Regional accreditation of Jones International University (JIU) - the first entirely virtual university accredited by the US regional accreditation agency - sparked heated discussions in academic circles. Concerns about changing roles of academia and faculty were countered with unbinding enthusiasm for the new teaching opportunities.
This presentation uses notes form the 5 years of active online teaching at Jones International University as a base to examine what is changing in teaching, faculty roles, student responsibilities and collegiate culture when we decide to deliver education through a network of computers.
KEYWORDS
online teaching
online learning
virtual university
online pedagogy
INTRODUCTION
It appears, based on archeological records, that people learned before we invented classroom. We have -- sometimes -- learned in them. I would hypothesize that we will somehow learn when the classrooms are no longer around. The question, of course is what we will learn.1
This statement by John McDaid names the central theme of my presentation. Based on the experience of five years of active teaching and administration at Jones International University (JIU) -- the first fully online, regionally accredited university in the United States -- I will attempt to outline changes to teaching and learning processes that happen when online environment replaces face to face classroom.
After a short introduction of JIU’s teaching model I will focus on the following four questions.
1. How our teaching practices change when we teach online?
2. How does the role of faculty change in online environments?
3. How do the students’ responsibilities change in online environments?
4. How do we change our collegiate culture by creating online universities?
My professional background in media ecology and my experience at JIU thought me that in order to use technology wisely we need to question it. Therefore, when looking at the changes mentioned above I will ask some broad questions. I will ask not only what are the benefits of online learning, but also what are the disadvantages of online teaching. I will ask what we can and cannot learn in electronic contexts, and whether some things are more effectively learned in other contexts. These questions reflect my personal and professional belief that it is our responsibility as educators to look at the changes we are implementing and consider what old educational ideas need to be saved when we invent new ways of teaching and learning.
If this sound like a surprisingly conservative agenda expressed by a faculty of the university that prides itself to be at the forefront of educational changes, it is only a surface contradiction. JIU‘s model always included careful consideration of how we should translate valuable educational practices into online delivery models. In other words, one of the most important lessons that we have learned at JIU is that simply moving traditional classroom practices online does not work well. The nature of the delivery system we use needs to be acknowledged and considered if online education is to be effective.
JIU HISTORY AND TEACHING MODEL
Jones International University (JIU) was created in 1993. It started to offer courses in 1995. It is a private, for-profit university that currently serves over 3,000 students in 57 countries. In March of 1999, after a rigorous review process, JIU received regional accreditation from North Central Association of Colleges and Universities (NCA). It was the first fully online, virtual university to receive accreditation from the same agency that accredits such universities as University of Illinois, Regis University and other mainstream, traditional schools.
JIU uniqueness lies in the fact that it functions entirely online. It has no physical campus. It does not require face to face meetings for any of its courses or degrees. It uses fully asynchronous model of content delivery and it divides its faculty into two separate but equally important roles – content experts and teaching faculty.
· Content Experts are faculty who design JIU course content. They define learning outcomes, identify readings, and design assignments. They are recruited from among the top academics in a given subject area.
· Teaching Faculty are faculty who work directly with students. They guide students through the course content, provide feedback, grade students‘ work, answer questions and lead online discussions. They are recruited from among the most talented teachers in academia.
Since JIU was a first fully on-line university to receive regional accreditation, NCA decision sparked a heated discussion among members of academia in the United States. This discussion brought to the surface some important points that we need to consider when we think about online teaching and learning.
CHANGES IN ONLINE TEACHING PRACTICES
Seven years ago when we started to design JIU programs, online teaching was young and not much was know about how it works. Traditional ways of content presentation, pedagogy, class management, learning assessment as well as traditional roles for faculty and students needed to be translated into online environments. Asking what are the qualitative changes that online education brings to teaching practices was the first step in this translation.
As we shortly found out, one of the most significant changes that online education brings to traditional academic processes lies in the fact that with the emergence of online universities people no longer go to school to get education, they receive education wherever they are. Students no longer need to adjust their lives to academic schedules. They can adjust time and place of education delivery to their own needs.
This anytime, anyplace model opens education up to a diverse group of students. This means thatteaching through the Internet forces us to teach in mixed cultural and international settings. Traditional adult students are still a large part of JIU‘s student body, but a growing numbers of people who were not able or not willing to obey by the traditional schools‘ demands of time and space apply to our programs. Additionally, large numbers of international students come to online classrooms from many geographic locations. These international students participation is not mediated by the necessity to be physically present, and therefore to be at least minimally familiar, with the culture of the country and the university from where they receive their education.
This diverse student body demands relevancy of what they are being taught. But how can we make what we teach relevant to everyone? How can we meet the need – very often expressed by JIU students - to apply what they learn to a broad variety of real life problems when these problems are faced by a diverse, non-traditional, truly international body of students?
One answer to this challenge is to open the teaching processes to student‘s control.
For example, asking our students to use their immediate surroundings as a focus of their assignments works well online because students‘ immediate surroundings are part of their learning environment. Asking students to incorporate their personal lives into the classroom discussions results in an involved participation -- precisely because writing about personal problems from the relative safety of one‘s office or kitchen table is easier then talking about it in a crowded classroom. Alternatively, forcing students to discuss arbitrarily chosen issues and to write about arbitrarily chosen case studies is usually met with mixed responses.
In terms of instructional methodology it means that the translation of traditional teaching methods and materials into effective online tools should include design of open ended, interactive case studies, offering choices in readings, assignments and practice exercises. Small-group discussions that allow in depth participation and collaboration will be successful online, assuming that students can contact instructors for help at any time. Simulations and role playing exercises will work well in online classrooms. Interactive materials, debates and mock trials will result in students‘ increased engagement. Assignments that allow students to choose topics and perspectives will help to relate what we teach to what students want to learn. Additionally, as anyone who thought online knows, it is imperative that online course content is kept fresh. Students, who have time to check things out, will quickly point out irrelevancy, outdated materials and resources.
Using student centered program design and teaching methods will allow online universities effectively meet needs of their diverse students. It will allow us to engage a variety of students and to provide them with education that they need and value.
What can we loose by focusing our education efforts on applicable aspects of knowledge? Unfortunately we can lose a lot. We can lose a concept of learning as pursuit of broad and pure knowledge. We can loose concept of learning as sheer intellectual inquiry and intellectual pleasure. We can loose a lot of traditional roles of learning used as mind expanding activitiy.
What can we loose if students take control over what they learn and how they learn? Again, we can loose a lot. Basics of education may not be covered if students do not find them relevant. More esoteric benefits of learning, such as intellectual discipline, reasoning skills, critical thinking, may not be sufficiently learned.
Do we need to make the trade off and choose effective, flexible education vs. quality of education? No, careful care for the quality of what and how we teach will add these more traditional educational topics to online programs. We need to keep coherence and context present in the overall design of online courses and programs. Through active and engaged teaching instructors can add affective domain and intellectual discipline to information based learning. This will of course require a lot of faculty engagement in online teaching. Careful structuring of everything what students bring into the classroom will be needed. It will require thoughtful translation of traditional teaching roles into online modes.
In the increasingly open, student controlled environment of online classroom the role of faculty will be even more important.
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