|
INTRODUCTION In 1994, the State of Utah published a request for proposals (Higher Education Technology Initiative or HETI RFP) asking for research that would apply new technologies toward reducing the growing demands on the State's educational infrastructures. In response to this RFP, Utah State University's English department proposed an examination of the possibilities of placing some or all of the department's first-year English courses online. The original HETI proposal made several claims:
The proposal was funded for $300,000, and in 1995 Utah State University combined forces with Salt Lake Community College and Southern Utah University to create English 101 online. In 1996, Utah State received additional funding from the Utah State Higher Education grant (USHE) to improve our computer facilities for better delivery of the English 101 online courses. Now, five years later, we regularly offer Internet-based sections of composition courses every term. In addition, we offer a graduate technical writing program, a linguistics program, and are constructing a graduate-level theory and practice of writing (rhetoric) program, all offered entirely online over the Internet. We offer these courses through the English Department as well as through Continuing Education and Concurrent Enrollment across the state. In this article, we will not only review the results reported in the 1997 HETI report document , but will also describe the five-year journey of discovery and describe the lessons we have learned about this new teaching and learning environment.
OVERVIEW OF RESEARCH Overview As we suspected, teaching English over the Internet was a natural--since the subject of English 101 was writing and the entire class was also conducted in writing. As Kling points out in a recent interview in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Internet-based classes are writing intensive: "The [student] comments are sort of micro-essays. They're much longer than most student comments in a face-to-face class. They're better thought through . . . So when they post things, they're in effect writing a memo" (qtd in Carnevale 1). Students “talk” to each other in chat rooms and in threaded discussions. Students read, write, peer-review, and revise papers online. They also learn how to search the Internet and online libraries for sources, and how to post their papers to the class Website for comment, review, and grading. English 101 online (now English 1010 in the semester system) is still going strong--we offer several sections every semester to provide students with the choice between the online environment for their writing courses. The English 1010 courses are rated very highly by students who take them. Because when we began this research there was no
software available for delivering our courses online, we were forced to
create our own software from scratch. In the process of developing the
English 1010 online program, computer programmers and faculty members
at Utah State worked together to design, develop and evolve an online
delivery system that would provide for students and teachers the online
learning communities which can be used in any class. The software
that was developed is called the SyllaBase Online Classroom, and the software
is now being used to deliver over 100 courses in a variety of disciplines
across the Utah State campus
Evaluation
Dr. Hult is responsible for ongoing assessment
of online program/course development efforts. Evaluations are both
qualitative and quantitative, and take place on several levels. First,
test classes are created. Project participants examine results from
these classes to discover strengths and weaknesses and to adjust instruction
accordingly. As students complete their classes, portfolios
of their writing and other course work are collected and analyzed
in an effort to determine approximate improvement and overall quality of
writing. From these tests we are able to determine two things: (1)
how best to adjust the classes for better instruction and (2) how best to
instruct the future instructors. In addition, we compare student comments
and attitudes as they progress through the classes, including comparisons
of course evaluation responses. Our particular concern is making certain
that students can work comfortably in an online environment. In other
similar projects, students have over time become very excited by the online
atmosphere.
(See also Comparisons of Student Evaluations from the 1997 HETI report).
In a similar study conducted by psychology professors at Texas Tech University, the attitudes of students were slightly less positive than we found in our study--but students were shown to actually learn more in the Distance Education courses than in the face-to-face courses: "Undergraduates studying introductory psychology perform better in distance-education courses, but are generally less happy with them" (Carr 1). We hypothesize that the high student satisfaction in our own online courses stems from the fact that they encourage interactivity and community-building rather than studying independently. Students in our English online courses work together in learning communities as they share their writing and collaborate on ideas. We will continue to look at this issue as we evaluate both present and future online courses. In the final phase of evaluation, we have invited other colleges and universities to examine our project with an eye toward finding additional methods for improving it, and offered the technology we have developed to the rest of the institutions of higher learning in Utah. Levels of Success In our original proposal we made several claims. We would like to discuss each of our original goals and explain how well they have been met through the project. In general, each goal has been met to some extent, though some more so than others. (See also Goals Assessment from the 1997 HETI Report). GOAL 1: Classroom over-crowding would be substantially alleviated. We have found that offering first-year classes in an Internet environment has somewhat alleviated classroom overcrowding, but not as much as we had originally anticipated. All sites found that students, particularly the freshmen population enrolled in English 101, needed to meet face-to-face occasionally with their instructors. When we tried to conduct the classes entirely through the virtual environment, many students got lost or frustrated and dropped the online course. We found that teachers needed to schedule at least the first couple of weeks of classes to meet with students in a classroom and/or a computer lab in order to orient students to the Web site and relevant software. After that, classes were scheduled to meet according to their instructor's preference. Class meetings ranged from once per week (at the most) to twice per term (at the least). But because some of the teachers wanted to meet their classes weekly, we needed to schedule classrooms to accommodate them. Still, classes were scheduled just one day a week, rather than three days a week (with the rest of the time spent meeting online), and we reduce our classroom demand in English 101 by two-thirds. The need for meeting face-to-face seems to be dependent on the group of learners in the course. In our graduate online courses in technical writing, students never meet face-to-face, and this group of learners seems able to cope better without the in-person, teacher direction that the freshmen seem to need. It only makes sense that the graduate students, as a group, would typically be more independent learners. So, we would caution anyone beginning online courses to look carefully at the nature of the student population and their ability to work independently when making decisions about totally online delivery of courses. GOAL 2: The
