April 2000
Volume 16
Number 1
Connected Learning
Distance learning, which is quite properly one of the hottest topics today in higher education, still raises hackles in some quarters where people say, AWe don=t do that.@ Of course, we=ve always really known that what happens in the back rows of our classrooms and lecture amphitheaters could be called Adistance learning.@ So, let=s talk about Aconnected learning@ insteadCfor students in the same room and for those at the other end of a telecommunications link. Anyone not engaging this issue now is missing the formative phase of an educational development that shows all the signs of becoming permanent, pervasive, and important.
A scan of the horizon in technology-assisted learning shows quite a variety of activities. Most common are those based on the web or on videotapes shipped to students by express mail. Real-time broadcasts, with or without simultaneous feedback from students, has been one of the longest-running forms of connected learning but is now a much smaller part of the range of activity. Teleconferenced instruction is growing but is still a small fraction of the scene. Many courses that are conducted without any in-classroom meetings use several technologies (e.g., e-mail, web pages, web-mediated interactive programs, chat rooms, threaded discussion forums) to make up the instructional environment. In summary, the technologies span distanceCthe Ahere@ and Athere@Cand time Cthe Anow@ and Awhenever.@
By far, the strongest growth in connected learning is in asynchronous modes, where the convenience of the students not able to be Apresent@ on an ordinary class schedule is paramount. Courses delivered via the web also have the distinct advantage of requiring the minimum in specialized equipment, especially on the student=s end of the connection. With the growing number of households equipped with a computer and Internet connection, it is in the interest of institutions and students that instruction make the most of the home investment in technology. ASynchronous@ instruction, on the other handCconvening students at the same timeCis less flexible in that regard and often requires more costly equipment, particularly if conducted via teleconference.
The cost structure of connected learning clearly pushes in the direction of higher student-teacher ratios than classrooms because of the extra Aproduction@ costs incurred to develop instructional materials and assistive media for technology-mediated delivery. Obviously, the cost of in-person instruction comes from the teacher=s salary, the operating expenses of the facility (campus and classroom), and the gathering of students. Against this economic model, connected instruction saves on the latter two of these but is higher in preparation and delivery costs; those costs do not increase with the number of students, especially if the means of communication is the via the Internet to home computers.
Scalability
The most important feature of connected instruction, and its most
politically and culturally explosive quality, is its scalability. As the number
of students served by a course increases, the resource most strained as a
consequence is the time and attention of the instructor. Freed of the
constraints of classroom space, dormitory rooms, parking and other support
facilities, the institution finds the teacher=s
workload the point of resistance to the scalability of instruction. In
situations where faculty teach in classrooms and via telecommunication, the
difference in workload entailed by the different forms of instruction is bound
to be evident and troublesome.
If the student-faculty ratio is set by the in-classroom model, the economic viability of technology-mediated courses will be diminished. But if the standard is set or moved by the Aconnected learning@ model, faculty will be subjected to strong pressure to do more work in the form of papers and exams to grade, student advising and assistance, and the extra efforts needed to sustain some kind of relationship with students who do not come to a classroom. Para-instructional aides for the teacher are one possible means of alleviating the burden of greater numbers of students, but as we know from experience with large courses of the conventional kind, the supply and suitability of that kind of assistance is problematic.
The pressure on faculty from the inherent scalability of
connected-learning instruction is one of the most critical problems facing
higher education today. Without a remedy, faculty will resist change in the form
and means of instruction. But because technology-mediated instruction is the
best chance we have to extend the opportunity for higher education and life-long
instruction to a growing population, the need to do right by faculty is a
high-stakes proposition. The degree and pace of expansion possible in bricks and
mortar is just not adequate to the demand. The picture becomes even clearer if
the scope is expanded to include the world beyond the United States where the
education deficit is already more severe.
Retaining and accommodating
As a flurry of articles this winter in the Chronicle of Higher Education revealed,
retaining students in non-residential, distance or connected courses poses
special challenges. People who have neither the means nor the opportunity to be
full-time students are likely to find the needs of family and work pressing on
the time they wish to use learning. The point of the Aivory
tower@ ideal was to minimize the
intrusions on study, but the breakdown of walls between learning and the rest of
life will place ever more people in the situation of trying to learn while
surrounded by competing calls on their time and attention.
By the same token, these students are beyond the reach of many
campus-based support services such as skills tutors, faculty office hours, peer
assistance and encouragement, calculus clinics, and reference librarians.
Institutions of learning will need to figure out how to extend those services to
a population it does not encounter in person. There is as yet no real indication
whether these supports can be adapted to be effective through the same
technology-mediated methods as the instruction itself.
