I recently had an interchange with a friend of mine who is enrolled in an online degree program with a university in another state – not one of the private for-profit diploma mills, but a public institution with a decent reputation, for which distance learning is a sideline. She had become frustrated with trying to work on a cooperative project with a group of students scattered over three states, with an instructor in yet another location who was not giving clear guidelines. I offered to help her, since the subject matter, writing research proposals and reports in the sciences, was something in which I have considerable experience.
Although it was a writing class, the instructor, whose degree was in English, had asked the students to actually carry out a research project and had rejected a submitted proposal on the grounds that the design was scientifically invalid. Based on my friend’s description, the proposal was a poor one from a scientific perspective, but the instructor’s specific objection was also invalid. That the proposal was weak is hardly surprising. The absurdity of expecting an arbitrary team of six people in several different disciplines, without any budget, to come up with a feasible scientifically rigorous research project in two weeks’ time, and then conduct the research, and write up the results in the space of a term, is astounding. An instructor’s presuming to evaluate a proposal submitted as a writing exercise, in a writing course, on any criteria other than the quality of the writing and its adherence to the conventions of the particular form, is extremely poor pedagogy.
I told my friend that if I were teaching a course in research proposal and report writing, I would give the students a set of unorganized notes and references from a real research project, in their discipline, so that they and I could concentrate on the writing skills. She continued with a list of other complaints about online instructors in the same program. The writing instructor’s shortcomings were by no means the worst. She asked me why I did not apply to be an instructor for that particular university, since I have the ability, experience and credentials to do college-level teaching, and it was painfully obvious that the people they were hiring were not doing a very good job.
I replied that I had looked into being a distance learning instructor, but that the pay and working conditions were such that I was unwilling to pursue this option, even though I love to teach and am retired, so that a part-time, intermittent job with a mediocre pay scale is at least possible.
Distance learning instructor contracts typically pay a flat rate per class, or perhaps per student, and allow an unrealistically small amount of time for preparation of class materials and evaluating student work. There is no compensation at all for the background continuing knowledge acquisition that is such an important part of university education. A person who tries to be conscientious quickly burns out, leaving a faculty composed of cynical veterans who cut corners, knowingly providing substandard education, and newcomers who may be sincere and knowledgeable about their fields but lack experience and receive little guidance from an overworked supervisor in another state.
The distance learning instructor pays most work-related expenses that regular faculty expect a university to cover, including maintaining a home office. Not being physically located near the campus that employs her, she misses out on the intellectual and social opportunities that to some extent compensate low-level and part-time faculty for poor pay and long uncompensated hours.
I have a doctorate in biology, and one of my great disappointments in my life is never having secured a teaching or research position in my field. As a person with a strong desire to impart the knowledge I received, which I believe is of value to future generations, I might nonetheless be willing to endure this level of exploitation, if it meant better access for students of limited means. At one time this may have been the case, but increasingly, even for reputable institutions, distance learning classes have become a low cost way for universities to capture grant, scholarship and student loan money and use it to balance their bottom line in other areas. This is notoriously true in for-profit operations like the University of Phoenix, but reputable nonprofits and public universities are jumping on the bandwagon, to the detriment of students, instructors, the taxpaying public, and the growth of human knowledge.
Photo Credit
Photo courtesy of Martha Sherwood
Great article. You’ve done a great job distinguishing between the degree mill vs. bona fide school. I think it’s important to distinguish between deeply flawed online learning and horribly designed individual courses, as well as poor instructors.
The pains of attempting to secure a tenure track position are no laughing matter, especially in this era. This former professors assists Social Sciences PHD tenure track candidates in that endeavor. http://theprofessorisin.com/
And this article details the pains of attempting to live as an academic scientist in our current climate
http://anothersb.blogspot.com/2014/02/goodbye-academia.html
As a retired university professor, both in the USA and Canada, I deeply appreciate Martha’s sensitive understanding of the environments we create, or do not create, for learning in a deep human sense to occur. Once again, well done!
On line courses vary, just as people do. My daughter took an online course that came free from a major east coast university and it was clear as the course went on that the teacher did not really expect anyone to do the work assigned. He/she clearly was trying to get people to drop out, and it occured to me that teaching this course was a requirement of his department. He was just clearing the decks by how he ran it.
I took two online courses, and I quickly learned that what I got out of the course was what i put in. The two courses were put together well, and the instructor seemed always available. I didn’t have a group project to do, so can’t compare that part, but had there been, I know it would have been miserable. I love being a student. Love learning, but I didn’t absorb as much, because I didn’t put the effort in. It just was a boring way for me to learn, even though I’m a techno-nerd.
