Traditional teaching and distance teaching cannot be compared across the board. It is not possible to say that one or the other is better in general. Rather, each is better for specific audiences, for specific content, and in specific situations.
Teaching poorly motivated, immature, or low skill students should be done in a face-to-face setting. These types of students have limited capacities for "making decisions regarding their own learning" (Moore and Kearsley, 1996, p. 135). They have difficulty with those areas that Moore and Kearsley point out as essential: planning their own learning, finding resources, and evaluating the success of their work (p. 135). Distance teaching can best take place with students who are mature, self-directed, and academically able. As Dr. McIsaac and several students in this course have pointed out, however, distance learning is often very valuable for those who would not have access to traditional education because of social or economic barriers. When distance teaching is the only viable method for reaching certain students, then it should be adopted. The very obstacles may motivate these students highly. Finally, distance teaching might be appropriate for the most gifted students, who are not being challenged in a regular classroom.
While we have used "distance education" as a general term in this course, we really have discussed both education and training. Traditional teaching seems to be an extremely non-cost-effective means of delivering skills training. Learning skills involves some understanding, but primarily practice. This is the ideal type of learning for Computer Aided Instruction, whether on site or via a network. What we normally refer to as "education," broad-based learning that involves a great deal of analysis and synthesis of information, requires interaction with others, but the mode of delivering that interaction seems somewhat arbitrary. One could learn much about the causes of WWI in a face-to-face course, via a correspondence course, or over an online conferencing system. My guess is that people like face-to-face courses because of the social interactions, but might prefer distance approaches for practical reasons.
Finally, distance teaching is preferable to traditional methods when geography, medical conditions, social factors, or poverty make it impossible for students to participate in traditional educational programs. However, traditional education is preferable if one of the goals of the education is a certain type of socialization. For example, if African-Americans were barred from higher education in the 90s, and suddenly it were possible for them to attend, as happened in the South in the 1960s, I don't think the aims of education would be served by having these students enroll in distance learning courses, even if all the students were taking the course in this fashion.
Socialization is an area that doesn't seem to merit too much attention, but it seems to me to be important. When a company inteviews a candidate with a college degree, for example, the company manager expects a certain amount of awareness concerning business culture. He/she would be nonplussed to see the candidate arrive for the interview in a prom dress, as I read in an Arizona Republic article recently (the exact citation for which I can't recall) actually did happen. Appropriate modeling might be one aspect of the total learning process that is not well served by some modes of distance teaching or tutoring.
If most learning that we term "education" requires a great deal of interaction, the three types discussed by Moore and Kearsley (1996) are learner-content interaction, learner-instructor interaction, and learner-learner interaction. There is great variety in the types and extent of interaction offered within online courses. The spectrum is represented by two that I examined: one offered by the University of Texas at Austin, the other by the University of Phoenix.
The first example is a twelve-month structured program offered by the University of Texas IC2 (Innovation, Creativity, and Capital) Institute. The IC2 Institute defines its mission as follows:
"The Institute is a globally interactive virtual organization that uses modern telecommunications and multimedia technologies to link research universities, businesses, and other institutional and individual resources in developed and emerging regions for shared prosperity at home and abroad.
"The Institute provides unique approaches to the study of business, technology, political, social, and economic issues by studying unstructured problems, developing multidisciplinary think teams and going beyond functional boundaries, linking theory with practice, and providing opportunities to think anew within a university environment."
The IC2 Institute offers a program leading to a Master of Science in the Commercialization of Science and Technology. Participants are professionals "fully engaged in career responsibilities" who have already demonstrated a high degree of success doing academic work. The program began in January 1996 and offers courses at Austin, Texas and Alexandria, Virginia.
The program begins each January, proceeding through the summer, and terminating in December. An orientation week in the fall preceding the start of classes begins the teacher-student, as well as student-student interaction. A week-long seminar then initiates each of the three semesters. During the remainder of the program, students meet for full two-way videoconferencing every two weeks for four three-hour classes. These run from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. In this fashion, the student takes four sequentially structured courses each semester. At the conclusion of the program, the student will have taken 12 three-hour courses.
I was unable to determine online whether full two-way videoconferencing is the technology used for both the orientation and week-long seminar at the start of each semester or whether participants are expected to be on campus for these meetings. Two-way videoconferencing, however, is the method used in the subsequent classes. (How the distant sites managed to accommodate two-way videoconferencing was not made clear.) Online work is essential to the course as Lotus Notes groupware and the Internet provide opportunities for the students to interact with the instructor and each other.
