When reflecting upon the readings, Openness and Education: A beginner’s guide and Teaching Online : A Guide to Theory, Research, and Practice, I thought it was interesting to see the diversity of arguments presented as educators and researchers attempted to label what we may refer to now as online education and its many different forms. My first experience with online education and blended learning occurred when I first enrolled in university studies after a 10 year hiatus and found that each of my face-to-face courses had some kind of online component, presented through the Moodle platform. My math courses, for example, offered video-taped lectures of my professor presenting the lesson of the day, which students could access at any time. There were, of course, rare occasions where recordings would not turn out right, due to a microphone malfunction or by some fault of the recording technology but for the most part this allowed students who were learning via distance learning or stuck at home with the flu an opportunity to listen to the same lecture that students were seeing in class. After a while, I often wondered why I felt it necessary to spend the time and gas money to attend live lectures but there was something about being there and sitting next to my peers, asking questions of the professor, and engaging in casual small talk that was comforting and motivating. Years later, I enrolled in 100% online courses that featured online group projects, forum discussions, multimedia resources and the like. I paired up with a peer that I knew from my face-to-face courses, as I felt that this connection would be comforting and would increase our productivity. A week or so into our course, communication problems soon began to surface, and my peer and I were the only two members of our online group that were corresponding with one another, as the rest had dropped off or were just busy working on other projects or whatnot. In comparison to the positive experience I had accessing course materials, videos and resources online with blended courses, working through a 100% online course with distant group members was complicated and often messy. When I read the rosy reflections of teachers who facilitate online courses, about how their students have embraced online learning, I tend to think that this isn’t the reality that many students experience. As a student, I have a different perspective regarding the integration of social media and online group projects. I feel that social media integration in the context of learning often feels forced, providing an inauthentic and artificial avenue for engagement and discussion, as there is no time or opportunity to create meaningful social connections; students have to meet deadlines and specific course expectations, including writing a specific number of posts per day, of a certain length, and each having to meet specific criteria for quality. Sometimes professors want an exact number of posts, other times the post has to be 500 or 200 words. This makes online engagement feel less meaningful and organic and more about jumping through hoops within a time limit.
In the article, Teaching Online: A Guide to Theory, Research, and Practice, I was interested to read the perspectives of one professor, Alec Couros, who had reflected on an experience where one of his students shared his musical talents with the class as part of an improvised music performance. Couros wrote, “Open courses provide opportunities and connections that can serve as inspiring supports for students. The serendipity of networks is one of the reasons I’m a huge advocate for openness in course design” (2015, p.79). This kind of interaction is something that provides a glimpse into the unique potential of engaging in online learning, which is the social aspect of sharing and exchanging individual knowledge and expertise amongst diverse members of the student community for the sake of exchange. Providing opportunities for students to share their knowledge with one another in ways that are authentic and not forced is something that I feel creates a climate of learning and cooperation that is lost in many of the designs of online courses. I feel that we need to think carefully about what it means for students to interact with one another in an online space and present opportunities for students to feel engaged in a meaningful way in open learning environments.
References:
Johns, Hopkins University Press. (2015). Teaching Online: A Guide to Theory, Research, and Practice. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uvic/detail.action?docID=3318874.
Jordan, K. & Weller, M. (2017). Openness And Education: A Beginner’s Guide. Global OER Graduate Network. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320840206_Jordan_K_Weller_M_2017_Openness_and_Education_A_beginners%27_guide_Global_OER_Graduate_Network
ziqili
I really like your writing! I think you are doing a great job connecting the paper to your own experiences. I also started with face to face courses in the first two years in Univeristy, but to be honest, I rather call them blended courses becuase we always need to use our school website to access course materials, or use some other platforms like Top Hat, Mymathlab to answer short quizes which counts for our grades. Then I starts my third year with entirly online courses where I can review the classes whenever I want and I thought online classes are so great because I wont miss any critical points. But at the mean time, I rarely attend to any office hours due to the -15 hours timezone difference and sometimes I feel disconnected to the class.
misterbondy
Thanks for your reply and your perspective, Ziqi,
I feel that some of the better online learning experiences I have had are those that provided flexible due dates. I feel this allows students to better organize plans for getting together rather than everyone having to meet frequent deadlines. Although I have gotten better about how to manage my time working on projects, the stress of having to meet multiple deadlines and with multiple groups can be messy!
lleist
Hello Jerrod,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the reading provided for this week. I found your point about most classes, even face-to-face classes having an online component to be almost surprising as I hadn’t actually stopped to fully consider this. Even though I will be entering my fifth year of university education this fall I hadn’t actually realized how much technology is used within the face-to face lecture style. I am now flooded with the memories of Coursespaces, Brighsaces, D2L, and more. I remember needing to write blog posts, take online quizzes, refer to posted lecture notes, and submit any assignments through a dropbox platform. I too now understand the arisen question “why commute to campus”? However, like you mention purely online classes are not as rosy as some may like to think. Especially after pandemic learning I couldn’t agree more with your proposed cons to online learning. ” Un-organic communication related to prescribed word counts, topics, a number of blog posts, communication grading, and so on…”
Overall, your blog has allowed me to really reflect on my own perspectives of the readings, my response, and how I might interact with technology-based classes in the future.
