Online Learning: Reaching Out to the Skeptics - Advice - The Chronicle of Higher Education
Teaching is so complex that categorical distinctions—traditional courses are superior; online, inferior; or vice versa—are far too simplistic to take seriously as a basis for institutional decision making.
Professionals with many years of experience and a track record of proven success should be allowed, within appropriate boundaries, to exercise their own judgment about the best ways to reach their students. On the other hand, the rhetoric of traditionalism can sometimes be more than a legitimate assertion of time-tested personal experience; it can be a mask for understandable but counterproductive attitudes and emotions.
Thomas Benton's excellent article in the September 18th Chronicle of Higher Education is a well-reasoned discussion of how we should approach the topic of instructional delivery methods. Of particular interest are the seven goals.
Obviously, some faculty members have convictions that no amount of evidence to the contrary can change. But I think there are increasing numbers of teachers who, while mildly skeptical, are at least open to the idea of experimentation. Persuading them to recognize the possibilities of new technologies has at least seven interlocking components:1. Move away from a dichotomous view of teaching as online or face to face, and toward the idea that all courses can potentially involve both methods.
2. Create opportunities for consultation and collaboration among faculty members, librarians, and technologists.
3. Eliminate most of the uncertainties and technical problems faced by faculty members who would like to try new methods but don't know how and lack the equipment.
4. Provide continuing support to faculty members who experiment with new teaching methods, not just during the development phase of a course but throughout its implementation, so that teachers can learn and adapt "on the ground."
5. Find new ways to streamline the process of developing online content and managing courses to protect the time of faculty members.
6. Reduce the isolation of teachers by promoting the development of collaborative new-media projects—with students as well as other faculty members—as a legitimate and recognized supplement to traditional, solitary research production.
7. Show the effectiveness and complementarity of different approaches to teaching, taking care that assessment instruments do not skew the results.
And in conclusion, he really gets the obvious, but often ignored part of the job for those of us in the elearning support business.
Ultimately, the quality of the teacher and the effort put forth by the individual student are more important than any specific method. A method that fails for one person can succeed for another, and so I want to keep the chalkboard, the overhead projector, and the cross-legged conversation under the trees just as much as I'd like to see more faculty members supplement their traditional teaching with a variety of new-media and online projects.
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