[Teachers and online administrators] should encourage students to participate via video sessions, forums, email or whatever other facilities are made available. The level of participation has been shown to be a good indicator of success.
- Tim Roberts, Central Queensland University
Even if the online course delivers as
promised, there’s a question of whether
the quality of
learning is as good
as what you’d receive
in a classroom
environment.
One
recent US study
of tertiary schools
indicated dropout
rates for online
courses are about
20% higher than for
classroom courses. That could add up
to big numbers at
operations such as the University of
Phoenix Online Campus, which has
380,322 enrolments (the highest number
of enrolments of all US universities, at
last count).
Tim Roberts, a senior lecturer at
Central Queensland University’s School of Information and Communication Technology, makes the same point in
a 2007 paper, arguing online courses
“notoriously suffer from higher than
average attrition rates, often because
of [students’] feelings of isolation”.
His solution is to recreate classroom
dynamics in the online world by
maximising student and teacher
interaction. Roberts told us that research
“would seem to indicate that, statistically,
there is little or no real difference in
learning outcomes” between online and
classroom courses, but stressed group
participation makes a big difference
when you’re learning online.
Roberts says teachers and online
administrators “should encourage
students to participate via video
sessions, forums, email or whatever
other facilities are made available.
The level of participation has been
shown to be a good indicator
of success”.
But that may not be enough when
it comes to vocational education and
training, according to Martinez. She
says the “competency-based” nature
of the material means “there are skill
requirements that may not be effectively
developed in learners using online
delivery of training”.
Regardless of the standard of training
and education, the quality of the online
training platform – and whether you and
your computer can figure it out – can
make or break any course of study.
Design and delivery
Professor Ron Oliver, Pro-Vice-
Chancellor for Teaching and
Learning at WA’s Edith Cowan University,
wrote a paper in 2001 laying out some
of the pitfalls of online learning in its
early days, including problems in
“the achievement and maintenance
of quality in online learning delivery”.
Professor Oliver told us recently that
design and delivery performance is still
more inconsistent across the industry
than it should be, mainly because there
aren’t enough course designers skilled
in translating the teaching experience
to a digital platform.
A “knownproblems” page compiled for users
of the University of Tasmania’s online
curriculum, to take one example, lists
a formidable array of roadblocks.
There are far more course
providers than capable designers,
Oliver says. Only the best
platforms successfully
integrate the subject expertise
of the teacher with the design
and delivery skills of an IT
professional, and only the best
providers have such resources
on hand.
In the absence of
more qualified personnel, teachers
tend to take on both roles.
“Effective online learning takes a
different set of skills than teaching face
to face,” Professor Oliver says.
“The
difference between a good online course
and a bad one is whether it merely
replicates the training manual or
textbook or adds the all-important
element of learning design. A lot of
subject experts take on design and
delivery while they’re still figuring out
how to put an online course together. The result can be an unengaging and
one-dimensional course. Universities
and course providers in general stake
their reputations on the quality of their
content and how it’s delivered, so
there’s a built-in incentive to do it
well. But there’s also a talent shortage.
In the end, students have to rely on the
integrity of the course provider. ”
For Oliver, good learning design
means giving students ample
opportunity to interact with the teacher
and other students and use functions
that “engage the learner with designed
activities that foster communication
and collaboration”.