Signposts Up Ahead: Reclaiming the Narrative of Online Learning

Introduction

The panelists each have decades of experience in higher education and in online, blended, and technology-enhanced education. Through their experiences, they have encountered factors that currently influence the successful implementation of online, blended, and technology-enhanced learning, in particular, and higher education, in general. Panelists will briefly discuss their take on the following topics and the audience will be engaged for interaction and discussion.

Sub-prime student success: the most dangerous game

As Bill Ferster suggests in his book Teaching Machines: Learning from the Intersection of Education and Technology, two primary drivers for all versions of technology-enhanced learning are 1) “teacher-proofing” the learning experience to assure consistent instruction for all students, and 2) attaining Benjamin Bloom’s goal of “2-sigma” improvements in learning comparable to results from individualized tutoring with a human coach. Framed in terms of what is blithely called “student success,” then, the goal for online learning would be uniform materials, uniform “delivery,” uniform instruction, uniform experiences, all of which would result in an 80% increase in student learning. Certainly, these are laudable goals. They are also impossible, wrongheaded, and injurious. Just as the laudable goal of increased homeownership across all demographics led to predatory “sub-prime” lending and eventually 2008’s economic meltdown, the idea of “student success” generally, but especially in the context of the apparent economic gains and efficiencies most schools seek in online learning, may lead to an educational meltdown that places students, and thus society, at risk for a collapsing future.

What Will Draw Mainstream Faculty to New Modes?

Faculty resistance to new modes of teaching, especially online teaching, seems amazingly durable. A decade of surveys shows administrators converting almost en masse, while the needle has scarcely moved with core faculty. We still see a vast divide and disproportion between early adopters and their slower-to change counterparts. One explanation may be the special cast attributes of innovation assume in academia. Everett Rodgers (who gave us the term “early adopters)” identified five attributes of innovation: relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability. For reasons worth exploring, all dampen adoption in the context of the academy since all bear on efficiency, not our highest goal.

Something closer to that is Jonathan Zittrain’s concept of “generativity”; its five aspects have a striking homology with Rogers’s five attributes of innovation. They are leverage (cf. Rogers’s relative advantage), the ability to do not just more but better and more easily; adaptability (cf. Rogers’s compatibility), the ability not just to use digital tools and systems, but to modify them; ease of mastery (cf. Rogers’s complexity), access to tools simple to use but with complex effects and extensive reach; accessibility (cf. Rogers’s observability), having open and multiple points of entry; and transferability (cf. Rogers’s trialability), allowing what’s created to be easily shared, as well as the work done in creating it. The point of all these is that, once brought into focus, they are all points of attraction – and generativity – not just for faculty, but for students.

Addressing Educational Inequality in Underrepresented Communities 

In spite of the many public and foundation programs to eliminate the disturbing educational disparity in our country our underrepresented communities continue to see their children struggle to achieve college success. The continuing impact of this educational equality places our minority students squarely behind the opportunity curve. This is an American tragedy because everything we know tell us that the talent pool in these underserved communities is as deep as any gated neighborhood in the country. College borrowing and debt is increasing at an alarming rate and many studies show that students who borrow have a higher probability of dropping out. The factors are prevalent in the underserved, and non-traditional students we may see populating our online and technology-enhanced settings, yet we are often unaware of their challenges.

This presentation presents a solution to that problem and frames a new philanthropic philosophy to change America one community at time. This the story of Harris Rosen and Tangelo Park-a community, that 23 years ago, suffered from drugs, crime and low educational achievement. Since then the Rosen Foundation has guaranteed education beginning at 2 years of age and room board and tuition for any Tangelo students accepted to vocational school, community college or a university free of charge as long as the community exits. This is accomplished with virtually no bureaucracy in a town hall meeting-once a month. To date Rosen has invested approximately 12 million dollars in Tangelo. The results have been remarkable including decreased crime (down 60%); 98% high school and 77% college graduation rates; reduced mobility; and the elimination of student loan debt for students.

Tangelo is the template for reclaiming America’s educational system and an indication that staying the course can bring real change.

Reclaiming the Narrative for the Idea of the University: Collaboratively Teaching the Hard Skills

There is a broad narrative about universities that is currently shaping the discourse on the value proposition of a higher education degree. Some refer to it as the progress narrative, to others it’s a technology imperative narrative, and to many it’s an employment narrative. All of these are transposed onto the idea of a university the experience of which enables, empowers and justifies the costs towards these varies “ends.”  Those of you in the online learning community are buffeted by the “technological change equals historic human betterment” narrative. While those on the administrative side of the institution are looking at the Janus-faced presentation of “online learning is the path toward fiscal efficiency, or, the hemorrhaging hole that will sink the academic enterprise.” Pick one. The success of the imposed narratives to frame the conversation about the value of online learning in higher education belies our own recent absence from the conversation, and a failure to represent a dazzling variety of re-imaginations that different colleges and universities are engaged in.  So are we simply failing to communicate the vibrancy that exists in the academy above the din of an uncertain economy and continued messages that tell us America isn’t great anymore?

What is the narrative of online learning in 21st century higher education? Is it a means to standardize the learning product and improve its uniform quality?  Is the efficiency narrative driving faculty away from the opportunities that online learning affords? What is the “success narrative” enabling or risking for our students and what does that narrative put at risk? The idea of a university is about formation of the whole student and collectively addressing the “hard” skills, moral judgment, critical thinking, effective communication, teamwork, problem solving, and leadership.  How are the creative experiments in online learning addressing these and combining them the soft skills like mathematics, physics, and neuroscience? We need to reclaim the narrative of online learning in higher education or it will be defined by others.

Conclusion

At the close of this session, presenters will offer the attendees the opportunity to continue the discussion through interacting with each other via a shared Google Document recording session Q&As and providing a place for continued exchange of ideas. The presenters would like participants to be able to consider these and related topics and develop and formulate research of technology-enhanced learning at their respective institutions, possibly forming partnerships to further examine these key issues across various institutions and time.