The first course in the sequence, entitled "Converting Technology to Wealth," employs text materials, so students interact with content through reading. Content may also be delivered to some degree through actual presentation by faculty at the videoconferences, although I am only assuming this the web site did not make this explicit. Course outlines and other course materials are available to all participants at a password-protected web site. Further content is found by participants themselves, as they work on projects. The Internet is one source of information, and Fellows of the IC2 Institute, eminent figures in government and business, are also apparently available for consultation online. The participants' own work environments are also sources of content since many of these participants are bringing actual technology from their research or business locations to be used as examples in the courses.
Students interact with faculty in the videoconferences and can send messages to the instructor using e-mail and LotusNotes TM. Faculty can also communicate with students by placing material on the password-protected web site. Student-student interaction is, I assume, built into the videoconferencing. How these interactions are fostered, for example, whether there are site coordinators who aid the faculty in encouraging student-student interaction, was not clear from the limited information at the web site. However, computer conferencing via laptop computers goes on among the students throughout the entire year, as they must work in teams to complete projects. This interaction increases through the program: the students must develop team ventures that attempt to turn a piece of technology into a commercial product and, together, develop and present a business plan for the product.
This type of course offering seems to be ideal for the independent, professional student. The desire of adult learners for practical, applicable knowledge is certainly met. The types of interactions also seem in line with the needs of these working professionals. There is social presence built into two-way videoconferencing (possibly also face-to-face interaction in the orientation and seminar weeks). But the majority of the learning rests with the online teams, who work together to research, plan, and develop their ventures and business plans, remaining in touch online with faculty and Fellows at the IC2 Institute.
I believe that the team interactions, together with access to IC2 Fellows and contacts at the locations where other participants are located, are probably are the most important contributors to the success of these courses, given this audience and their objectives.
The second program I examined was the offerings at the Center for Distance Education at the University of Phoenix, where the courses are planned for "mid-career professionals" who typically lack the financial resources of the University of Texas program participants (that one-year program costs $26,000.) Like the UT program, the University of Phoenix graduate programs are strictly sequential. Each course lasts six weeks and each online course is constructed around eight to 13 participants. However, the start date is flexible. It is possible for an online student to begin the program nearly at any time. I assume that as soon as 8 10 prospective students are available, they may begin the program. Since the students are drawn from all over the world, filling a course should not take that much time.
A student is assigned a mentor, who responds personally to each student in the course. The media used for communication from instructor to student are e-mail, fax, phone, faxmail, and regular mail. An example of a course that might be taken through "mentor study" online is Global Management.
A second type of online course is also available from the University of Phoenix, their newest approach: Continuing Professional Education Internet courses. From what I can gather about these courses, they are an example of Computer Aided Instruction (CAI) offered over the Internet. In this case, there is neither instructor-student interaction nor student-student interaction. Rather, the entire course consists of the student interacting with online readings, which are divided into "workshops" consisting of a number of sub-topics. The student then engages in computer-controlled interactive exercises and receives feedback immediately. Students may also take review tests, receiving information immediately on the number correct and incorrect, with directions back to readings and further problem tasks in order to correct the mistakes. Finally, when the student feels ready, she takes the Final Exam, which also is computer graded immediately. Examples of CPE Internet courses range from Diversity in the Workplace to Mastering Excel 97: an Introduction.
While a training-oriented course seems appropriate for this mode of delivery, a more broad-based course such as Diversity in the Workplace does not. There would be no avenue for questioning or amending the learning in the latter course. Neither could the learner bring in his or her personal knowledge and experience. A na‹ve learner might even equate knowing the "correct answers" with real understanding of such a complex area as "Diversity in the Workplace." This latter type of online instruction seems to me to offer students a quick method for learning new skills. However, I'd hate to see this approach generalized to areas generally called "education." A student in a CPE Internet course would probably value the quick feedback, and would probably name this as the top feature of the student content interaction.
Moore, M.G. & Kearsley, G. (1996). Distance learning. Wadsworth Publishing Company.
Online
IC2 Institute, University of Texas at Austin http://utexas.edu/depts/ic2/msdegree/
University of Phoenix, Distance Learning Center http://www.uophx.edu/
Note: I was able to reach each of these web sites via the Search engine http://www.megacrawler.com "online course" And "University of Phoenix" brought up the latter site. Later, I could not reach it by entering the URL directly.