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Classes without Classrooms Committee Meeting Transcript:
Forum 1: Logistics (d)

Angela Ambrosia	[Another issue.] Right now, we have a certain number of students in a classroom by virtue of location and space. With distance learning, we'll have to face the issue how many we have in a class...
Richard Felnagle	...Yes. The issue will be what is the load.
Angela Ambrosia	...Yes, well right now, the maximum number of students you can have is how many chairs you have in a room. OK. And so, distance learning brings up an issue: What is the optimum student size/student load? Can we teach 120 students as effectively as we teach 30 students distantly? And I think that is something we need to look at.
Jill Seymour	I've noticed in working with the VCN students, and I suspect that Rio has found this repeatedly also, is that there are some students that do exceptionally well in this environment, and there are some students who shouldn't be there.
General comment	....that's right...
Jill Seymour	And I think that another logistical question is how do you really, fairly direct them, advise them, steer them into a successful situation for them? I don't have an answer. From what I've seen of some of our classes, some students absolutely are doing superbly, and others really need the 'touching' of a traditional environment. I don't know how to really deal with that issue. Certainly, I think students do some self-selection after they've had some experience. But I think what we're looking for from distance learning is, ideally, success all the way along. And how do we [help them to achieve that success?]
Unknown speaker	One-third of the students who take distance learning courses shouldn't be there...because they're not disciplined. They don't have the skills necessary to get through class, and we determined that a long time ago. Yet, they're there. But now that I'm working and teaching on a campus, I'm finding that it's probably about the same statistic! One-third of our students shouldn't bother to drive and park their cars and pay their tuition! Because they can't come to class, can't do the homework, can't pass the test. So it's kind of the same issue. Another comment is that whenever we do evaluations for the courses, the one thing that the students love most is the fact that they don't have to meet with an instructor--and that is also the thing that they hate. "It was great because it was so convenient and I could work on my own." "It was terrible because I couldn't do it and I needed help."
Unknown speaker	I think the key is orientation. It's so important that students realize distance learning is not an easy way to go to class. One of the important messages is that students need to realize up-front that this is more work. I tell mine: "It is always your turn to answer. You can't sit back and let somebody else respond to the teacher's question. So don't go into this thinking it's easy. Go into it thinking that you're responsible for your own behavior. You've got to be a self-directed learner. You've got to be the one to sit down and do it." And for the people who are looking for an easy way out, distance learning usually scares them off, and they realize it doesn't fit them. Distance learning doesn't fit everybody. It was never intended to fit everybody, and it never will.
Beatriz Cohen	Well, as a counselor, I'm thinking one issue that [must] offer a support system to these students...like Rio to does for the regular students...Advisement is a very important issue, assessment. We do it with the other students, and [we need] to see also what other ways [there are] to deliver the support system. Because we have been delivering the counseling, the advising, the tutoring, etc., in the traditional way. But if we are delivering the instruction a different way, we have to think of how we are going to deliver the support...and that's what I have been doing: counseling students through the computer, with computer conferencing, and I think it works. And also, I have some questionnaires that we can use also for assessment.
Jill Seymour	I was interested in your comment about the advisement, assessment. ...Maybe it works well when it's an open-entry/open-exit environment, but I'm thinking of the student who has signed up for this class that's now meeting, and they discover it's not right for them. They can't then get into the traditional class and they have now lost a semester of their life. [Let's say they've signed up for] a course that they need for their program in order to proceed in a sequence. In September, they thought that they could do that. They go to the orientation and find, "You're right! I just can't cope with this! I need to move myself into a traditional environment.' And I think that's one of the benefits that Rio has is that their sequence is a little bit off the traditional. The student then says, "I have to move into another environment," and all of the other semester classes in the traditional environment have already begun. The student can't then get into that traditional class and so has to wait until the following semester. And, I guess from a student perspective, that's a significant chunk of their life to loose in terms of their development because most of our students are there because they're looking for a job, they're already behind when they come to us.
Gil Gonzales	Well, one of the questions that we talk "around" as opposed to "to" is that we aren't the only show in town. Jill, your point is absolutely wonderful in the context of Maricopa, but as we ask the question of Levard(?), or International Community College, or U of A, or ASU East, you talk about a comprehensive four-year program that gets into distance learning, students can take a course that is offered from Levard(?) and get in synch. I think what I'm suggesting is the framing of the question with which we started this discussion: "What are the questions?" The framing of the questions here isn't what Maricopa does...You have to ask what everybody else is doing.... We aren't alone. Students with cable connections, students with modems in-home, snail mail, can get North Central accredited courses delivered to their home, or to their offices, or the public library, or the community center...
Jake Jacobson	Getting back to "What are the questions?" the one question that hasn't been asked, that I think is probably the most important question in my experience, is, "What are the measurements?" You asked, "How are faculty members loaded?"--Do faculty get paid for performance now? Or do they get paid for how many classes? Do they get paid less because they have more drop-outs? I realize I'm opening up a lot of worms here, but that's the measurement of the performance of the person delivering the instruction. Then there's the measurement of the student. Do we measure people by [their] expectations? We always used "objectives," "performance objectives." I wish I'd have thought of that word; that's a better word. When I go in to learn something, what do I as a student expect? When I'm teaching a class, what do I as a faculty expect? Now, everybody has this problem 'cause we don't have good measurement. If you could lay down in your syllabus what the expectations were, and everybody gives lip service to this, but I'll have to write objectives and things. But they're usually not very good and they're phony; it's only because somebody told you you have to do it. But if you're a responsible person, and if you're what I would call a performance person, then you would be wanting to know. First, a student comes in, 'what can you do now that I don't have to teach you? And what is it that I [instructor] will expect you [student] to do when you leave here?' Now if you know that, then the rest is all delivery. OK, you take everything by a task, and you know there are some things you can deliver with audio, you know there are some things you can deliver with the written word, there's some things you have to have a lab. OK, well what's the lab for an airline pilot? They have expensive simulators because they can't afford to give everybody a 747 to try out. Well maybe it's the same thing with dangerous chemicals, maybe you have to build an expensive simulator that you deliver somehow. But those are all specific issues once you decide the first issue, and that is what the expectations are.
Unknown speaker	Well, when you're talking competency-based education, you've got to have real skills. You've got to be serious about how you state them and how you measure them so that you can make your expectations perfectly clear. It can't be a case where you're writing objectives because somebody said you had to do it. You've got to seriously decide what you want your students to know and be able to do by the time they finish the course and aim the course at that and measure for it. So I don't think that's really an issue.
Jake Jacobson	But how do you know whether a classroom-based course is better than a distance learning course or vice versa? Unless you have the same measurements, you would have no way of knowing.
Unknown speaker	Exactly, so if you have the same competencies for both kinds of classes, you can measure the student's performance--what would the difference be?
Yvonne Zeka	...It depends upon the student. For one particular student, distance learning is going to be better, but for another student, as you mentioned, a traditional classroom is better. So that's not a relevant question. So the question becomes 'do you decide whether you're going to offer options for your students.'

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