http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11196-2005Mar29.html "Why Online Teaching Turned Me Off "A Web enthusiast's journey into skepticism "By Susan Sharpe "Washington Post Magazine "Sunday, April 3, 2005; Page W31 "My adventures in distance education began in the mid-1980s, when I designed and taught a children's literature course for teachers and other time-pressed adults, using the most advanced technology available at the time: the U.S. Postal Service. Then, in 1991, I had another idea. What about offering creative writing as a correspondence course? My administrators at Northern Virginia Community College were enthusiastic, but they wanted me to try a more modern version of distance teaching. Look, they said, here's this online thing you can do. Read more …....... Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11196-2005Mar29.html
What I find disheartening from the article: too many "con's." What about the "pro's?" Certainly, there are many advantages and satisfactions to online teaching. Thanks. ======================================== Con: " ............. required to participate twice before the end of the class, using up 20 seconds each time and referring to at least one specific comment made by another student. How coherent and enlightening a discussion is this going to encourage? How sincere are your students' contributions going to be? And given that the discussion is to take place over the course of a week rather than a single class period, will you or the students care what anyone says by Friday? Pro: " ....... In this impersonal atmosphere, the timid speak up, racism practically vanishes, and the discussion is free of intimidation, on one hand, and the fear of hurting others, on the other. Con: " ............ I had several students with second-language issues who found the Web impersonal and hard to negotiate and who relied wholly on our face-to-face meetings. I was secretly on their side. I didn't know how to teach them to think online. I wanted to watch their faces while I talked; I wanted to hear their answers in real time; I wanted to challenge their replies, but with softness in my voice; I wanted my teacher fix: seeing a face light up with understanding. Con: The straw that broke the camel's back: " .......... Some boosterish teachers at the session were explaining how very specific you have to make the requirements for responses, and inwardly I cringed. And how you have to go online six or seven times a day, and I cringed. And how you have to keep huge logs of all the responses, and I cringed. Then a bright young teacher said: "Actually, it's not hard at all, getting online so often, because the course is all set up. I don't even have to think!" "Maybe that was the moment when I knew I wasn't going to teach online anymore. Too much rain on this parade! Your comments/experieces/thoughts eagerly awaited. Thanks.
I don't think this lady knows what online teaching is. She may have taught online courses but she seems untrained to handle such teaching or she completely does not know how to teach one. I suggest she takes two online course at schools such as TUI - one live (synchronous) and one asynchronous. I guarantee she would come away with a different take on online courses. By the way, doing things online including college courses is not going away. There are too many things we do online these days on the job to suggest otherwise would be foolish. oko
Hi Jake Susan's title reveals how limited her perspective is: she is on about teaching; she's a few steps from classroom teaching and 'her', presumably, quite young students; her on-line experiences are not good. Shift perspective. Education is about learning, not teaching, at least when you get past junior school, perhaps even high school. It is in this range that on-line comes into its own, though it can always become confused, and often is, when used for Distance Teaching and not Distance Learning. Campus teaching has to bother about such irritations as learners 'slacking'; about their 'attendance'; about their 'attention'. Do you really demand that they "participate twice before the end of the class, using up 20 seconds each time and referring to at least one specific comment made by another student." What a load of nonsense. The range of learning styles is wider than silly 'participation' rules (of no value whatsoever). These are the obsessions of teachers who know little about learning - their experience is confined to the repetition of the restricted methods of classroom teaching. 'My' students indeed! The whole apparatus of video lectures, video and audio conference systems, synchronous and asynchronus sessions, assignments written off campus and out of sight, and chat rooms are the last vestiges of classroom teaching squeezed into a technology for which it was not designed. Use on-line technology for learning, self-paced, multiple in its provision for different learning styles and self-assessed, with feedback via designed software (such as the Profiler system designed and used at EBS, or its equivalent), and drop all the 'easy' miss-applications evidenced by Susan's experiences.
Online teaching I read Susan's article and all I have to say is that online teaching is not for everybody and online classes are not for all learners, either. I am an online instructor and I love the work and highly prefer it over "classroom teaching" except I confess that I wish I had time to continue teaching one on-campus class for just a bit of the "fix" Susan talked of. Mostly just a fix of seeing real people. I don't need to see that many "real people" that often but once a week might be nice. As a "learner" I am very much into the perspective that no teacher has ever taught me anything. They have provided information at times, but so have books and online readings and other people that are not teachers. I did the learning myself. I have taken many traditional classes and I just HATE listening to boring lectures and I participate in discussion if and when it interests me, not because of some silly requirement. Some online courses lend themselves well for discussion based grading but in my opinion, not all online courses should be designed that way. I have chosen Northcentral University for my own Doctorate Degree because their discussion requirements are very relaxed compared to others that I have checked out. I think discussion should be voluntary, just like what we are doing here. The learning can be measured in other ways, and as much as possible, I prefer to measure it in other ways. I would not obsess over who responded to what, as Susan seemed to do. I seem to remember my students personalities better than she does and I don't really have to think of "who Tina is" at least after the course has been running for awhile. I know who Tina is and what grade level she teaches for that matter, though I admit I don't know what Tina looks like or what race she is, etc. At times I have not known whether a student was a male or female but I think that is the beauty of it. Wouldn't that have to reduce many prejudices? I encourage my students to send pictures, but most often they choose not to. For some students, college is about social interaction and who you sit by in class. For these students and teachers, by all means stick with the traditional system. Though online is growing, I also think there will always be the B&M system. I expect online and distance learning to max out at some point and then just stabilize.
I think that was an interesting article. I seem to agree with some points, but not all. I think that the course she was teaching (English) which requires comprehending, discussions and wrtiing down your thoughts was more of a challenge online. While other subjects that are more structured are much more suited for online degrees. My 2 cents.
I too found the article to be extremely enlightening. The author made a lot of good points about some of the deficiencies of online learning. Some of the most stimulating discussions that I've ever had were in a classroom setting and it is unlikely that it could be duplicated in an online forum. The discussions are stimulating not just because the topics are interesting, but because the responces are instant. The lack of participation of many online learners is dismal. Conversely, even in a stimulating environment (such as in a classroom), there will always be those who do not engage in oral discussions... at least not without some arm twisting.
