I Just Like the Real Classroom
By Jodi Gootkin
August 4, 2008
After enrolling in the MS-OTL program at CSU East Bay, I enthusiastically revised my online courses to include best practices and constructivist principles. I felt like Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams. If I build it, they will come. But, will they like playing on a new field?
The day arrived for results of course evaluations. After reading through the compliments, the only ones I still recall are the less than glowing ones.
“[The course] was not as difficult as I feared.”
“The course was not too bad.”
“It should be on campus.”
Feared?! Too bad?! Not that I expect a round of applause, but I want my students to enjoy their educational experience. These comments are too general for me to act upon to alleviate the same concerns for future students. This prompted me to shed light on why certain students do not enjoy online learning despite careful instructional design and diligent facilitation.
Best Practices = Student Satisfaction?
As an instructor, I always thought that students would appreciate a well designed and implemented course and the delivery medium would become invisible. The course evaluations ripped off my rose colored glasses. I was forced to recognize that students can easily become disillusioned with online learning. For some, becoming bogged down with slower communication, technical challenges, and lack of physical contact may contribute to completing the course dissatisfied despite respectable academic performance. Students typically choose online courses because of the convenience with their lifestyle. They may not think beyond the perks of less travel and time flexibility to consider the technology, self discipline, and organizational requirements to be successful. It is my responsibility to address these challenges while developing a course that meets the learning objectives.
Given the various levels of student technology expertise, I think it is unrealistic to expect them to gain mastery of course navigation while concurrently digesting content. Additionally, for some instructors their own comfort level and institutional technology support for designing and running the course may be limited. This potential combination could lead to students encountering difficulty with using the technology and isolation when attempting to resolve issues. Resources abound with strategies to diminish the impact of these challenges such as tutorials, help desks, rapid instructor feedback, and community building.
Online students may cite lack of prompt feedback and insufficient interaction from instructors as reasons for dissatisfaction with online learning. This can perpetuate their feelings of not being a participant in classroom but rather an individual wandering lost. As students transition to the online classroom, they also must shift from the instructor centered to student centered learning process. Scaffolding learning to build on more complex content and utilizing collaborative instructional activities can aid in appropriate exploration of content.
While facilitating courses, I toe the line between having an online presence and not stifling student interactions. I strongly believe collaboration on authentic projects can stimulate learning. Posting weekly announcements, reiterating key points, and live chats encourage this process while allowing students to interact with individuals from different backgrounds to debate points of views.
In my eyes, I am creating the environment for success and enjoyment based on best practices. Thankfully, it is working for the majority of the students. An enlightening, but disheartening blow came when I read Yukselturk and Inan’s (2009) study results. They discovered a distinct pattern of top reasons why students dropped online courses: time conflicts, personal problems, expense, and personal motivation. Interestingly exam failure and instructor causes ranked lowest. Looking at this list, it dawned on me that these are learner issues. As an instructor, I am powerless to control them.
Moving Beyond Best Practices
I still feel that these issues do not account for all students who are dissatisfied with online learning. Learner issues must be explored from another angle. Beyond content delivery, collaborative learning, and instructor interaction, the answer may lie in the physical difference between the virtual and structural classroom.
For students in any course, their backgrounds and motivations for enrolling may differ but there is a common goal to pass the course. This foundation can build trust, support, and cooperation to generate value for all involved. Building of social capital can only enhance interactions; who doesn’t want to feel a sense of connection? It does require more effort on the student and instructor’s part since they do not just bump into each other in the classroom. Icebreakers, team activities, and cyber cafes are beneficial tools for student’s seeking this comradery. Unfortunately, I’ve discovered that for some students they select the online environment because they are focused on the content not the social aspect. There it comes up again, a student preference something in their control. They will either love or hate the level of socialization generated in the course. Only they can choose where their emotions will lead them and the impact on their performance.
Reactions are a curious thing. While some students crave physical, visual, and auditory contact, others don’t seem to miss it. Online instructors can re-create this with image postings, live chats, and videos. Interestingly, lack of visual and auditory contact may hold a hidden benefit: the lines of culture may be blurred. Individuals are learning from each other without distraction of stereotypes that may develop face-to-face. My students who speak different languages have expressed less inhibition as asynchronous discussions allow additional reflection time prior to participating. Alternatively, this text only format could serve as a disadvantage for individuals whose culture relies on non-verbal cues for interaction. There are so many possibilities to consider. Again, factors arise that are student specific.
Explaining the Unexplainable
I’ve considered technology, communication, instructional design, variety of interactions, collaboration, social capital, culture, and the list goes on. So where does that leave me in attempting to aid those students who are just not “clicking” with the online classroom? It is slowly emerging that the answer may lie in the student himself.
