (Koury 2000). While total college enrollments are increasing at a rate of about 2% per year, distance education enrollments are increasing at a rate of approximately 30% per year (Bertagnoli 2001).

The most recent development in distance education is the use of online courses delivered through the Internet. Three major factors have spurred the growth of online courses. First, the cost of education has soared, and universities are seeking more economical methods of course delivery. Second, compression technologies, increased computing power and speed, reduced costs, and an increased comfort level with technology have increased the ease of learning online. Third, the remarkable growth of part-time, non-residential, non-traditional students has further increased the demand for these courses since these students do not have the flexibility to enroll in traditional courses (Hubbard 1997; Green 1996; Schwartz 1995).

Growth in online courses and programs appears to be strongly supported by administrator's motivations of increased enrollments and perceived cost savings. In addition, recent research indicates that the quality of online education is as effective as the traditional classroom format (Borthick and Jones 2000; Schulman and Sims 1999). However, in spite of the continued strong growth in online courses and the advantages it offers, reaction from academic circles has been mixed at best. The American Federation of Teachers (AFI) has publicly voiced concerns about online courses and has asked its members to oppose such technology-based programs unless they are sure that quality standards are being met (Blumenstyk 1996). Faculty members have raised concerns about job security, lack of personal interaction with students, and decrease in the quality of education when online learning technology is used. Thus, although the use of online courses is increasing, it remains unclear whether the pedagogical and learning approaches that are required to make these courses effective, are keeping pace with the ability to deliver such courses.

The primary objective of this paper is to describe the growth and development of distance education, discuss the three dimensions of an effective online course, examine some of the issues and concerns for faculty teaching online courses, and provide some implications for faculty either teaching or considering teaching online courses.

GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF DISTANCE EDUCATION

While it may appear that distance education is a relatively recent educational phenomenon, it can actually be traced back one hundred and fifty years. Distance education has developed in four generations (Bates 1995) [Exhibit 1]. The first generation models originated in the nineteenth century, used only one technology, and used the traditional model of education, which involved transferring knowledge from professor to student, and in which the student was viewed as an "empty vessel." These early models required little or no interaction between the instructor and the student, were delivered either in print, or via radio or television, and were normally broadcast once with the student having to "attend class" at the time it was broadcast.

The 1960s witnessed the development of the second generation and involved the use of multiple technologies, such as audio and video-cassettes. Again, communication was primarily one way with occasional interaction by phone, fax and mail.

The third generation, starting in 1985, began new delivery methods involving multiple technologies, including the computer, CDs, e-mail, chat rooms, bulletin boards, video conferencing, and audio conferencing. Many universities began to deliver courses to multiple sites, and two-way communication was possible, involving increased interaction between the instructor and the student.

The fourth generation (1995 to current) is similar to the third generation except for the development of high-bandwidth computer technologies, and the ability to provide increased synchronous interactions. Due to the limited bandwidth available today, however, most delivery methods are still using third generation technology. It is expected, however, that these new models for distance education will expand dramatically in the near future (Dolence and Norris 1995).

THREE DIMENSIONS OF TEACHING AN ONLINE COURSE

Effective online courses have three important dimensions: information dissemination (of course material, course content, and additional sites), communication (by e-mail, discussion groups, and chat rooms) and class management (tracking attendance, recording progress, evaluating performance, and providing feedback) (McCormack and Jones 1998). [Exhibit 2]. Each of these dimensions is discussed in detail below.

Information Dissemination

An important aspect of disseminating information effectively is the selection of an appropriate text for the course. When selecting a text for an online course, it is critical for an instructor to evaluate the online resources available with the text. A text that includes supplemental material such as PowerPoint slides, online tutorials and quizzes, links to other related sites and resources, answers to alternate problems, and open-ended case discussion type questions, makes the course more informative and creates an intellectually stimulating environment that facilitates learning.

While traditional courses allow faculty the flexibility to modify course material and schedules during the semester, an online course has to be essentially fully completed prior to starting the semester. While designing and developing an online course, an instructor needs to be aware of factors such as course layout, ease of navigation, and strategies for promoting interactivity. Course content should be organized or broken down into small chunks for better manageability. In addition, structure is even more important in online courses than traditional courses. The requirements and expectations of the course need to be outlined clearly in the syllabus. Assignments need to be specific with regard to submission deadlines and grading policy. Instructors should be mindful of the objectives of the course, the content and structure they use to achieve these objectives, and the audience (students) to whom they are delivering the course.

Some content is typically more appropriate than others in an online environment. Material that allows, in fact encourages, debate, discussion, and an exchange of ideas is very appropriate. The use of open-ended case discussions, where students were required to take a position and defend it, is particularly effective.