I taught 100 and 200 level computer science courses at the UofO in the 80’s and 90’s. I was one of the first instructors to post lecture notes and slides online. When I did that, I found I typically lost over half the class from lecture. The now “online” students always struggled more than those that regularly showed up for lecture and discussion. I got tired of it, so stopped posting notes and lectures mid-term one year, and wow, did I get slammed with disgruntled student comments. It also showed in my student reviews that term.
At my current employment, staff work in office and online, remotely (at home or in other states), and we meet often online and in conference calls. Technology still wavers, so we often struggle. In fact it’s terribly annoying.
My point: online meetings, training, education, etc., is sub-par and unenjoyable. Rips the spirit and makes for an even colder world of disconnected humans, and because of the rap of online courses being sub-par, I wouldn’t take an online degree very seriously. Not even an accredited course or degree when compared to a traditional course or degree.
Thanks for your article Martha. I enjoyed it.
My experience with distance learning runs very counter to many of the experiences that are expressed here. The instructor I had in a series of classes on Relativity and Special Relativity was outstanding. He involved students by dividing them into small groups and having a specific group member responsible for such things as summarizing the reading that was due for the next class and all group members were “required” to respond to other members in the group with areas they had difficulties with in the materials. This was done on a weekly basis with the assigned summary rotating to a different member of the group each time. The instructor also responded to each of the groups with written comments on what their particular difficulties had been in the reading. Handwritten problem assignments were sent to the instructor who hand graded them and returned them with detailed comments on them. It was a very stimulating series of classes and I learned a great deal from it.
I am currently looking at going back to finish an MA online, but with a reputable university that is less than 90 minutes from home; that may be the ideal, avoiding the physical commitment, but still being able to “face to face” in special circumstances.
scott
I have another friend who is enrolled in such a program, and while it appears to have fewer drawbacks than the exclusively online program, she finds that the face to face sessions are not very satisfactory because people are focused on what is going wrong with the online component and never get to those parts of the actual learning experience that require face to face interaction.
Thanks, Martha, for sharing your insights about online learning. From an instructor’s perspective I found that the difference between on-campus learning and on-line learning was this: Instead of having one class with 35 students on campus, online teaching was actually equivalent to having 35 classes with one student in each.
Any instructor truly interested in maximizing student learning must attend to the learning needs/styles/limits of each student and not only develop challenges for each learner, but also respond with individualized email. Sure, there’s plenty of opportunities send group email blasts that go to all students, and it’s possible to ignore individual student circumstances, but any instructor interested in developing a learning relationship should beware of having their time and energy exploited by the seduction of online teaching.
Although I’m not involved directly with online education, what this article describes conforms well with what is happening in my own field, health care, and what has been happening in many other types of employment in this country. Corners are cut by sqeezing more work for the same or less compensation for workers. Quality is risked or deliberately sacrificed; and the less tangible values to the employee and the consumer/recipient of human contact and time for creativity and reflection are minimized. Soon many of these jobs will move overseas for even more cost-savings to the institutions that offer these courses.
I have to agree with you. I taught writing for 30 years. While you can teach a fair amount in a general sort of way, writing is personal expression, thinking made visible, and helping students learn to organize and support their ideas often boils down to one-on-one work. When students had trouble either in expressing themselves or organizing a body of information, I had to figure out how they were conceptualizing the topic in order to explain either what they had gotten wrong or how to get from where they were to a clear expression of the ideas. That is a conversation between two human beings. It would take far longer and be far more difficult via email because you lose the non-verbal cues — where exactly a student hesitates in an explanation can help identify the stuck places; how they look or sound can tell you whether they are upset, angry, genuinely baffled or just going through the motions; your own nonverbal cues (tone of voice, facial expression, body posture) can be reassuring and encouraging in ways that go beyond words you can type. The synergy that comes from a student-teacher conference or a class discussion is missing from on-line teaching, even if there is a simultaneous on-line conversation. There is simply no substitute for being in the same room with other humans and interacting with them.
I read this piece. It seems a valid critique. Far from my area of expertise, but it chimes with my critique of the entire educational system in the-world-as-we-know-it.
Valid points, though with the massive unemployment among our overly educated, post-baccalaureate holding population, coupled with the insane costs of “bricks and mortar” institutions, this is one industry that will continue its amazing upward trajectory.
Nice cautionary article; most of the on-line learning buzz is suspiciously rosy.
As in all areas of consumerism, “buyer beware” is the bottom line. If it sounds too good to be true (as in obtaining a “high quality education” at home in front of one’s computer), then perhaps believing what one’s gut is saying would be the first thing to consider before enrolling.
Many thanks for posting this informative essay based on your observation/experience and that of someone who has involved themselves directly in such an educational experiment. It appears to be a path to a low quality of education, a high level of frustration, and an overall waste of one’s time and financial investment.