An article came out this past week in The Chronicle of Higher Education that suggests the need to think more about offering hybrid programs as opposed to purely online programs.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/colleges-arent-keeping-up-with-student-demand-for-hybrid-programs-survey-suggests/30930?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

The article reports on the results of a survey of 20,000 current and prospective adult students.  The survey reportedly “questions whether some students are being ‘forced’ into studying entirely online because of a lack of hybrid programs.”

Personally, I do appreciate the idea of having a mix of online and face-to-face experiences in a degree program.  Had online courses been an option for me when I was a student, I think I might have become too isolated had I taken too many of those courses.  However, on the flip side, I also feel it’s important that students who cannot (for whatever reason) be in a more traditional classroom setting still have valuable opportunities to learn.  I think that’s one of the reasons why I enjoy teaching online so much.  I feel that I’m able to help students get the education they might not be able to get otherwise.

Still…I definitely don’t like feeling that students might take one of my online courses because they feel “forced into it,” and sometimes, I do feel that way.  I teach one particular course that is offered at least twice a year (once in the fall and once in the spring), and for awhile now, we’ve offered the course online in the fall and then in the classroom in the spring.  Just a few days ago, a student was asking me why it had to be offered online in the fall because she really wanted to take it then but wanted to take it in a face-to-face environment.  I’m sure there are also students in the spring who question why the course is not online since that works better for them.  Is this a sign that I should go hybrid?

An article came out this week in The New York Times about the fact that more students–particularly at the high school level–are taking online courses, so we need to think carefully about the quality of those courses.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/06/education/06online.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&emc=eta1

Perhaps I’m very naive, or maybe I’m biased because of my own strong opinions about online learning, but it bothers me to read pieces like this that question whether “online education is really driven by a desire to spend less on teachers and buildings, especially as state and local budget crises force deep cuts to education.”  I like to think that online courses give students opportunities to learn that they might not otherwise have, and, as one excerpt from this article notes, they “give students skills they will need in college, where online courses are increasingly common, and in the 21st-century workplace.”

Of course, I have to admit that I do not know much at all about online teaching and learning for K-12 students.  I’d love to see an example of an online course for high school students (maybe an AP Statistics course?), just to get a sense of what students are asked to do and how involved the teachers are in their instruction.  I would assume, just like there are good and bad classroom-based courses (and good and bad classroom teachers), we’d see a mix of best and worst practices if we carefully examined online courses aimed at K-12 students.

I also think that some of the issues the very first part of this article brings to light (e.g., a student simply copying and pasting something from the web to answer a question in an online course) are not unique to the online environment!  Isn’t it a little misleading to begin this article by making it seem like the online student is going to end up being more lazy and dishonest than the classroom-based student?  Or, did I just completely misinterpret that?

I am sometimes asked to provide advice to other instructors who are contemplating teaching online courses, and it’s difficult to know what to say.  Those of us who teach online know well that the online format is not the right fit for all students.  I also don’t think it’s the right fit for all instructors.  Thus, if I’m asked how much time it will take to teach online and whether the experience will be rewarding (from the instructor and student vantage points), I often fall back on the old “it depends” line.  For me, teaching online has always been a good fit because I enjoy working within that environment and I’m comfortable communicating with students via e-mail or via posts in discussion forums.  I enjoy the kind of dialogue I can have with students in the online classroom.  I know of other instructors who much prefer face-to-face communication and don’t like having to send students electronic explanations of particular concepts or ideas.  I often wonder how these instructors would do if suddenly faced with the prospect of teaching an online course.

Rob Jenkins wrote an interesting piece in a recent edition of The Chronicle of Higher Education called “You Probably Shouldn’t Teach Online If…”

http://chronicle.com/blogs/onhiring/you-probably-shouldnt-teach-online-if/28350?sid=oh&utm_source=oh&utm_medium=en

One thing he mentions is that you probably shouldn’t teach online if “Teaching in your pajamas sounds like something you’d enjoy.”  I’m not sure if I would go THAT far.  I do often tell people that working in your pajamas is a “perk” of teaching online (and I even once wanted to show up in my pajamas to a panel presentation about teaching online), but even though you might be able to stay home more and not have to dress up as much, there is still quite a bit of serious work to be done, and I don’t know that you fully realize how much work is involved in teaching online until you actually do it for the first time.  At least, that was my experience.