Online access to various sources allows a wide array of information to be accessible to students. This increases the likelihood that relevant information can be integrated in assignments involving problem solving. As opposed to traditional paper assignments in a classroom setting, performance is not limited by what a student remembers but by how effectively a student can access relevant sources and integrate the information and concepts in responding to a particular assignment.

Communication

In an ideal online environment, an instructor assumes the role of facilitator rather than a lecturer or a dispenser of information. Rather than presenting information, the instructor should ensure that relevant information is integrated into the assignment, that misdirection and misunderstanding of the nature of an assignment is attended to promptly, and that all discussions end with a summary of a group's progress on an assignment (Harasim et al. 1995).

In an online environment, students participate and contribute to class discussions without being inhibited or distracted by other students. The absence of social cues, such as gender, skin color, age, and accent, prompts greater focus on the assignment and creates an environment where the student is "judged solely on the basis of achievement" (Davie and Wells 1991).

The quality of online discussions tends to be of a high level, since students have the opportunity to reflect on and edit their comments before posting them for other students to see. Moreover, since all class discussions can be logged, note taking becomes unnecessary and students can devote their energies to participating constructively on class assignments and discussions rather than taking notes. It also permits students who may have been inactive for a certain period of time to catch up.

In order to encourage communication among students it is important to establish a clear protocol early in the semester. If an instructor is using teams, which is highly recommended, students should be told to discuss issues and questions among their team members first, using their group discussion boards. If this fails to resolve the issue, they should post their comments on the class discussion board and allow other students to comment. If this too fails, the instructor can be approached to mediate, discuss, and/or resolve the issue.

This approach has several advantages. It encourages students to discuss problems and concepts in an attempt to answer their questions rather than simply approaching the instructor for a quick-fix solution. This reinforces learning and fosters a collaborative learning atmosphere, which is more likely to be effective in preparing students for the current work environment than the traditional lecture format (Raelin 1997; Leidner and Fuller 1997; Macdonald 1995). Recent research indicates greater student participation in on-line courses than in traditional face-to-face courses (Borthick 2000; Hiltz and Wellman 1997).

In order to encourage student participation and provide them with an incentive to attempt to resolve other students' questions and concerns, it is imperative to assign some part of the student's grade to participation. Based on our experience teaching online courses, students will step up to resolve issues among themselves and the instructor gradually assumes the role of a facilitator as the semester progresses.

Information about the basics of "netiquette" should be communicated early in the semester and students should be reminded that without visual cues such as body language or smiles, their comments could sometimes be misunderstood. For instance, students should know that capital letters should only be used for emphasis; otherwise, it appears as if the author is yelling.

In order to initiate discussions on a particular topic, the instructor can either pose a question to which students respond, or ask students to respond to a particular assignment. Instructors should monitor the discussion forum, but do not need to respond to every discussion post. However, the instructor needs to let the student know that he is reading the discussion by occasionally commenting on student entries. The instructor should also look for "teaching opportunities" by posting thought-provoking comments and should attempt to keep the discussion going by prompting inactive students to participate in ongoing discussions. Once the discussion is over, the instructor should lock that particular discussion area. Students are unable to post any further discussions to a discussion area once it has been locked, but can review past assignments and discussions; thus, it serves as an invaluable reference tool, similar to a classroom library.

In order to duplicate as much of the traditional classroom experience as possible, the instructor can also provide a chat room for the class. The chat room offers an opportunity for students to communicate in "real time" with each other and helps in the development of a learning community. Individual private chat rooms can also be set up for students to interact with guest speakers.

The two most significant disadvantages of communication in an online environment are students' difficulty in following multiple conversations and occasional technical glitches resulting in loss of connectivity. Multiple conversations are unavoidable in an online environment. By the time a student composes a response or comment to a particular ongoing discussion, there may have been several comments posted in the interim or the discussion may have shifted to a different topic. This may cause the discussions to appear disjointed. Some ways to reduce this apparent problem and make discussions easier to follow is to prompt students to follow the practice of making explicit references to antecedent discussions, particularly when some time had passed since the antecedent discussion. Also, a facilitator should point students toward discussions that have been insufficiently dealt with and help students reach closure of a discussion topic.

Occasional losses of connectivity also are inevitable. Short outages appear to have minimal effect on the students. Also, students seem appeased by being informed of the cause and steps taken to avoid a recurrence (Borthick and Jones 2000). If there are long lapses in connection, instructors are advised to be flexible regarding due dates for assignments.

