Curriculum spread too thin and, hence, inefficient?

This is not truly about online issues. But, the following excerpt, from a well thought out essay, (which is usually a rarity at insidehighered.com), makes a powerful argument--an argument when I make I am usually in a tiny minority :-) I recommend reading that entire essay.

Many institutions operate on the assumption that a wide selection of undergraduate courses is a core dimension of quality, and furthermore needed to recruit students to the institution. The reality may be much different. The majority of students satisfy their general education requirements by enrolling in relatively few courses. In most institutions, more than half of the lower-division credit hours are generated in 25 or fewer courses. The result is a few high-enrollment courses and a lot of low-enrollment courses.

Furthermore, there is mounting evidence that a more prescribed path through a narrower range of curricular options leads to better retention, since advising is more straightforward, scheduling easier to predict, and students are less likely to get lost in the process. A narrower curriculum is more coherent, can be better focused on learning outcomes, and is actually preferred by many students. So an educationally effective undergraduate curriculum is also the most cost-effective curriculum. Recognizing this opens up opportunities to address costs while improving attention to positive learning outcomes. Higher education doesn’t have to go to Henry Ford’s extreme (“any color you want as long as it’s black”) to take a lesson of sorts from the portions of the automotive industry who have managed to avoid bankruptcy, by bundling options and eliminating product lines to cut production costs without compromising customer satisfaction. In our own industry, well regarded for-profit institutions have satisfied customers who have had few choices in a streamlined, cost-effective curriculum. If quality is measured in terms of outcomes achieved, not appearances and status, attention to the undergraduate curriculum is a place to start looking for improvements.

The authors are looking at big research universities when they make these observations. But then even small universities like ours want to behave like the big guys.

A diversified curriculum is fantastic, yes. But, I wonder if that is more from a faculty perspective than a student's. Again, that is where I have found the online environment to be useful again--my class on South Asia did not attract students in the regular format. And I had to cancel the class once because of llllooooowww enrolment. But, as I noted in an earlier post, the same class quickly filled up in the online mode--a win/win for everbody.

Online MAT programs .... us, USC, and ????

Some time ago, perhaps even as much as two years ago, when USC launched the online MAT program and advertised it as the first in the country, I emailed that announcement to a few people in the COE. Naturally, they were surprised with USC's claim--hey, even we have had an online MAT for a while.

Anyway, that experience reminded me of what a professor of mine said in our first ever graduate class at USC--yes, that is where I earned my grad degrees. Martin Krieger wanted us to understand that in this world, it is not a question of what we say, but one of who says it. Thus, it is no surprise to me that nobody cares for my op-eds, even though I might (and I do) provide leading-edge analysis, even before, say, the master manipulator of metaphors does :-(

Similarly, it becomes a big deal when a leading research university does something online, while the online work done at smaller universities, including ours, barely registers a blip anywhere. The harsh reality of life, I guess.

No, I am not simply ranting and raving here. USC's PR announcement from July 9th states:

The MAT@USC cohort, which officially starts this summer, is a strikingly diverse group that reflects the school’s long-running commitment to promoting diversity in education.

One hundred and forty-four students from across the United States have enrolled in MAT@USC, the first online program of its kind to emerge from a major research university. The program creates an interactive online environment based on streaming video, animation and other Web 2.0 technologies.

Despite wide-ranging backgrounds, the incoming MAT@USC cohort shares a commitment to urban education and an enthusiasm for creating positive change.

Notice how they have carefully worked in the fact that it is the first of its kind from a major research university? It is the truth, the whole truth, .... :-)

Online purely for the locals?

When I was at California State University-Bakersfield, in addition to my faculty responsibilities I was also the director of the Environmental Resource Management program. Students could complete this program in the online mode, too, and the logistics of this was handled by the Extended University there. Most (all?) of the students in the online program were outside the local area--within the state, and outside. In fact, that was the prevailing rationale at that time: online was a way to bring in additional dollars.

Now, as has been the case at our own campus here, online teaching and learning is increasingly seen as primarily for the locals. Which is what this report in the Chronicle (free--no subscription required) is about:

"The regional publics, which are finding themselves more and more tuition-dependent, due to shrinking state resources, have found themselves in a very competitive environment where we need to adapt," says Robert J. Hansen, Southern Maine's associate provost for university outreach. "The average student is getting older and older, and they've got busy and very complicated lives."

Blended or hybrid courses that combine online and face time have been around for years. Now universities are surveying regional needs and blending whole programs, sometimes eliminating fully face-to-face options for courses.

Mr. Mayadas lays down a rule for localness money. At least 50 percent of classroom time must be pushed online (at the level of programs, not necessarily individual courses). How they get there varies. Some throw in fully online courses, blended courses that meet weekly, or hybrids that meet even less often.

Less Face Time

Robert J. Kaleta, director of Milwaukee's Learning Technology Center, has little doubt where are all this is going: "Three years ago, all of our degrees would have required this face-to-face contact in all courses. Ten years down the road, you probably won't have a class that requires just face-to-face contact."

