| Tim Florschuetz | ...Why should some labs be done at home, some in a classroom or in a lab setting? Why aren't all the labs done at the same setting? If they have to come in for four, why not six? Why the break-up with the at-home labs, and so on? Is it true distance learning with the labs coming in and things like that?... |
| Charlcey Brabec | When I first approached John about Environmental Biology, I asked him instructionally can this be done via distance? Is it feasible? What parts can and what parts cannot. So you really look at it instructionally, but also from the point of view of what the students can do--they're not going to be handling dangerous chemicals, we're not going to be mailing microscopes out--so, in other words those things that they can do with table salt at home, they can do at home; those things that require an instructor or require special equipment, we will have to try to bring in the students. |
| Tim Florschuetz | And what are the benefits of that, of having them do the salt at home? Should some of these classes possibly be looked at and possibly not offered to distance learning? |
| Laura Helminski | I think we have to be careful about the mental models or assumptions we're using--phrases like "true distance learning" and so on. Quite frankly, everything is just blurring...And I think if you look at books like Work Habits For a Radically Changing Workforce talking about the kinds of things students need, I think we're talking about a platform, a smorgasbord, a buffet, where students can choose and get options and get vehicles so that they can learn the kinds of things they need to meet their goals...When I was at Educom in the beginning of November, it was intriguing to me to see one college where the teachers were distance and the students weren't...This particular class had the students at one college, the students had to be there at 9:00 in the morning, and they had a teacher there and the other half of the class was in another state, in another time-zone, and it met at whatever time, 10:00. And it was billed as a distance-learning class. The teachers team-taught, or sometimes only one teacher was present, so half of the students had the teacher real-time, half didn't. But the intriguing thing was they were in student teams and half of their teammates had to be in the other state. And they had [interactive video] and electronic-mail and stuff like that to do the teamwork. And the intriguing thing, I think, was the kind of learning the students said they were able to do. Could they have had similar experiences in a real-time classroom? Absolutely. Did it add something to it to have students with a different point of view, in a different state, different resources? Absolutely. So, as to the number of labs that you do at home, or whatever, to me a lot of the issues become larger issues. Are we giving the students the skills and the knowledge that they need to function? |
| Tim Florschuetz | There are some assumptions that are underneath this. One of them is the idea that learning can only occur when, to be crass, your butt's in a seat and [the teacher's] in front of you. But the other assumption that quickly follows that is that certain disciplines cannot be taught via distance learning. That's an interesting discussion because if we're comparing distance learning to the traditional lecture in the classroom--and with everything else with business and technology and everything else like that--those assumptions might not hold up. And I think all the research is showing that they don't necessarily hold up. |
| Unknown speaker | ...I think that one of the things that we have to realize in this transitional phase is that this is all "leash learning." We're really not distance yet. Maybe a few people are out there, but until we really change our concepts and our approach to teaching, we're not going to be able allow students to have more control over how they learn and what package they learn from. Aas teachers, we may have to offer a package where the student will pick up--perhaps at any given time--a particular part that we will walk them through. And I also feel that...[maybe] everything can be done distance. I think that it can be, even the lab work...I know that the new Kirksville Physical Therapy School at Grand Canyon University...in a couple of years if not sooner, they're going to be doing their anatomy, dissection--everything--on computer. ...And we're going to see more and more software packages be developed where your kit is not going to be a hands-on thing. So as we are in the midst of transition, all of us may be involved in actually developing packages of that sort, software type packages which will truly free us from the classroom. |
| Richard Felnagle | Well, perhaps free us from the lab environment.