Depending on which research I read, online students are either more or less motivated than traditional students. Stevens and Switzer (2006) note that while online student motivations are similar to that of traditional students they are more likely to be motivated by challenging work and curiosity. However, these are intrinsic traits of the individual and there will be a mix in every class. I cannot design a course just focusing on a few students preferences.
The mindset students enter the course with is so critical. For example, a student coming in dreading online learning is starting at a disadvantage. Just their perception of a barrier might be enough to impact their performance. Assisting them with guidelines prior to the course, learning style assessments, and technology tutorials can bring some of them around. But, how do I know if they have bought into the virtual classroom or if they are the still longing to slump into that hard classroom chair?
Murphy and Mahoney (2001) recommend using journals to gain insight on student satisfaction and buy in. I love reading student reflections demonstrating use of feedback to improve study strategies, analysis of their own behaviors, and even expression of what is missing from the learning experience. Unfortunately, not all students reach that level. I struggle to assist those students who continue to reflect vague dissatisfaction despite my exhausting every resource I can think of to enhance the learning experience.
Building Online Community
A possible solution lies in the atmosphere of my courses. While I painstakingly develop instructional materials, assessments, tutorials, and the like, my short fall comes with recreating the physical classroom environment. The online classroom should also address factors that are not related to instruction yet impact learning. The virtual classroom’s pitfall is the risk of student isolation, if combined with a longing for social contact this could be the missing piece for student success. As a start, having students partner for introduction interviews or express their personalities through sharing their theme song for the semester or favorite study distraction could mirror the classroom chit chat that occurs prior to class and during breaks. Generating a sense of community and connection among students could provide a peer support system for learning and elevate their motivation and positive feelings toward the course. I’d like to make the virtual classroom a place the students like to come because the “see” their friends and look forward to both the academic and social interactions.
Going Directly to the Source
To gain additional insight, I dared to go right to the source by surveying current students about their online experience in hopes of identifying the missing link. As expected, students cited benefits of flexibility and independence with online learning as well as recognition that you must accept responsibility for your learning. Overwhelmingly, they shared that they did not miss physical contact with classmates with only a few feeling at a loss without face-to-face social interactions. Here lies an opportunity to enhance community building to foster learning and satisfaction.
To my shock, over half the respondents said they would have preferred an on campus course. However, there were several discrepancies between this sentiment and narrative comments touting the perks of online learning. No clear answer to my dilemma arose. The responses ranged from vague “face-to-face is more interesting” to “it might have advantages”. Even more confusing, students expressed the reasons for liking the online course when they just stated they would have preferred it on campus. One student did express that campus allows immediate probing and another that they are able to focus more. Both comments provide an opportunity to explore live chats and multimedia delivery.
Overall, I’m baffled. If students cannot specifically explain the issue, how can I expect to address it? Possibly, “separation by space can create a psychological or transactional distance” (Barnard, Paton, & Rose, 2007) that impacts student satisfaction in ways they can’t put into words, or don’t even realize on a conscious level. Opportunities always exist to enhance all aspects of my courses particularly building a sense of community, but I might need to concede that for no specific reason some students just like the real classroom.
References
Barnard, L., Paton, B. & Rose, K. (2007). Perceptions of online course communications and collaboration. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 5(4). Retrieved July 20, 2008 from http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/winter104/barnard104.html
Hannon, J. & D’Netto, B. (2005). Cultural perspectives in online learning. Retrieved July 6, 2008 from http://www.odlaa.org/events/2005conf/nonref/odlaa2005Hannon.pdf
Imel, S. & Stein, D. (2003). Creating self-awareness of learning that occurs in community. In Proceedings from the Midwest Research-to-Practice Conference in Adult, Continuing, and Community Education. Columbus, OH.
Merryfield, M. (2003). Like a veil: Cross-cultural experiential learning online. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 3(2), 146-171. Retrieved July 9, 2008 from http://www.editlib.org/index.cfm?CFID=6669579&CFTOKEN=54752582&fuseaction=Reader.ViewFullText&paper_id=19907
Murphy, K. & Mahoney, S. (2001). Buy-in to online courses: Reflections from e-learner’s journal papers. In Proceedings from In WebNet 2001: World Conference on the WWW and Internet. Orlando, Florida. (Retrieved from the ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 466610).
President and Fellows of Harvard College. (2007). Social capital primer. The Saguaro Seminar: Civic Engagement in America. Retrieved June 30, 2008 from http://www.hks.harvard.edu/saguaro/primer.htm
Stevens, T. & Switzer, C. (2006). Differences between online and traditional students:
A study of motivational orientation, self-efficacy, and attitudes. Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education-TOJDE, (7)2, 90-100.
Yukselturk, E. & Inan, F. (2009). Examining the factors affecting student dropout in an online learning environment. (Retrieved from the ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 494345).