potterjga
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« on: May 27, 2009, 11:10:45 AM » |
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I do miss lecturing "in person" but she neglected one rather fascinating aspect. When responding to students, I have no idea in many cases if they are male or female, black/white/whatever, how old they are, and so forth. It does tend to change your common misconceptions about students. I also teach at a university with a high volume of foreign students. My experience has been that their participation rates are higher in an online class.
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mkwduff
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« Reply #1 on: May 27, 2009, 12:03:15 PM » |
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I just read "Why Online Teaching Makes Sense: Margaret Brooks offers eight reasons." I'm not too sure what the 8 reasons had to do with teaching online per se. They are fine goals online or in the classroom. The item I get most leery of is that online education increases accessiblty. This may be somewhat so, but living in a very poor and rural region (without much infrastructure for highspeed internet connections) many of our non-trad student or working students who would prefer online course (or would be unable to attend in person), still can't access these courses.
Plus, I just like being in the room with people. (But I teach both in person and online.)
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temporaryname
Junior faculty,
Senior member
Posts: 893
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« Reply #2 on: May 27, 2009, 02:32:12 PM » |
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I don't get why these point-counterpoint bits on online teaching nearly always leave out what I think is one of the basic truths about online education: Some courses are particularly well-suited to online teaching, some courses are particularly ill-suited to online teaching (and lots are somewhere in the middle).
I'd be much more interested in these sorts of articles if I knew what kinds of courses had been taught by the authors. My Principles of Snobbery course, for example, which involves a lot of review of basic information and methodologies, works great online--but my Cross-Cultural Snobbery course, which by its nature has to involve a lot of really intense (and preferably real-time) interaction and fieldwork, doesn't.
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goldenapple
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« Reply #3 on: May 27, 2009, 02:43:02 PM » |
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The item I get most leery of is that online education increases accessiblty. This may be somewhat so, but living in a very poor and rural region (without much infrastructure for highspeed internet connections) many of our non-trad student or working students who would prefer online course (or would be unable to attend in person), still can't access these courses.
We have many students who are non-traditional and for whom online classes pose an enormous challenge. They aren't comfortable with many computer-related tasks, so any online class is a combination of learning the material, learning to write at a college level, and learning to download and use a variety of software and deal with computer-related problems (server disruptions, internet service disruptions, hardware problems, etc.). Sometimes the technological side of a class is a a real barrier, and having the entire class be online just increases the size of the barrier. I'd like to see some statistics of how many students register for online classes and never even log in once to the course page. |
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kedves
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« Reply #4 on: May 28, 2009, 08:16:51 AM » |
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I don't know which article about online teaching the OP refers to, there have been so many, but did anyone read this column in the opinion section called "I'll Never Do It Again"? http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i38/38a03302.htm The author, Elayne Clift, hated online teaching. I've never done it, but I'm likely to sometime. Some of her complaints seemed exaggerated to me as a person who teaches courses with online components and who deals with a lot of student email regardless of the course format. She also says that it's impossible to replicate a lecture online, but I have a friend in a history department who seems to do something very like that with PowerPoint presentations of original sources (e.g. propaganda posters). Does she have a point about problems that are specific to online teaching? |
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zuzu_
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« Reply #5 on: May 28, 2009, 10:25:05 AM » |
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I don't know which article about online teaching the OP refers to, there have been so many, but did anyone read this column in the opinion section called "I'll Never Do It Again"? http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i38/38a03302.htm The author, Elayne Clift, hated online teaching. I've never done it, but I'm likely to sometime. Some of her complaints seemed exaggerated to me as a person who teaches courses with online components and who deals with a lot of student email regardless of the course format. She also says that it's impossible to replicate a lecture online, but I have a friend in a history department who seems to do something very like that with PowerPoint presentations of original sources (e.g. propaganda posters). Does she have a point about problems that are specific to online teaching? I believe Ms. Clift omitted an important point from her list: 6. Get off my lawn! |
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selavy
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« Reply #6 on: May 28, 2009, 04:32:27 PM » |
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At my public institution, I think individual online courses work well in the summer session, especially for students who leave campus in the summers to work but would still like to take some classes towards their degree. It doesn't take away resources from on-campus teaching like when those courses are taught online during the normal academic year (in which, on my campus, the vast majority of students who enroll in an online course are sitting in their campus dorm rooms all alone at their computers). I am leery, however, at the prospect of my institution putting entire programs online. Online programs tend to emphasize professional 'training' over 'education' (in the broad liberal sense). And I am not sure what is to stop an institution from outsourcing the teaching of their online programs to a cheaper labor pool of overseas Ph.D.s, (most of whom may be very well qualified and possess an graduate degree from a U.S. institution) especially when campus budgets are being cut. Just look at Colorado State University's Global Campus: http://csuglobal.org/I hope to God this isn't the future for all of higher education... |
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bwatwood
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« Reply #7 on: May 28, 2009, 05:04:05 PM » |
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"beatitude" raises a number of interesting points. He or she notes that online courses are fine in the summer as long as they do not take resources away from [real] courses in the academic year. (My tongue firmly in cheek). There is a bit of fear about loss of jobs due to outsourcing. And a note that many students currently taking online courses live on campus and take these courses from their dorms.
All true.
Yet, there is no real discussion about "learning." Online is simply a mode of delivery, as are large lectures, small classrooms, and even tele-delivery to remote satellite settings. We do not burn down large lecture halls because significant numbers of students fail those classes. We instead look at best means of delivery given the context of large lecture halls. Online should be no different. Castigating online as something to fear for the future seems narrow-sighted.
One last thought. Recent polls suggest almost 100% of entering students already own a laptop. Given wireless connectivity, there really is no course anymore in which some online learning does not occur. Your students are using Google and Wikipedia, either in class or outside it. The question is not whether students are online or not but rather whether we faculty are guiding their online lives towards learning that matters.
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temporaryname
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« Reply #8 on: May 28, 2009, 06:39:16 PM » |
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<snip>
One last thought. Recent polls suggest almost 100% of entering students already own a laptop. Given wireless connectivity, there really is no course anymore in which some online learning does not occur. Your students are using Google and Wikipedia, either in class or outside it. The question is not whether students are online or not but rather whether we faculty are guiding their online lives towards learning that matters.
You appear to have misspelled Facebook and Twitter. (On the whole, I actually agree with the previous post--but a bit of realism is in order, too.) |
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hmaria1609
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« Reply #9 on: May 29, 2009, 04:39:34 PM » |
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I had two online classes while in library/grad school. It wasn't for me either!
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