Unknown speaker My opinion is that the lab, and whether or not we can do the lab, so far has only been limited by our access to technology. We have not had fast modems, we have not had state-of-the-art hardware/software, any of that...I think in the next five years, the technology will be there, and we'll be able to offer any course as long as it's well developed, and we have a lot of expertise in this district on how to do [develop courses well]. I think that any course will be appropriate in a non-classroom setting, and I don't know that I want to use distance learning at this point because it's such a misunderstood term. But I think we need to get together as a district and decide how we're going to make these methods available. Well, with the cable, I'm on the channel 20 governing board myself, but fiber optics we're getting in the district, and that can be connected to a cable system. I know that COX Cable is laying new fiber cable all over, so do we want to be able to connect to that cable and send stuff to people's TVs or do we want to use modems and send it over the telephone lines? |
| General consensus | Both. |
| Kent Duffy | Because not everybody is going to have a modem, but let's say I'm getting it on my television set, how do I get back to you? That was my experience at U of A. What just drove me nuts as a distance learning student was I couldn't get in contact with the instructor. I'm paying $100 a credit to a person I can't talk to. I can't get at them. The idea of an instructor is that their knowledge and their experience and everything is valuable. That's what I'm buying. And if I have no access to that instructor, the faculty aren't going to be out of business, they're going to be overworked! |
| General consensus | "That's a concrete statement that you can put down!" |
| Linda Sullivan | ...I teach "distance learning," and I've taught it a couple of different ways, and I've been an administrator in distance learning settings, so I see it a little bit differently, too. Laura was talking about a faculty at a distance, I taught a course where they were all together and I was somewhere else. You know, distance learning brings up a whole lot of faculty development issues, communication issues, and that's a whole other ball of wax. I just think we need to be open-minded to the possibility that there's more than one way to do distance learning. And we need to be mindful that if we decide to do distance learning, we should be doing it to promote learning for students who can't necessarily or who aren't willing to fit into the traditional framework. And we have to look outside of those lines. |
| Julie Bertch | ...I think that one of the things that we all have to do is explore the number of different ways we can reach our students. I mean, our voice-mail system where the student can call anytime, where we can all leave a message for all the students at any time we would want to, the computer conferencing software where they can dial up and leave a message at any time--the key to the thing is that your students need to be able to talk to you when you aren't there, and you have to be able to talk to them when they aren't there. Any distance class has got to have an easy mode for communication so you never feel you can't get in touch with somebody. But it's so easy to do--all it takes is dedication by the faculty member that he/she will indeed respond. |
| Kent Duffy | You have to have coordination. And that's the problem that U of A had: They jumped into it before they had addressed those problems. They started offering classes before they had worked out the logistics, which is why we're here. |
| Unknown speaker | One thing I have learned, that we have learned, is that distance learning takes a great deal of support. You can't do it alone. |
| Gil Gonzales | [The issue of support also involves the questions of how much support and what kind of support an institution can provide.]...When the English department finds the Internet, they scare the heck out of those of us who are worrying about mundane things like disk space, and network capacities, and those silly things. In many ways, that's the kind of scaling question that really challenges people who have to deal with those issues to think much more broadly, to think much differently. And just as much as those of you sitting at this table are being asked to think differently, those who have historically offered [technology services] have to think differently. And they're even more resistant than you are to change...These are scale issues we have to put on the table early as we vie for new systems. And we need to continue to instill confidence that in fact systems will work, and reliability, and to focus on the basics. Those few things are not simple when you have the kind of change that this group is placing on the table for staff to respond to... |
| Unknown speaker | Two comments: Communications is an issue for those of us in math and science because [we often communicate] with graphics, tables, and numbers, and so there needs to be an easy way to communicate that so we get back a screen capture or something of the work that the student has done. Another problem I see is trying to combine the idea of distance learning with the idea of "do it at your own rate." I think if we can do one of these at a time--maybe everybody does the course work at the same time but in different places, first, 'til we see how that goes--then, we let everybody work at their own rate, so we have two students on chapter one and two students on chapter ten... |
| Richard Felnagle | I'm not sure we can separate them though...if you're going to let them work on their own, they're going to work at their own pace, aren't they? |
| Unknown speaker | Well, that's my concern. In the sciences, again from my background, the labs fall at certain positions in the course, and so if you're going to do a group lab, they all have to have learned enough to do the lab and benefit from it, and I was going to ask you [John Arle] what you've done with that. |
| John Arle | Well, I've got a schedule set up. Obviously, once you send that out, somebody could work right through everything and just be waiting and mailing in the assignments for you...What difference does that make? |
