Distance Education: The Pitfalls and the Possibilities

Session Distance Education: The Pitfalls and the Possibilities Susan L. Murray, Ph.D. Engineering Management University of Missouri – Rolla Abstract As universities increasingly embrace distance education technology, it is useful to examine the challenges and opportunities of technology in the classroom. This paper draws on the author’s years of experience teaching distance education and research to suggest strategies to incorporate in the engineering classroom. Methods to increase distance education student’s participation, ways to avoid losing students both on- and offcampus, and tricks to minimize the additional time required to manage off-site asynchronous students are discussed. Challenges for the distance education instructor are also discussed, such as dealing with time delays in the system, maintaining academic honesty with off-site students, and avoiding the talking head phenomenon and dealing with the MTV mentality. Introduction Distance education is becoming more prevalent in engineering education1. There are many definitions and forms of distance education. Students can receive material as text, graphics, audio, video, or combinations of these. Faculty may receive feedback ranging from none to real time streaming video connections. Traditional on-campus students may or may not be present. This paper will address the challenges and opportunities for these various situations. Technology Pitfalls Regardless of the technology used, there will be problems 2. This is an incredible source of frustration for students. Distance education students need a way to communicate if they are having a technical problem. As an instructor, this most likely isn’t your area of responsibility, but you are the person they will turn to. Be sure to have contact information for the person they should talk to. Show the students you are concerned about their ability to get information. Watching your class from a distance student’s perspective can be an eye opening experience. A colleague of mine was shocked to realize how distracting a photo background was on the computer. He had picked a colorful photo, thinking students Proceedings of the 2003 ASEE Midwest Section Meeting University of Missouri-Rolla Copyright Ó 2003, American Society for Engineering Education would enjoy it. But when he watched himself on tape he realized how horribly distracting it was and how much distortion it caused. Over the years I have watched a sampling of my lectures in my office with my computer connected to a T-1 line. I thought I had a feel for what the students experience. I realized how mistaken I was when I watched my on-campus class make presentations. I was on bed-rest and I watched the class live from home on a computer connected by a telephone line, the way the majority of my distance education students watch. The audio delay nearly drove me crazy. That experience helped me understand the delayed student response to my questions. At times I had wondered to myself, “Why aren’t they paying attention?” After that experience I realized much of the problem was the time delay. Now I use more collaborative learning techniques 3 for questions to the distance education students. For example, I ask students to pair up and take a minute to list all of the possible causes they can think of for a particular problem. This approach gives distance students more time to hear the question and they can reply more effectively. Technology Possibilities I once heard an observation about how little progress the typical professor has made beyond the caveman. The caveman used a small rock to make marks on large rock walls of the cave. Some professors still use small rocks (chalk) to make marks (unintelligible words and formulas) on a large rock (slate chalkboard). By definition distance education has brought technology into the class. Video players, cameras, the Internet, and other resources are often available. Instead of drawing a machine, instructors can show digital photos. Instead of passing hands-on examples around for the class to see sequentially, the entire class can watch up-close demonstrations thanks to the availability of cameras. Video can be used to pique students’ interest before introducing a concept. For example, when I introduce ergonomics in my industrial engineering class, I show a short video clip of an assembly line task. I ask students to identify aspects of the job that make it uncomfortable and unsafe. This clip provides a spring board to introduce various ergonomic principles. Student Attention Pitfalls Many of our students have grown up passively watching television. Many slip into this mode when course materials are recorded. I’ve observed a marked decrease in students taking notes and plugging-in to class. This becomes more exaggerated when course notes are provided. This is one of the many challenges I have wrestled with while teaching distance education. I tried leaving blanks in the notes that needed to be filled in – it didn’t work. A student of mine actually complained when he missed a multiple choice question. The answer was blank in his notes, so in his opinion it wasn’t a fair question. Pointing out that I wrote the information in the blank during the lecture and that it was in the book didn’t seem to be sufficient for this student. I and others have tried withholding notes until just before or after the lectures. Students complained with fury, but still didn’t take notes. The two best approaches I’ve seen are discussing the need for note taking skill Proceedings of the 2003 ASEE Midwest Section Meeting University of Missouri-Rolla Copyright Ó 2003, American Society for Engineering Education (i.e., “your boss is going to tell you to do something and isn’t going to provide written notes”) and a simple example of the learning effort of hearing and writing information (i.e., at the beginning of class provide some data then later compare the retention of the data for people who only heard it versus those who also wrote it down.) Student Attention Possibility The importance of change the class