Technology: servant or master of the online teacher ?

Library Trends, Summer, 2001 by Ransford C. Pyle, Charles D. Dziuban

ABSTRACT

TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES ON THE INTERNET and the World Wide Web have tended to drive online pedagogy. It is time to reverse this relationship and make the needs of teaching and learning take priority. The authors propose three different formats for utilizing the Web in online and classroom instruction. These formats were developed in a program for undergraduate legal studies dealing with three levels of learning: Introductory, skills, and seminars.

INTRODUCTION

One of the dangers of recent advances in instructional technology is that instruction and instructors are often driven by technology rather than having technology serving the needs of instruction. Two causes for this inversion are apparent. First, instructors are discovering new ways to communicate with students and often are more excited by the vehicle than what it communicates. Second, each new tool requires an investment in learning and time to assess its effectiveness. Teaching on the World Wide Web is so new that most instructors are engaged in the learning phase, something that may never end, and very few have seriously addressed the assessment problem.

The comments that follow are based on three years experience in different forms of instruction using the Web in undergraduate legal studies courses. When I began, my institution, the University of Central Florida, had no official Web-based course; we now have dozens and are planning many more. When I began, most web-authoring tools were crude and awkward; it was easier to learn HTML code than to use the authoring software. The teaching formats I developed were a natural product of what I learned to do and what I thought would be effective. I found myself using three basic formats and only gradually began to analyze how I came to develop these and assess their appropriateness and effectiveness.

Three formats are presented here for online teaching/learning. The formats are based on progressive levels of learning within a specific discipline, namely, foundation (primarily content), skills (analytical), and practice (applying content and analysis). Any course might well combine all three levels, but we hope that a student who begins as a novice will follow steps toward some level of mastery in the field, and the approaches to teaching at different steps is likely to be the most effective method. Online course may use quite different formats or styles for different levels. Finally, this paper provides some example of Web use illustrating, in particular, the application stage, which uses the Web as an enabling or preparation tool as an adjunct to a classroom course.

ANALYZING COURSE OBJECTIVES

The goal here is to address pedagogical concerns rather than either administrative goals or technological problems. This may not seem practical since courses require institutional support, but at least one format, what I call `web-enabled' or web-enhanced, merely requires effort from the instructor, albeit that effort at times seems overwhelming. Practically speaking, institutions would prefer a technological `cookie-cutter' or `one-size-fits-all' solution to distance education. My answer to that desire is that it is simply premature at this point in our understanding of online teaching and learning. We must also be wary of the natural desire of instructors to enter online teaching quickly and efficiently. Veteran teachers must recognize that `teaching online in six easy lessons' is a sham. It is not my purpose, however, to reiterate the need for institutional and technical support, the exorbitant amount of time needed to set up and maintain an online course, the dangers for tenure-seeking assistant professors in committing time to online teaching rather than research and publication.

I am concerned with the more fundamental problem of teaching and learning. In particular, I focus on a standard, three-hour, semester course taught at a university, specifically for advanced undergraduates (juniors and seniors).

STUDENT MOTIVATION

My students reflect the well-noted trend (1) in American higher education toward decreasing motivation among students. They maximize their efforts by minimizing their work, always aimed at tests and grades. This is nothing new, of course, what is new is the loss of a culture of learning in which learning is an end in itself in addition to its immediate practical functions? The culture of learning also accorded instructors a high degree of respect and trust that encouraged instructors to lead and students to follow. The factors that have caused the decline in the culture of learning are too diverse and complex to address here, even if I were confident that I understood them. Suffice it to say that teachers rarely motivate students who are antagonistic to the learning process and only occasionally motivate students who are simply complacent in their ignorance. The World Wide Web offers an opportunity to trick students into learning by using the novelty and stimulation of the computer and monitor, their visuality and interactivity to create a learning environment divorced from the perceived tedium of the classroom lecture.