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Would you drive across a bridge built by a DL student?
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by Nancy Caronia
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Distance learning and online courses have become an integral part of the educational process, particularly for busy individuals who work full-time while completing a degree or ambitious students in school districts that have limited budgets and course offerings. To support the demand for DL courses, colleges and universities have expanded course offerings and, in some cases, created coalitions to sustain virtual environments that allow students and professors to interact outside the boundaries of their institutions.
But there is another side to the DL environment that has some educators wondering if excellent standards in education have been traded for a "best bang for the buck" mentality. DL programs may be an economical way for educational institutions to serve the maximum number of students while keeping classroom costs down, but is it educationally sound to conduct upper-level undergraduate courses online?
One physics professor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, suggested that departments, fearing extinction if classroom numbers drop, are asking instructors to commit educational malpractice by educating students through online pools.
Interactive Needs
In September 2006, Dr. Cecilia Barnbaum, associate professor, department of physics, astronomy & geosciences, Valdosta State University, addressed this issue in Physics Today with a letter written in response to the journal's September 2005 article, "Small Programs Survive by Pooling Students." Barnbaum's letter stated, "Distance learning is a prescription for the death of high-level science and technology, for the following reasons: Students need the physical presence of professors; professors need to observe students directly in order to judge their needs and their understanding of the material; and faculty need to keep their teaching skills honed through regular opportunities to teach upper-level physics courses."
While face-to-face interaction may be the best way to create a rapport and monitor a student's progress, Dr. Daniel Suson, department of physics and geosciences, Texas A&M University-Kingsville, said videoconferencing technology is rapidly eliminating this advantage. "From an instructor's point of view, teaching at a distance using technology is a time intensive effort," he argued. "Techniques that work in the traditional classroom often do not translate over a distance. All too often, the technology is blamed when the real problem is a failure to properly train the instructor in how to use the new environment effectively."
I am not a science person -- I am a journalist who also happens to teach English composition and literature -- so I contacted a former SUNY Finger Lakes Community College student of mine, who recently completed his B.S. in biochemistry at Syracuse University. When I asked Aaron J. Wolfe what he thought about distance learning and pooling students, he acknowledged that he had never been part of a distance learning course or online pool, but added, "Physics really needs a whiteboard and a professor to interact with one-on-one."
Out Of The Pool
With an 80 percent attrition rate for basic physics courses, according to Barnbaum, one-on-one contact would seem to be a necessity for burgeoning physics majors -- and Barnbaum doesn't believe that pooling students through DL environments will help with either retention rates or instructor efficiency. "The strategy is to pool students from different regional universities. What this means is that one professor teaches the course online every four years," she offered. "Putting aside the idea that DL for upper level physics is ridiculous, if instructors are only teaching certain courses every few years, it will be like teaching a new course."
But Suson noted that the Texas Electronic Coalition for Physics, for which he is chairperson, has been dealing with these concerns since 2000. Funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, TECP is a coalition of physics programs located within Texas, including Tarleton State University and several schools in the Texas A&M System.
Upper division physics courses are offered through online coursework and Trans-Texas Video Network. TECP also links participating TECP faculty undergraduate physics majors who are interested in pursuing research activities.
"From an institutional point of view, by using distance technology to teach, classes that normally would not be taught due to a lack of sufficient students can now be offered. This enables small programs to weather dips in enrollment and support that would otherwise be crippling. In turn, this allows these small programs to implement long-term plans to increase the interest in their fields," said Suson.
Additionally, the virtual environment "enables regional programs to team together as a distributed department to offer classes that otherwise can not be offered," Suson explained. This allows professors, who many feel isolated in their departments, to foster communications through research collaboration, development of specialized teams, and intercommunications with other professors in their field.
TECP has also attempted to recreate a laboratory experience for its DL student through the development of techniques that combine equipment remote control, computer-based data collection, student research teams, and simulations. "In developing this course, we have mirrored many of the approaches already taken by dispersed research projects in physics," Suson explained. "We feel that this provides the appropriate experience for our students, preparing them for either graduate school or industry."
Economic Pressures
While colleges, universities, and even school districts are more actively finding ways to interact and work together, it's not always clear if the impetus is educational or economic. After all, the business paradigm has been creeping into academia for more than a decade.
In addition to the pressure of keeping the classroom numbers elevated, Barnbaum believed that administrators are intimating that it's the professors' responsibility to make sure that students are pushed through courses, even when they have not satisfactorily completed the coursework. "We will be getting students through," she noted, "but they're learning a lot less. I'm not going to want to drive across a bridge in the next 20 years."
But it's not just the administration that is putting pressure on faculty and departments -- students' expectations of what they need to do to obtain a degree often ends at paying the tuition bill. "When a student pays tuition, he or she is not paying for a degree, but an opportunity," said Barnbaum. "What the student does with the opportunity is up to him or her. If a student comes in and is not well prepared, I will supplement so that they will be prepared. Most of them don't want that, which is what complicates everything. They don't want to do any work at all. This is a broad brush and there are exceptions, thank goodness, but that's the general attitude.
"It doesn't matter how smart you are in physics, it will only get you so far. Anybody, even Einstein, had to work and know how to work. If you don't know how to work, you'll give up."
Barnbaum's prediction for the future of U.S. science and technology is fairly grim: "If our nation wants to improve science academics, universities have to bite the bullet, hire the best faculty, and see the lean times through. Otherwise, the world will see no new science and technology coming from the U.S. during this century."
MORE INFO
TECP http://physics.tamuk.edu/tecp
Valdosta State University valdosta.edu
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