Distance Learning Strategies That Make Sense, Part 1
There are many conflicting reports on the economic implications of distance learning. On the one hand, it has been advocated as a tool for reducing costs—to leverage scarce faculty or facilities [9]. On the other hand, many faculty participants report that distance learning requires time commitments far higher than those of traditional courses [3]. With such a broad range of reported outcomes, faculty members who are considering engaging in distance learning have a right to be suspicious. Such suspicions should not be shrugged off as a form of generic resistance to technology, as they are sometimes presented [2]. They are better viewed as the reaction of a rational agent to an "opportunity" to innovate that could easily lead to uncompensated higher work loads.
The objective of this article is to present a framework for better understanding the apparent economic paradoxes of distance learning from the faculty member's perspective. This framework is derived inductively from three case studies of actual distance learning courses that are presented. These cases are analyzed with respect to their economic and pedagogical implications in order to synthesize a framework for characterizing distance learning courses. Finally, the implications of course design—from the faculty member's perspective—are examined using the framework.
Definitions of Distance Learning
For the purposes of this article, distance learning is defined as being present any time an instructional technique reduces the need for spatial or temporal proximity in the education process. This is only one of many possible definitions, and is considerably broader than some [8]. Under this definition, then, many non-telecommunication based techniques (e.g., placing video tapes of lectures on reserve in a library) represent a rudimentary form of distance learning. Technology enabled (T-enabled) distance learning is used to refer specifically to situations where technology is utilized to accomplish distance learning (e.g., broadcasting lectures, distributing lectures as Macromedia Flash on a CD). Internet enabled (I-enabled) distance learning can be used to identify techniques involving communications over the Internet (e.g., providing Webcast lectures in the form of streaming video).
Three Distance Learning Case Studies
As a starting point for developing a microeconomic framework of distance learning approaches, we look at three actual courses, all of which employed distance learning and all of which were successful in meeting some important educational objectives. Included with each description is a brief synopsis of its economics.
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The broadcast course: Economics U$A.Over the past two decades, uncounted thousands (likely millions) of students have taken—either formally or informally—a course titled "Economics U$A." The course, available on tape or broadcast by local public television stations, has been offered for credit by high schools, community colleges, and universities. Nearly twenty years after its creation, the course's 28 half-hour segments are still broadcast in a number of markets sprinkled across the U.S.
"Economics U$A" was developed by the Annenberg/CPB Foundation in the early 1980s. The course, which cost several million dollars to develop, featured two hosts: a journalist and an economist (a former instructor of Harvard's "Economics 1" course). A typical course segment consisted of video clips, interviews with important figures of the day (e.g., the Fed's Paul Volker), discussions of economic concepts and animated graphics. Some segments were updated in 1989, 1992, and 2003.
When offered formally at the high school or college level, an instructor was normally assigned to lead a discussion of each segment and to create/grade appropriate assignments. To offer the course for credit, institutions paid a fee ranging from $200.00 to $300.00 a semester. A textbook specifically written for the course was also available.
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The hybrid course: Introduction to C++ Programming. A required introductory programming course offered for undergraduate MIS majors, students chose between attending live lectures, taped lectures, and lectures specially prepared for distribution of over the Internet. In addition, the course textbook provided 17 hours of multimedia content on an accompanying CD, complementing the weekly lecture time.
The course emphasized seven assignments, with all testing being specifically directed towards validating assignment completion. Testing techniques included computer generated multiple-choice tests—administered online—to validate pencil-and-paper assignments (e.g., numbering systems), proficiency tests in the lab, and oral examinations to validate programming assignments. For distance learning students, these exams could also be administered using a combination of telephone and remote terminal access (e.g., GoToMyPC).
Because the assignment validation process verified that students understood the material they handed in, collaboration between students taking the course was strongly encouraged. Online discussion forums were also set up for each assignment. These could be quite active, with 200 or more postings for a single assignment being common. Teaching assistants for the course were recruited exclusively from the ranks of undergraduates who had recently taken the course. Their activities included providing formal and informal support in the labs, helping respond to student questions in online discussion groups, assisting students with assignments during office hours, grading assignments and conducting preliminary oral examinations. These collaborative and peer-oriented elements of the course design were consistently the most highly rated aspects of the course in end-of-semester surveys. Some of the key survey results are presented in Table 1.
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The course evolved into its hybrid format over a three-year time span. During that period, substantial development effort took place to enhance the course content. For example, online discussion support was introduced in early 2002, along with a sophisticated tool that allowed students to move from flowcharts to C++ code. In late 2002, an instructor-developed textbook draft was added to the course, incorporating embedded video segments. In early 2003, online lectures were developed to parallel in-class lectures, and automated test generators—covering about 15 percent of course content—were created. By late 2003, the amount of material covered in the course had been expanded by roughly 30 percent, without increasing the student attrition rate.During the period when the course was evolving rapidly, the time demands on the instructor—who was also the principal content developer—were far higher than those of a traditional course. Once the content stabilized, however, the economics of offering the course proved to be quite comparable, even favorable, to those of a traditional classroom lecture course. This was a result of the use of teaching assistants for many support tasks and the reuse of much Internet content.
- The discussion course: Introduction to MIS. Offered as part of a Virtual MBA (VMBA) program, students in the course had no personal contact with the instructor. The course employed the "case method," an approach normally used in a classroom setting. To adapt the technique for online discussion, the instructor developed a protocol differing from the classroom approach in a number of ways. First, rather than calling upon a single student to "open" the case, four to five students were each assigned questions to discuss and were told to open a discussion thread. Second, discussions were conducted over a period of roughly one week, rather than being limited to a single classroom block. Finally, students were divided into random, numbered groups towards the end of each discussion; each group then prepared a summary of recommendations and lessons learned. The instructor then posted both the summaries (anonymously, specifying only group numbers) and his detailed comments on each summary to conclude the discussion.