format every 20 minutes or so to retain student attention has been well established 3. The technology available increases the ways in which this can be done. Instructors can break up a lecture by showing some photos or calling on a distance student to provide their perspective from industry. Logistical Pitfalls Distance education students often require more attention from the instructor than oncampus students. In a traditional class, if a student is uncertain of something they often start by asking their classmates (i.e., when is the homework due?). Since they are widely dispersed, distance students often do not have a working relationship with other students in the class. So, they email their questions to the professor. Handling these one-on-one greatly increases the instructor’s support time for a class. Homework from distance students takes longer to grade. With on-campus students, you get a pile of papers to grade, record, and return in mass. The distance students email their homework individually. Returning homework via fax or email is much more time consuming. If on-campus students are also allowed to email homework, the time demand for the class can grow at an alarming rate. I require my on-campus students to submit their work during class, taking full advantage of the built-in economy of scale. Logistical Possibilities List-serves and discussion boards can prove to be incredible time savers for instructors. Questions, such as “What chapters are on the exam?” can be answered once via an email list-serve. Questions that are asked every semester can be answered as FAQs. Student discussion boards can be a great educational resource without major time requirements. Electronic drop boxes or a special email address for homework assignments can also be a time saver. The electronic grade books available with many software packages (such as Blackboard or Web CT) can eliminate the end-of-the-semester flood of “What grade did I get on the final exam?” or “What is my grade in the class?” Distance students often feel excluded. I had a student remark that “It feels kind of eerie watching a class as a distance student.” She felt almost like a supernatural observer. Instructors can take steps to reduce these feelings. I have distance students email a self introduction to the class. Learning job titles and company names can make the disembodied voices seem more a part of the class to the other students. Pairing distance students with on-campus students or other distance students for class activities, homework or projects can improve the quality of the work and the sense of belonging. A Proceedings of the 2003 ASEE Midwest Section Meeting University of Missouri-Rolla Copyright Ó 2003, American Society for Engineering Education particularly effective arrangement that I use is having the distance students provide reviews of the on-campus student presentations. The student presenters appreciate the real world feedback and the reviewers enjoy the opportunity to mentor others. Academic Honesty Pitfalls Unfortunately academic dishonesty is a concern for university faculty. Monitoring for cheating during an exam with all of the students physically in the classroom is a challenge. Considering distance students at remote locations adds an entirely new level of difficulty. Some instructors require students to take exams at qualified testing centers, often at universities or in company training departments. However, this requirement significantly reduces the students’ flexibility and may even prove prohibitive for some students. Other approaches include open-book exams or eliminating exams from the grading structure. A less extreme approach to control the time allowed for test taking is using fax machines or emails. From the time a student receives the exam, they have a certain amount of time to take the exam. The time stamp on the fax or email message determines if the student has met the time requirement. Conclusion Distance education is here. It may not be in your classroom or on your campus yet, but it is widespread enough that it influences the expectations of the engineering educator. An instructor who simply does what he or she has always done and tries to ignore the cameras in the classroom can expect a frustrating experience. As educators, we need to modify our course to reach distance education students. This is a challenge that presents many obstacles, both technical and psychological. However, distance education provides many opportunities to improve the learning experience for everyone involved. It is my opinion that the more we share our experiences as educators dealing with these challenges, the more we will learn from each other, making it the better for our students and more enjoyable for us. References 1. Evans, E., and Murray, S., “A Technology Assessment Survey for Web-Based Higher Education Programs,” 1998 American Society for Engineering Education Conference, Seattle, WA, June 1998. 2. Evans, R.; Murray, S.; Daily, M.; and Hall, R., January 2000, “Effectiveness of an Internet-Based Graduate Engineering Management Course,” Journal of Engineering Education. 3. Haller, C.; Gallagher, V.; Weldon, T.; and Felder, R., September 2000, “Dynamics of Peer Education in Cooperative Learning Workgroups,” Journal of Engineering Education. SUSAN L. MURRAY Proceedings of the 2003 ASEE Midwest Section Meeting University of Missouri-Rolla Copyright Ó 2003, American Society for Engineering Education Dr. Murray currently serves as an Associate Professor of Engineering Management at the University of Missouri – Rolla. Her research interests include engineering education, work design, productivity improvement, safety engineering, and human factors. She received her B.S. and Ph.D. in industrial engineering from Texas A&M University and her M.S. in industrial engineering from the University of Texas-Arlington. Prof. Murray is a registered Professional Engineer in Texas and a member of ASEE. Proceedings of the 2003 ASEE Midwest Section Meeting University of Missouri-Rolla Copyright Ó 2003, American Society for Engineering Education View publication stats