I’m still very much on the fence about getting an iPad.  On the one hand, I feel I could justify this as a professional purchase because I really SHOULD be up-to-speed on the latest technologies, shouldn’t I?  On the other hand, I’m just not a Mac person, no matter how hard I try to be.  I wonder if the iPad would truly enrich my life or simply frustrate the heck out of me.  I also feel it might distract me too much.  I can just see how tempting it would be to have an iPad with me in meetings and to check my e-mail rather than pay attention to other things going on in the meeting.  Sometimes, I feel I just need to unplug, and I think having an iPad might plug me in even more.

I do, however, feel it’s important to for those of us who are teachers to have a good understanding of how iPads will change the dynamics of our classrooms and will change what we can (and perhaps cannot) do with our students.   Steven Anderson wrote a very informative post on his blog this week about iPad resources in the classroom, and I think many of the references he shares will come in handy for those who use iPads or want to know more about how they can be used in educational settings.

http://web20classroom.blogspot.com/2011/03/quick-list-of-ipad-resources-for.html

There was also some good debate this week–in other sources–about the pros and cons of iPads in the classroom.  One article came out on March 13th in The Chronicle of Higher Education about the possibilities that iPads could HINDER teaching and learning in various ways (and foster it in other ways).

http://chronicle.com/article/iPads-for-College-Classrooms-/126681/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Another article appeared on March 14th in the Financial Times that seemed more favorable toward iPads.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/d776cbf6-4b71-11e0-89d8-00144feab49a.html?ftcamp=traffic/email/content/BizEd/March/memmkt#axzz1Ggg0W3AB

Both of these articles were compared and contrasted today in another article that appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/ipads-bane-or-boon-for-college-teaching/30385?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

What do you think?  As a statistics instructor, I know that I worry about tools I use that might not work on the iPad (like different java applets), and I also worry, as an online instructor, about how difficult it might be for online students to navigate through course management systems, engage in online discussion, and take online assessments. 

Maybe I SHOULD get an iPad, just so I truly know what the experience will be like for my students.

I find myself thinking all the time about what my role in the classroom is and what it should be.  I also think a lot about how the role of the instructor needs to change now that we have so many new technologies and ways of learning.  Perhaps this is why the following article from The Chronicle of Higher Education was so appealing to me.

http://chronicle.com/article/Actually-Going-to-Class-How/126519/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

There is so much food for thought in this short piece.  One individual interviewed for this article is quoted as saying “there’s not really much need for teachers anymore,” especially since so much information is now online.  I’m not sure I agree with that.  Yes, there is a lot online, but if we are not “experts” in a particular area, can we easily make sense of this information?  How can we know what information to trust?  Just because it’s online doesn’t mean it’s accurate or that it will be easily comprehensible.

I feel sometimes that we spend more time worrying about how newer technologies distract our students and shift their focus to things outside of the classroom and not enough time thinking about how we can capitalize on these technologies and make them a part of the learning process.   How can we best engage the student who thinks he or she learns better “outside the formal curriculum”?  How can we change our curriculum to meet the needs of the “modern student”?

One instructor quoted in this article encourages his students to “pass notes in Twitter” and continue to share ideas on Twitter after class had ended.  Further:

“He asked each student to create a blog, sharing their ideas and reflections during the term, and he created a “mother blog” that brings together entries from the students. He also asked students to comment on one another’s blogs as well as link to blogs both inside and outside the class. ‘The commenting and linking are crucial,’ he says, ‘as those activities are essential parts of being in the real blogosphere.’”

I would LOVE to figure out a way to do this in the statistics classroom.

I still very much believe in the personal touch in online courses.  I would hate to see a world where the human element is removed from the online learning environment.  However, I find myself wanting to know more about “virtual helpers” after reading this article in The Chronicle of Higher Education.  This is something I don’t know that much about, but, evidently, these “helpers” are typically meant to “serve as coaches or mentors, urging a participant through a program, rather than as an instructor.”

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/online-people-learn-best-from-virtual-helpers-that-resemble-them/30151?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

In one of the studies reported in this article, it was observed that participants were:

“…more engaged by online helpers that resembled them—in race and gender—than by ones that did not. Participants also learned more from helpers that measured success the same way they did. Some people judge their performance compared to the rest of a group (top 10 percent, for example), while others judge against their own previous performance (better than the last time). In the study, matching those styles resulted in better learning.”

I’d like to read more and I hope to be able to find the original study.  I just wonder how easy it would be to design an online learning environment where you had “helpers” that were matched in particular ways to participants.  How many such “helpers” would you then need?  Also, how exactly does the instructor fit into the equation?  When should an online course or training program have a “helper” and when should it not, and how can the instructor work along with the “helper”?  Also, if the “helper” does not happen to engage the learner, can the instructor make up for this in particular ways?