Students learn effectively in online settings

[The] U.S. Department of Education released a report that, at least at first glance, carries a strong message about the medium: Students learn more effectively in online settings. Most powerful of all appear to be “blended” courses that offer both face-to-face and online elements. Previous research has generally found that online and offline courses are equally effective.

I had been thinking about testing a blended approach, and this report in the Chronicle, from which I excerpted the above paragraph, gives me that much more of an incentive to do that for the winter term. However, I wonder if the university will be ok with me teaching one class completely online, and another in a blended mode, and only one as a "regular" class. If the university is ok with that, then I am looking at an exciting winter term from this pedagogical attempt ....

The report also notes that:

“This report should not be interpreted as saying that one medium is better than another,” says Barbara Means, a director of the Center for Technology in Learning at SRI International, a California research firm that conducted the project under contract with the Education Department. “This should not be interpreted as saying that computers are better than professors.”

Instead, Ms. Means says, the study offers evidence that particular kinds of online instructional techniques are effective—and some of those techniques, she suggests, could theoretically be imported into old-fashioned chalkboard classrooms. For example, the study found that in online courses, students often spend more time directly engaging with the course content than do their counterparts in traditional classrooms. But in theory, there is no reason why traditional courses could not be redesigned to increase students’ “time on task.”

In other words, it’s the instructional technique that matters, not the technology, just as Mr. Clark proposed decades ago.

Or, to put it another way: If online courses are more effective than their face-to-face counterparts, it may be because the new setting forces instructors to break out of stale teaching habits, and not necessarily because computers are an intrinsically superior medium.

Ahem, I don't think I had any "stale" teaching habits that I got rid of. Wait a minute, I don't think I have any stale teaching style even now :-)

Have a fantastic Fourth of July cookout and, if you are like me, well, I bet you too are thankful that you live in the paradise that the Willamette Valley is--except for the four weeks of grass seed pollen!!!