Class Management

There are several components of class management: tracking attendance, recording progress, evaluating performance, and providing feedback. Instructors can track student participation either by the number of original or follow up posts to the discussion board, by the number of times a student visited a particular course site, or the length of time the student was logged on to a particular segment of the course. The last two features can provide some important cues to the instructor besides tracking student participation. If a particular segment is being accessed a lot more frequently than others or if students are spending an inordinate amount of time on a particular topic, it might indicate that students either find the material challenging, do not understand the assignment related to that segment, or have technical problems with that segment.

Instructors can also post grades for all assignments online, enabling students to track their progress at any given point in the semester. Students can also compare their individual grades for any particular assignment relative to other students since most online platforms report grade distributions, mean, and median scores.

ISSUES AND CONCERNS FOR INSTRUCTORS TEACHING ONLINE COURSES

Faculty who are either teaching or considering teaching online courses for the first time, need to be aware of certain issues and concerns. One of the greatest impediments to teaching online courses is the significant start-up time required to either develop a new course or transform an existing course to an online course. The increased time involvement is especially a concern for junior untenured faculty who are expected to publish and have an active research agenda. If administrators responsible for making tenure and promotion decisions do not recognize the increased time commitment necessary for teaching online courses and are resistant to providing release time, faculty proposing to teach these courses may not be favorably inclined to do so.

Another problem related to teaching online is that both students and instructors will almost certainly encounter technical problems. Occasionally, pages designed using one Internet browser, may not be displayed properly if students use another browser. Students may also have difficulty downloading additional information that instructors put on their online courses, such as audio or video files, due to slower modem connections. Furthermore, networks will go down from time to time, hard drives will crash, and Internet Service Providers may occasionally fail to "provide".

Another issue of importance for faculty members is intellectual property rights. Although faculty have property rights to their own research, it is less clear who has property rights to course design and materials (Banas and Emory 1998), particularly if the University provided resources such as release time, equipment, and training to develop the course. Some institutions believe that instructional materials produced for a specific course belong to the institution. In fact, it has been suggested that in the future, institutions will require faculty to assign all copyrights on course material to the university as a condition of employment, similar to the policy on patents (Noble 1998). Unless issues about ownership and rewards are resolved mutually, this can be a serious impediment to the continued growth in online education.

Finally one of the greatest impediments of teaching online courses is for instructors to replace their traditional role as a "sage on the stage" in favor of a "guide on the side". While most traditional face-to-face courses are instructor-centered, online courses are student-centered. Faculty, who for decades have been conditioned to hold center-stage, are required to instead be good facilitators in order to be effective at teaching online courses. This may be the greatest hurdle that instructors may have to overcome to be effective online instructors. If instructors are able to make this shift, they may be rewarded with greater and richer student involvement in the course.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR FACULTY

In conclusion, despite the concerns about online learning, it does provide an opportunity for more diverse, larger numbers of people to participate in higher education. As universities grapple with increasing costs and decreasing enrollments, online education can extend the reach of the university. Online courses offer numerous advantages compared to traditional course offerings. Since online courses are independent of location and time, they are accessible to students that are unable to attend traditional courses at a specific location and at specific times. Students can access course materials, participate in class discussions, submit assignments, and view grades, anytime and from any location. This is perhaps the most significant advantage offered by online courses vis-a-vis traditional courses.

Online courses are designed to impart skills that are usually not apparent in traditional courses. Businesses today want to emphasize problem solving skills, team skills, interdisciplinary knowledge, information processing, and mastery of technology that is integral to learning. In the traditional classroom, however, instructor's present information (in the form of lecture) and students are responsible for demonstrating that they have acquired it. Online courses, on the other hand, provide access to greater source and assignment materials and encourage students to address problems and concepts, rather than to simply remember the information presented.

Recent research has documented an increase in student participation for online courses versus traditional face-to-face courses (Hiltz and Wellman 1997). Increased active participation by online students, involving discussing and doing, rather than passive participation, in the form of receiving lectures in a traditional course, is associated with increased learning. Recent research has also found that online courses are as effective as traditional courses (Borthick and Jones 2000; Schulman and Sims 1999) with respect to achieving learning objectives.

Contrary to Drucker's opinion, online learning will not replace the traditional classroom. We don't believe that online learning will replace the traditional classroom. Higher education has diverse learning goals that require a multifaceted array of educational strategies. Since the learning needs of students are also diverse, providing options for all of those students will be essential. The market for online education will continue to expand into the next century and business faculty who want to stay in the forefront of education would be wise to embrace the opportunities offered by this exciting new teaching and learning paradigm.

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Sanjay Gupta, Valdosta State University

Jacqueline K. Eastman, Valdosta State University

Cathy Owens Swift, Georgia Southern University