Keeping Students at Distance

Though her article is by now dated, Patricia Webb Peterson is (was) right to point out the necessity of carefully considering distance learning’s impact on education. Not only must institutions consider the needs of students who can’t (for a multiplicity of reasons) live on or near campus, but how to bend under mounting budgetary pressures which seem to call for increased digitizing of classroom environments.

With the following goofy images, I’ll attempt to answer some of her key questions. If not answer, then at least consider.

Part 1: Teacher’s Roles in the Online Classroom



Without the traditional space of a classroom, online teachers won’t necessarily serve as lecturers. While they may indeed record presentations and distribute them widely between sections, students are unable to react with them in real-time, asking questions as they arise or requesting the speaker to expand/clarify particular points. In a way, this aspect of the online class environment is read-only. Peterson points out that critics fear what she terms as “unbundling”: “This process of unbundling means that the faculty member who writes the course is not the one who will teach the course; hence, the student and the content expert are further separated, not brought closer together by the technology” (374).

But aren’t we locked into certain content somewhere along the way, online or off? Shakespeare will still be taught in Shakespeare courses, and instructors’ perspective will still manifest, just in different ways. The same applies for other courses across the curriculum. Though students won’t always have real-time access to instructors, they *can* interact in discussion and real-time chat environments. In this manner, the instructor becomes more of a facilitator, helping to connect students with their resources, learning materials, and engagements with assignments. Ultimately, students are responsible for engaging themselves in the learning process, inside of the classroom or out. Instructors have always been facilitators (in most contexts), but distance learning changes the aspect of that facilitation.

Part 2: Educational Goals



Peterson points out that proponents of distance learning often consider ‘lifelong learning’ as being positively facilitated by the apparently increased access to educational venues (377). Furthermore, this apparently increased access will explode diversity levels in the classroom. Their opponents, however, worry about who gets to decide what education means (378). Primarily, they fear for-profit entities having control over the educational medium—manufacturers will come to dictate the structure of education based on how well they sell their products to learning institutions. Furthermore, as Peterson articulates, “Critics claim that this large-scale delivery of courses strips the learning experience of any social and cultural effects that traditional face-to-face learning offers. Worse, we are still contending with the digital divide, which potentially seriously blunts this hoped-for diversity.

However, again, aren’t all institutions corporately bound in some respect or another? If we assign books in the classroom, somebody buys them. Campus facilities are built by contractors, and other resources are purchased from a multitude of sources, some of which enjoy some rather exclusive privileges (AHEM—the Bookie—COUGH). And, depending on the computer-savvy of the instructor in question, can’t we get around going through ALL of the normal channels? There are ways around ANGEL, we just have to utilize them. In terms of access, surely not everyone can afford a computer, but owning a computer and knowing how to use it might be a shorter economic leap than having to uproot and move to campus (where one will probably need a computer at some point anyway).

Part 3: Student Learning



So, how do we evaluate if distance learning works, if students are able to digest the material? Well, how do we go about evaluating if in-class learning works? Granted, the venues are different, but aren’t the goals equivalent? No cookie-cutter solution will work for any educational environment much less one online, but institutional student retention reports focusing solely on distance learning might give us a better idea of where the numbers are going. Exit discussions (surveys, counseling, etc.) could provide insight into student’s motivations for staying or leaving. Peterson mentions stronger inclusion of student feedback (382). I hear, though won’t/can’t confirm here, that more distance students drop out of class than on-campus students. Undoubtedly, students who seek out distance learning opportunities have salient reasons for doing so, and sometimes those reasons may peel them away from class obligations.

We shouldn’t always assume that students who drop out aren’t “getting” the material. There could be a number of other factors. While some of those factors aren’t within an institution’s range of control, others are. For instance, how do we factor in technology problems to overall learning problems associated solely with course-content? Does the interface interfere?

It could.