| Unknown speaker | It doesn't unless you're doing the lab that requires everybody in the same place, using the microscope ... |
| John Arle | Actually, the way I structure my labs is that the lecture follows the lab. I introduce topics with the lab and then I teach out from those. In the distance learning class, it would be more difficult for them to move on to the next unit if they had not yet done the field work with the class. And if they tried, the work would be of poor quality, I would expect |
| Richard Felnagle | Laura, I think you used the word "smorgasbord," did you not? People start talking about a smorgasbord of different ways in which students can access courses...so part of that just scares the heck out of me because I keep coming back to logistical questions--how are faculty going to be loaded? I mean, are we being told we're teaching one course, but we have to do four different versions of it? |
| Laura Helminski | ...To a degree, we don't have any choice--the students lead [we have to follow]--we don't have any choice. On the other hand, I'm intrigued by the kind of learning that I find occurring with distance students, and I see a lot of real benefit just because it fits their lives better. So, I guess I don't mind, I mean I'm not one of the people necessarily who have to deal with the logistical realities like Charlcey does, bless you Charlcey. I don't find that is something that occupies a lot of my time as a faculty member. I really just trust my system and that I can go in and negotiate with my dean--"Let's pilot it, let's see what's going to happen when we register for flex distance learning classes"--and I trust that it's going to wash out, and I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it. I have to spend much more time figuring out what an assignment's going to mean. For example when we went to flex, I didn't find it difficult at all when I had students working in chapter two and chapter twelve because in a real-time classroom, they're behind me and ahead of me, anyway. And again, I don't have that lab component, but I guess I feel I should be [grateful] that the people who need to deal with the logistics work on them and discuss them with me and we make decisions together. I just don't let those problems take up a lot of my time. |
| Richard Felnagle | Well I think it's very nice that you're in that kind of environment. But I'm going to suggest a scenario to you, and my scenario is one day a dean comes to you, whoever "you" is, and says you're going to do this distance learning and we're going to give you 30 students because that's your normal load, and then you start teaching those 30 students by distance and discover that's three times as much work a normal classroom because there's two realities of distance learning which I'm not sure that everybody here that's promoting distance learning wants to admit: One is that distance learning is horribly inefficient--it's a great deal more work to teach the students by distance--and the other is that you can't do it by yourself...When you do distance, you need an army of people to help you to go with it depending on what you're doing. |
| Julie Bertch | Well, first of all, the extra time that it takes to teach distance is the time that you spend responding to students. Because in order to be effective in a distance course, it must be designed and prepared completely before you start. There's no winging it. You've got a course set up with competencies, with activities, with assignments, hopefully with as many options as possible for students. But this is ready before you start your semester. |
| Richard Felnagle | Everything, from top to bottom. |
| Julie Bertch | Yes, everything. The tests are done, everything is ready. |
| Richard Felnagle | You can't go into the fifth week and change directions, spontaneously. |
| Julie Bertch | No. And you know there are some very distinct advantages because you do a lot more thinking and planning and drawing on your experience of what works. And the first time you do it, you'll think, "Why did I think I could do that?" And then you will tweak it, and you'll get it so it works just fine. And then, your time is spent coaching individual students through the materials. But as you do it, you learn techniques, and I think they're only learned hands-on, don't you agree Laura? |
| Laura Helminski | Yes, they're all hands-on. |
| Julie Bertch | Yes, and you learn how to deal with it. Now I will never say it doesn't take more time, because it does, but it doesn't take that much more time. It's not a matter of tripling your load because you're teaching a distance course, truly it isn't. |
| Laura Helminski | I also think that...I have some Pollyanna genes...but I don't think [these logistical issues are] impossible...the reality is that people change at different rates...you know the faculty may change because they're experiencing distance learning or not...people, you're talking about a dean of instruction...when you're in the conversation together, it's...there's more of 'this is the budget I'm dealing with, this is the time you're dealing with, how can we come together on this?' And I think there's evidence across this district of people willing to have those conversations, and looking at accountability, and loading, and what the semester term means. In different ways, Richard, we may not have turned the tide, but I don't think it's an impossible situation. |
| Richard Felnagle | I think you're right. Distance learning probably takes more time but not that much more time--when you've been doing it for 10 years. But I think when you're starting this thing up, you're going to be overwhelmed. And I think that's a logistical issue too, when faculty want to start doing distance learning... |
| Laura Helminski | Richard, how is that different than a faculty member who's starting collaborative learning? [Take the example of a] faculty member who's been trained in activated learning and collaborative learning. The first time they're using TQM in the classroom--the first time they're using this stuff--what do we hear? [They require extended prep time, and so the problem is] not unique to distance learning as an issue. That's all I'm trying to bring up. |
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