give me an “L”

Evaluating the Recent Growth of Virtual Classrooms.

The recent surge of online courses available in Vancouver has brought along with it many discussions regarding its validity and place within our current school systems.  I have been involved in some of these discussions at my home school and I have chosen to go beyond the patch-worked rhetoric that seem to develop during formal staff meetings and informal talks over coffee to analyze current literature to asses the future of virtual classrooms.  In particular, I want to focus my inquiry to identify what is driving this current growth in e-learning, to assess whether this driving force is lasting one and to address the legitimacy of the concerns voiced by the stakeholders involved.

Tallent-Runnels (2006) lists a number of pseudonyms for virtual classrooms that includes: e-learning, internet learning, distributed learning, tele-learning, virtual learning or web-base learning and goes on to describes online courses as those delivered entirely via the internet.  This is different than the common practice of supplementing teaching by using resources found over the internet.  In this second case, the core materials are taught face to face from a teacher to his/her students and the ideas are further developed or confirmed using technology, such as the internet. 

A 2005 Sloan Consortium Report indicates that 2.35 million Americans were enrolled in online courses (El Mansour & Mapinga, 2007) and the Evergreen Consulting Associates expects that growth over the following years will be steady at approximately 20 – 50% per year (Cavanagh, 2006).  The benefits of online learning are numerous, so numerous in fact that if we decided to settle the argument over online learning based on shear volume alone, the pro-internet learning camp would win by a landslide.  However, this would be irresponsible and the weight of each argument must also be addressed to make a valid conclusion.

Some of the more notable reasons for implementing online classes from the school’s perspective are:  the increased flexibility to schedule students that are limited from attending regular face to face classes due to timetabling constraints (Tallent-Runnels et al., 2006), the opportunity to offer courses that would otherwise be under enrolled or to offer classes that are not offered at all at a particular location (Cavanagh, 2006) the expectations that online courses may result in higher completion rates (Muirhead, 2000) and finally reduction in costs to the school by eliminating breaks, lunches, transition times, room maintenance etc. (El Mansour & Mupinga, 2007).   

From the student’s position, some of the benefits are:  the self-pacing of material by the student removes stresses of fixed deadlines (Tallent-Runnels et al., 2006), the non-linear organization of a course (the ability to jump around from lesson to lesson, unit to unit) allows the student to make the course more “personally relevant” (Tallent-Runnels et al., 2006), participation in class discussions is less intimidating in a anonymous setting and the inherent delay in emails, chats and forums result in more thoughtful discourse (Tallent-Runnels et al., 2006) and the opportunity to participate in classes offered by renowned speakers and researchers without regard to geographical restrictions (Muirhead, 2000).

From the instructor’s point of view, online schooling has opened up doors to their teaching practice, requiring them to reflect and grow as the field does the same (Tallent-Runnels et al., 2006).  As described by Tallent-Runnel (2006), it allows teachers to practice “alternative instructional approaches” (p. 93)and to experiment with “multiple assessment techniques” (p. 104).  Muirhead (2007) notes that it lets the instructor be “governed by the task and not the clock” (p. 321)

The detriments of online learning are less in number, but more serious in nature.  Firstly it has been suggested that the cost savings for the school from implementing online courses may be modest, if it exists at all.  The cost of infrastructure, maintenance and constant updating of software and hardware may be so high as too result in negative revenue (El Mansouri & Mupinga, 2007). 

For students, some of the negative factors identified were: the lack of true teacher-student and student-student interactions (El Mansouri & Mupinga, 2007) the questionable quality of instruction (El Mansouri & Mupinga, 2007) and the necessity for a high degree of personal self-management to ensure success in an online course (Picciano, 2002). 

From my readings, the teacher seems to struggle the greatest when it comes to online courses.  It has become obvious that face to face class material can not simply be transformed into an online course (Tallent-Runnels et al., 2006) and much of the challenge for teaches is in developing material to post online, to determine what is of value and how to assess the work created in an online environment (Muirhead, 2000).  There is further concern for the teacher with doubt created from this new(ish) medium with regards to copyright and content ownership (Muirhead, 2007; Twigg, 2000).  Instructors are also unsatisfied with the “shallow” interactions they experience with students online and how this translates to less meaningful the discussions in their chat groups and the like (Tallent-Runnels et al., 2006).  In addition to the difficulties with curriculum and with student involvement, teachers also note the often negative experiences with their colleagues who teach traditional face to face classes that fear displacement from their current position due to the popularity of online schooling (Muirhead, 2000).  And of course, the biggest concern is academic honesty (Tallent-Runnels et al., 2006).    Teaching in a virtual classroom restricts one from truly “knowing” the person on the other side.  How do we know that the student on the other end is who he/she says she is?  How do we know that the work submitted is their own and is original? (Muirhead, 2000).