Thanks again!
misterbondy
Hi Linnea, thanks for your reply and perspective. I find that while there are familiar tropes that students are used to when attending face-to-face classes, such as class and school routines and ways of approaching projects, my experiences with integrated online courses is that no course is the same, and it can take a while for a student to become accustomed to the routines and expectations of a course. Many instructors don’t see this as a problem, but for me I would benefit from professors taking the time to have a clear and concise rundown of what is expected in the course so that everyone can be on the same page. Otherwise, group members are often left to ask each other questions about how to submit work and what they should be working on, which is a clear indicator of a communication breakdown. Perhaps this is just due to the strict time tables of the course but only after that first transition week am I able to feel as though I am on the right footing when approaching how to go about interacting with the course material.
livaktiv
Hi Jerrod,
While I was reading about your experiences, they made me think and reflect on mines. I agree with many points you made and I feel that you bring up an interesting perspective of the readings.
When completing my courses in Hungary quite a while ago, technology was not part of our classes as much and in the form that is nowadays. You had to attend lectures face-to-face and complete assignments on paper individually not in groups. Then when I completed my courses in Canada, I was faced with lots of learning about many types of technology tools just to be able to attend and complete my courses, while we also had to collaborate on projects.
These two very different experiences allows me to see the pros and cons of both , and to learn about myself as a learner. One might say that not using technology in our courses will limit the possibilities for students and teacher as well; however, I feel that the interactions with peers and with the instructor were much more meaningful and organic, also simpler in a way. We were able to build connections with each other and we all benefitted from the support of the group, even though we didn’t collaborate on projects. These connections enabled us to build a supporting learning community that is desired in a course.
So I wonder as well, are online courses with a hectic schedule able to build a supporting learning community that we, educators teach about to our students? My answer is maybe but most likely not. At least, that’s not my experience. Therefore, even though online courses provide access and opportunities for learning for some who would be challenged to attend face-to-face courses, I have to agree with you that they feel more like jumping through the hoops then a meaningful learning experience.
Ryan Banow
Hi Jerrod,
Thanks for this post. Your comment about the “rosy reflections of teachers who facilitate online courses, about how their students have embraced online learning, I tend to think that this isn’t the reality that many students experience” caught my attention. I don’t disagree with it, but it speaks to the lack of feedback that students often provide to instructors. It is true that some instructors don’t want the feedback, but others do, and they have a hard time receiving it.
For example, in the course I taught in June, I had less than 10% of the students complete the end of course survey. What makes matters worse is that the only students eligible to complete the survey are those that persist to the end of the course. The students that really struggle with the learning environment drop out before the course ends. Those are students that an instructor really needs to get feedback from.
What do you think of these issues? What do you think instructors or schools can do to get more feedback to instructors? Do you think this is a bigger issue in online learning than it is in face-to-face?
Ryan
misterbondy
Hi Ryan, thanks for your post,
I feel the kind of feedback that instructors get from students is rather limited in terms of the scope, and yes, the timing of when the feedback forms are sent out is often mismatched with course timetables. I have taken online courses through both UVIC and Queens University in Ontario and feedback forms for both institutions are drastically different. For instance, Queens feedback forms are all fill-in-the-blank forms that are open for 2 weeks after the course ends. The questions for the forms provide students with opportunities to answer specific questions about the instructor as well as some opportunities to reflect on the course. The UVIC courses are more designed to be completed with 20 minutes, as they start a timer once they are activated, and pretty much just have students fill in a bubble from 1-5 over a series of questions and provide some opportunities for students to write in a paragraph about what was good, what could have been done better etc. I personally do not feel that this provides a complete picture of the student’s experience and the fact that a majority of the feedback is not processed is unfortunate. I agree that if a student drops out there needs to be some kind of feedback made available, otherwise there simply isn’t enough information to work off from to improve the experience. Perhaps instructors could make it part of their professional practice to provide opportunities for students submit reflections of their experiences during the course, maybe as part of a mid-way checkup. I do think this is a bigger issue in online learning, especially considering the speed at which some courses progress. When I read about online course design elements that contribute to successful student experiences, it really comes back to the connection students have with their professors. I think in online learning communities, this is a huge issue, as I really feel like there just isn’t enough time to make this important connection, which affects student learning and the way that feedback is processed.