Friday, April 7, 2000

2 Professors Find That Online Chats Are Unpopular By SARAH CARR Two professors at the Stevens Institute of Technology have learned -- the hard way -- a fact about online students: Many have little interest in online chats or other synchronous activities, at least as part of their course work. Mohammad Fatehi and M. Hosein Fallah, both adjunct professors of telecommunications management at Stevens, located in Hoboken, N.J., say few of their students participate in online chats. The students apparently value flexibility in their schedules and dislike that the chats occur at fixed times, they say. "I think people gravitate toward a Web model or virtual classrooms for flexibility," says Mr. Fallah, who is teaching online for the first time this semester. "When you institute a feature like chats, you are constraining that flexibility. The students believe that they are supposed to study whenever they want to." But the lack of interest is surprising as many universities and software companies try to add new technical features to their online courses and platforms in order to increase interactivity. John Kobara, the president of OnlineLearning.net, a company hired by the University of California at Los Angeles to deliver and market its distance-education courses, says U.C.L.A. professors have also found that online chats are not particularly well-suited for adult learners with busy schedules. "There will always be a percentage that can't attend," he says. Mr. Fatehi says that usually two or three of his six students will participate when he organizes a chat. He had hoped that the chats would add a personal touch to the courses, and would allow him to get to know each of the students. "I had expected a chat session to be sort of like a classroom, where one person talks and everyone else listens," says Mr. Fatehi. "But it turned out to be more like an office hour, where students come to ask questions about what will be on an exam." Mr. Fatehi also had a lackluster response when he invited his students to the campus for some in-person demonstrations. And Mr. Fallah says his students were irritated when they had to travel to the campus for a midterm examination, prompting him to ensure that the final could be offered online. Both Mr. Fatehi and Mr. Fallah say they don't blame the students for their resistance to chats and other synchronous activities: They note that the students are doing excellent work when they can do it asynchronously. Moreover, they say that the courses were advertised as not requiring attendance at fixed times, that busy schedules make it impossible for some students to chime in during the chats, and that neither professor has made attendance at the sessions mandatory. Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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