Distance Education and Student Interaction

I am curious how often students in distance education programs communicate with other students in the program. Do most programs make use of student bulletin boards? How often do students post to these boards? Is posting mandatory?

Experiences from others related to this will be appreciated.

 

Hi there,

I think it really depends upon the program. My distance education is all me, myself, and I with this bulletin board the only contact I have with other distance learners.

The "big three" schools for undergrad degrees basically accept unlimited transfer credits. In my case, I am testing out of the majority of my credits, taking a small handful of correspondence courses, and as I am doing this for enrichment purposes, I am basically forgetting about my prior college courses with regards to this degree.

Testing out basically means reading a book or two on the subject, and taking a test, so there isn't a whole lot of room for communication.

Correspondence courses offer communication with a teacher, but I have never communicated with other students taking the same courses.

I would assume that distance education courses based around the traditional classroom model would have a bit more student interaction, but as usual your mileage may vary.

Truthfully, one of the things I like about distance education is the independent nature of the work. I am only held back by me, not by the rest of the class "not getting" the material, and I don't have to waste my time dealing with anybody other than possibly a teacher. Distance education gives the ability to custom tailor a program to an individuals tastes, and the freedom to study in "non-traditional" ways.

Cory

 

I suspect that most online programs have either mandatory asynchronous or synchronous discussions with other students and the teacher. The only online experience I have thus far is with Touro University International, and that is the case there, except that students can choose to write an additional paper instead of participating in the asynchronous discussion board. For those that do post, frequency of posting varies. The minimum is once during each session. Some conform to that standard, others post much more often, and their contributions don't always add to the discussion at hand. I'm not taking any classes this summer, but when I was taking some classes during the spring term I tended to be somewhere in the middle. I didn't hesitate to post to the class discussion whenever I had something relevant to add, whenever I felt I had an opinion I could support, whenever I could present a counterpoint to someone who I thought was wrong, or whenever I could help someone else support an argument they were making with additional data or theory.

Most of my DL experience roughly mirrors that of Cory. I have taken several independent study courses from Bemidji State University, as well as one each from The University of Iowa, and Louisiana State University. There was no contact with other students, but I could contact my instructors by fax, snail mail, or e-mail. During office hours, I could reach them by phone as needed.

I am something of a sceptic when it comes to the notion that contact with fellow students really adds a lot to the educational process--where employed and informed adult learners are concerned. Furthermore, if you are taking an independant studies class (i.e. one that does not incorporate chats or discussions between students), but you still crave interaction with others over the topics addressed in your class, it is rarely difficult to find some discussion group on the internet that deals with those topics. By using that method, you could probably get much the same effect as you would with a discussion group tied to your class. In some ways a discussion group independant from the class may even be better, in that it could eliminate the chance that "group think", or a stubborn idiot (which, unfortunately, is sometimes the professor) will take over and dumb down the discussions, as I have seen happen many times in the classroom.

 

Yes, at Cal State Hayward.

I'm nearly finished with the MS Ed program at Cal State Hayward and the asychronous conversation part is a major part of the program design and a good percentage of your grade is based on the quality and frequency of posts per week.

Generally (but not always) a week is a unit. But you are definately graded by your participation in each unit. If you post a few sentances here and there, you are not given a high grade. You have to post in depth and show that you understand the material as well as do projects and a final project for each class. The student communication and interaction is very high and alot of friendships have resulted. It's a well thought out program and I'm glad I'm doing it. I'm even more glad I'm nearly finished!