I tell you, as I indicated in an earlier post, am all the more convinced that I should jump into offering hybrid classes starting in winter 2010. Try stopping me :-)

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!!!

"Cover it live" .... it is so cool!

I was reading a commentary by a medical professional/writer, Abraham Verghese, whose essays I have read and even used in my classes. An example, you ask? How about this one?
Wait, this is about teaching/learning/discussing online.... Just hang in for a few more sentences :-)

So, I was reading Verghese's comments on the health care reform issues, and in that he referred the reader to kevinmd.com for "an excellent discussion". The nerdy reader that I am, I faithfully followed that link.

And, this is where the technological aspect kicks in. At kevinmd.com I noticed an option to replay a live Q&A on health care reform. And at the bottom of that window were the letters "Cover it live". That was enough to trigger my curiosity, and hence this blog post.

The demo of how Cover it live works is simply too good to believe. And check out their complete demo library. It seems to be so easy to integrate real-time blogging with chat with Twitter with web-search with youtube .... The more I started exploring it, the more I can see how in a few years I could even have "real time" classes while sitting at home.
I did a quick search for whether it has been adopted in academic contexts. This blog (Classroom 2.0) has some recent (April/May 2009) discussions on it.

The speed at which all these technologies are coming up .... simply mind-boggling!!!

PS: BTW, if you read until here, you will be all the more interested to note that Abraham Verghese is, also, from India. His book on treating HIV patients in a remote corner of Tennessee was way too honest .... A wonderful read. Now, of course, it might seem dated, even though it is about the late eighties!

Using Blogs Instead of Course Management Systems

In my academic life, I have always marched to my own drum beat, and I get knocked down quite a bit for that. Add to this the researcher in me who constantly worries that I might not be correct after all. I tell you, contrary to appearances, there is a lot going on in my head. All the time :-)

My own drum beat in online teaching is perhaps best seen in how I have continued to refine my usage of blogger.com and reliance on emails for class interactions. Ideally I would have liked my students to also be ready and willing to discuss their understanding in an open environment--a transparent classroom. But, at least one student formally requested that our class interactions be private, as much as a "regular" class is behind closed doors. Fair enough, I thought, even though my preference is for openness.

I am, therefore, immensely pleased with this piece in the Chronicle. Way too pleased because it is about a day-long meeting to improve CUNY's online classes, in which a key idea was whether the free blogging software can take the place of course management software:

The meeting's focus was an idea that is catching on at a handful of colleges and universities around the country: Instead of using a course-management system to distribute materials and run class discussions, why not use free blogging software — the same kind that popular gadflies use for entertainment sites?

The approach can save colleges money, for one thing. And true believers like Mr. Groom argue that by using blogs, professors can open their students' work to the public, not just to those in the class who have a login and password to a campus course-management system. Open-source blog software, supporters say, also gives professors more ability to customize their online classrooms than most commercial course-management software does.

So, I am not alone.
You know what a relief that is? More than anything, it is impossible for every faculty to teach the same way--we differ in our teaching styles as much as, or even more than, how we differ in our learning styles. However, it feels good to know that there are at least a few others who are experimenting with, and finding success, in the same kind of things that I am trying. (Here is my blog for the online class that is coming to an end this spring term.)

The Chronicle piece also has an example:

To demonstrate how a blog might be used in a course, Zoë Sheehan-Saldaña, an assistant professor of art at CUNY's Baruch College, showed off the blog for her course "Designing With Computer Animation." Students posted their assignments on the blog so that other students — and people outside the class — could see them. Students were encouraged to post comments on one another's work as well.

Although new versions of Blackboard include a bloglike feature, Ms. Sheehan-Saldaña said there are benefits in teaching students to create blogs using systems they might encounter in future jobs.

Maybe soon I will be able to convince everybody registered in one of my classes about the sheer joy of working in this transparent classroom. But, as long as even one student has reservations about it, well, I need to treat online classes on par with regular classes and cannot impose openness. Once before, I tried partial openness--by including blogging as a requirement, as an assignment. But, that is not the same as a truly open classroom.

Now, I have even less of an incentive to experiment with Moodle :-)

I am not the only one who loves online teaching

I have fallen in love with this method of teaching. I feel more connected to my students than I ever have, and I feel needed and appreciated daily.

That is how the author of this opinion piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education concludes his essay. And, that is how I feel more and more with my online classes and students. So much so that next week I am lunching with a few online students who said "yes" to my suggestion that we meet and eat in the real world :-)

And how did that opinion piece start?

"Impersonal, disconnected, and unfulfilling." That is how I would have answered if you asked me 10 years ago what I thought of online teaching. As a teacher, I feed off the energy of the crowd and thrive on exciting and entertaining my students to the point of drawing even the most resistant into attending class. When the economy and my growing family necessitated that I teach online as well as in the classroom, I couldn't have been more surprised by the satisfaction and joy that could come from a distance-learning program.