Standards
Controversy also surrounds the standards to be applied to connected
learning. The initial impulse in higher education has been to insist that
in-classroom courses must remain the standard and that any other forms of
instruction will be measured against that model. Comparisons of student
performance in classroom and non-classroom sections have been too few and
largely uncontrolled for influences such as the opportunity to self-select for
the mode of instruction or the effect of the novelty of the experience of
technology. Still there is some reason to believe that asynchronous,
technology-mediated courses can offer a very strong educational experience if
all the circumstances are right.
The temptation to think that Aoutcomes-based assessment@ offers a way out of the thicket on standards of quality in instruction can be strong. It is in fact one of the core tenets of the Western Governors University and indeed in much of the Areform@ movement in education in general. But one of the lessons of the information age has been the importance of capabilities not directly taught or testedCthe ability to become a constant and adaptable learner, for example.
Never has the specific content of an education been more quickly outdated than now. The premium is instead on the importance of learning how to learn, to deal with uncertainty and change, and cycle through different disciplines and skills. While there are no finished answers to how these requirements should re-shape academic standards, it is reasonable to think that the challenge is something other than figuring out how to extend the in-classroom model. What is needed is to focus on the assessment of success in learning and be less complacent about the supposed superiority of the in-class experience.
Transformation of social processes
We too easily forget that education is a fundamentally social process. The
roles of instructor and learner are long-established social constructs that are
now undergoing the beginnings of potentially radical change. The vastly
increased ability of students to obtain information directly, without the
mediation of faculty, librarians, or other authorities diminishes the faculty
role of main information-dispenser and leaves everyone unclear about what should
now be the primary role of the instructor.
The switch from Asage on the stage@ to Aguide on the side@ is not self-evident, at least in the eyes of faculty. Students do not come to higher education needing less teacher-mediated information than previously. In any event, the relation of information to knowledge is not easy to say and the teacher=s role in connecting them is not as well understood as would be helpful.
The challenge is likely to arise from students perhaps in the future less willing to tolerate the differences in expectations and learning styles between themselves and their instructors. It is hard to predict the outcome of experience with the combination of direct access to ever-increasing amounts of information and the increasing rate at which old information is displaced by new.
An ideal outcome would be a new basis for cooperation between teachers and students, where the primacy of learning and research as everyone=s permanent task comes to the fore. In this scenario the teacher=s performance as a model learner would become very important and students would be more interested than ever in how their instructors educate themselves. From the teacher=s standpoint, the means of inquiry and discovery would become the constant guides for informing their students.
Connectedness
Connected learning will likely hasten this transformation. By downplaying
the traditional tasks of classroom management and shaping of group dynamics,
this form of instruction will move attention away from the aspect of social
control that the role of teacher has always implied. The connectedness of Aconnected@
education is actually more often on a one-to-one basis.
Teachers using e-mail to supplement office hours and enable more direct communication with students in large classes often report feeling more rapport with more of their students than had been possible previously. By extension, the challenge of creating a teacher-student in large classes often report feeling more rapport with more of their students than had been possible previously. This isn=t necessarily a comfortable feeling for all faculty, and, in fact, some may resist this additional burden on their time (especially those who are working under negotiated union agreements), but it is clear that this is a major transformation in this relationship.
By extension, the challenge of creating a teacher-student relationship across distance and separation will put a fresh focus on constructing those roles. Furthermore, the outcome is likely to be different across the number of people involved. In the classroom, teachers normally head off the individual impulses of students, as if herding cowsCbecause of the need to Akeep the group together@ or to Aprevent a few from dominating.@ But in technologically mediated instruction, the room for the individuality of students is greater and does not require as much suppression of differences in the interest of maintaining a decorous and orderly classroom. More of the interaction is bilateral, private, and susceptible to being modulated differently in each instance.
Ownership
In the future, responsibility for activity in the Alearning
space@ is going to be shared. Whether
this happens because outcomes testing will predominate or because students will
work technologically mediated instruction to their advantage, either would be a
substantial change from what we have known until now. Students will not take
initiative and authority from teachers, but may well share some of both with
them. The opportunity to share in the work of discovery will be there as a
stronger invitation than in the teacher-as-master classroom.
Another consequence of a more shared approach to more give-and-take in instruction will be the increased participation of students in the development of new knowledge. The trend to undergraduate research projects in conjunction with faculty has shown how this kind of sharing might happen, and how satisfying it can be for teachers and students.
Because technology-mediated instruction is typically based on recorded informationCweb pages, videotape, e-mail, and threaded online discussions, for example, faculty and the institutions that employ them will have to work out agreements on the ownership of courses and materials created in this way. The issue becomes especially important when faculty leave to work at another institution or wish to sell the course.
In many ways, teachers and students, learners all, will be pushed to revise their roles in education. While the outcomes are still largely conjecture, the processes of change are appearing, and clearly, Aconnected learning@ is gaining momentum rapidly. TW
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