As a teacher, I feel that we must be open to all practices that are effective in bettering student learning and we must embrace those practices that have the ability to reach students beyond the scope of their specific special needs regardless whether these practices are face-to-face or virtual.  In order to evaluate whether online schooling has this desired effect, we must ignore the one factor that has little effect on the determination of a practice as either being inherently good or bad, but may ultimately determine if a practice survives. I will omit the argument that online schools may be cost saving or revenue generating to focus simply on the method itself. 

From the data presented in the papers I have read, it seems to me that the students view online classes in the same light as regular face to face classes.  Students still use the hours of 9 pm to midnight as their preferred hours of study (Cavanagh, 2006) and students from both practices were exposed to roughly the same number of instructional hours (Tallent-Runnels et al., 2006) and even with the freedom of working and studying whenever they liked to, online students still crammed just prior to testing (Tallent-Runnels et al., 2006). 

When it came to effectiveness of one practice over another a 2004 study by Bata-Jones & Avery found that online students do not outperform face to face students in standardized exams, nor did their study show any significant difference in student view of how effective the course was taught by the teacher and how it was received by themselves (Tallent-Runnels et al., 2006).    Two other independent studies by Maki, Maki, Patterson & Whittaker in 2000 and by Shiratuddin in 2001 seem to show online students do benefit from their mode of instruction, while a fourth study by Smith, Smith and Boone in 2000 seems to contradict the other two showing that face to face students fair better than their online counterparts (Tallent-Runnels et al., 2006).    Alas, it seems that the effectiveness of online classes relative to face to face classes is inconclusive.

To address the academic honesty debate, Ridley and Husband carried out a 1998 study and there was no noticeable difference between the overall grade point averages (GPA) for those online courses versus those attending face to face courses (Tallent-Runnels et al., 2006).  They argue that this consistency in GPA’s confirms that little variation in student deportment is occurring online when compared to face to face and they use these results to dispel the notion that cheating occurs at a greater rate online than in face to face classes .  Does this mean that cheating does not occur?  I doubt it, but rather cheating may be occurring at an equivalent rate online as well as face to face.

Faux and Black-Hughes, it was shown only 41.7% of students taking a course online felt uncomfortable with the mode of distribution (Tallent-Runnels et al., 2006) and a study by Ridley et al. showed that 61% of university students in their study would be willing to return to an online course in the future (Tallent-Runnels et al., 2006).    This seems to indicate to me that online courses have a place with a good population of students.  And with regards to grades and academic honesty, it would seem that it is on par with that of face to face schools.

In my opinion, e-learning is a viable and effective method of teaching and learning.  I feel that the data verifies that this mode of teaching is effective for a large population of students.  But as with traditional forms of teaching and learning, it is not effective for all and consideration must be given to the instructors, allowing them time and training to develop acceptable course material and assessment tools to assure program success.  Another area that may require more analysis is the idea of mixed mode or hybrid courses, where the best features of online courses are integrated with the best features of face to face courses producing a mode that may best meet the student’s needs.

Reference List

Cavanagh, S. (2006, October 25). To Tailor Schedules, Students Log in to Online Classes.  Education Week, 26(9), . (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. EJ752617) Retrieved June 29, 2008, from ERIC database.

El Mansour, B., & Mupinga, D. (2007, March 1). Students’ Positive and Negative Experiences in Hybrid and Online Classes. College Student Journal, 41(1), 242. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. EJ765422) Retrieved June 28, 2008, from ERIC database.

Muirhead, W. (2000, July). Online Education in Schools.  The International Journal of Educational Management, 315-324.

Picciano, A. (2002). Beyond Student Perceptions:  Issues of Interaction, Presence, and Performance in an Online Course.  Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 6(1), 21-40.

Tallent-Runnels, M., Thomas, J., Lan, W., Cooper, S., Ahern, T., Shaw, S., et al. (2006, January 1). Teaching Courses Online: A Review of the Research. Review of Educational Research, 76(1), 93. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. EJ751147) Retrieved June 27, 2008, from ERIC database.

Twigg, C., & Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst., T. (2000, February 1). Who Owns Online Courses and Course Materials? Intellectual Property Policies for a New Learning Environment. Pew Symposia in Learning and Technology (2nd, Miami, Florida, February 17-18, 2000). . (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED444601) Retrieved June 28, 2008, from ERIC database.

Here is a very nice link to some sites that host streaming documentary movies of decent quality (pretty much in standard television quality).  The site is fairly new and as a result, up to date.  There are very few dead links and the files seemed to be organize well.  As we all know, if you’re teaching something new, or boring, there’s no better opener than a movie!!!

Links to some free online documentary movie sites.