expense of teaching basic writing skills Originally, we had thought that teachers, working with peer tutors, could handle more students in this environment than in regular courses. However, that did not turn out to be the case. We needed Writing Center tutoring in addition to teacher input in order for students to succeed in the virtual environment. We did not find that the expense of teaching basic writing skills was reduced, at least not presently. The teachers found teaching in this environment to be as demanding, and perhaps more demanding, than teaching a regular course. We needed to keep the class sizes small (20 students or fewer) in order for the teachers to be able to handle the paper load. However, newer versions of SyllaBase, our course environment software, do provide teachers with additional course-management tools, such as the homework manager, that now make this job of keeping track of the paperwork easier for teachers. Teachers found that the administrative portion of teaching a class (record-keeping, paper-grading, building Web pages, etc.) was even more demanding in the virtual environment. Because they were not given the face-to-face instructional time they were used to, students needed more online help than usual. This was extremely time-consuming for both the teachers and the Writing Center tutors. If there were any savings from teaching in this environment, they came in the form of "bricks and mortar." (See number 1 above). That is, fewer classrooms were needed. GOAL 3: Writing skills acquisition would be substantially enhanced. Learning in the virtual environment seemed to be enhanced for many of our students. Because the entire class was taught through writing, students wrote much more than in a traditional course (see also Kling as quoted in Carnevale). Their writing skills improved because they were having to write so much--via electronic mail, class discussion lists and bulletin boards, plus their formal essays and papers in several drafts. They also wrote extensively to each other as they peer-reviewed drafts of each other's papers. Teachers who were simultaneously teaching both traditional and virtual classes reported that the quality of the writing was similar, but that there were a few more students in each virtual class whose writing improved to "A" level than in the traditional environment. Unfortunately, a slightly higher percentage of the virtual students received failing grades: teachers accounted for this fact by noting that in the virtual environment, students needed to take a great deal more responsibility for their own learning. Not all first-year students are mature enough to handle that responsibility. Furthermore, as Kling points out in his report: "Online interactions today--we're speaking primarily about text--require that people be extremely articulate in a written form. And people vary . . . But what online communication requires today in most of these courses is a strong ability to be extremely articulate in written forms" (qtd in Carnevale 4). As we know, many first-year students do not yet possess this ability. Furthermore, in addition to being inarticulate in written forms, first-year students often lacked the maturity to be self-starters who regularly paticipated without the motivation of having to go to class in person. GOAL 4: Concurrent,
high school-university enrollment To date, most of the students taking the first-year virtual writing courses have been on-campus students. (The graduate courses, in contrast, are all offered through Continuing Education to off-campus students). We are beginning to offer both the first-year and sophomore writing courses through the Continuing Education division at Utah State during the spring term 2000. In other words, students who are not "regular" on-campus students are now able to enroll in our writing courses from anywhere in the state. Similarly, we are working to pilot sections of English 1010 in regional high schools which are interested in offering the course through concurrent high school/college enrollment.
GOAL 5: Inconsistencies between
teaching standards All sites in the original HETI study (USU, SUU, SLCC) found that by standardizing the mode of delivery, the curriculum, too, would be standardized in significant ways. Coordinating our course goals among the three colleges was valuable for us all. We found that we had many common goals for our writing courses. We also found that, because our student populations differed considerably, actual course content needed to remain site specific. We are now working to offer English 1010 through the Utah Electronic Community College, so that students taking our course could transfer credits to any other college in the Utah higher education system. GOAL 6: University classes would become more geographically and democratically available (anywhere in the state of Utah, on demand, 24 hrs a day, seven days a week). Theoretically, this goal is possible. However, since we have been piloting writing courses on-campus, so far most of our students have been on-campus. We have begun to move out to more distant locations this semester by also offering English 1010 through Continuing Education. Our graduate program, which we have offered now for two years, has always been available to students from all over the nation and the world. In a different context, it is worth pointing out
that several of our first students had disabilities, giving us an immediate
sense of the value of this technology for them. We have successfully
taught hearing impaired, paraplegic, bed-bound, and blind students.
Recently, a graduating deaf student told her first-year English teacher that the composition
class had been the high-point in her college education. This year
a blind student is graduating from our technical writing program; she
took all of her classes online. Because these classes are conducted entirely online without a face-to-face component, students with disabilities become just like everyone else. For example, the deaf student, who would normally have been accompanied to class by an interpreter, can fully participate in writing without anyone knowing of the disability. A similar factor is at work for other disabilities, including the factor of not having to negotiate their way to campus, making this environment both freeing for and supportive of persons with disabilities. WHAT QUESTIONS/DEBATES IN THE LITERATURE HAVE WE ANSWERED? Our research leads us to agree with the conclusion reached by Thomas L. Russell, who tracks studies of distance education methods: "Is distance education better or worse than traditional classroom instruction? [It is] neither" (Russell qtd in Young 1). Russell conducted a meta-analysis of more than 400 studies on the subject of distance education, as reported in his book The No Significant Difference Phenomenon. Russell states: "There is so much research on this matter that I find it incomprehensible that any reasonable, knowledgeable, unbiased, and professional person could deny the fact that technology can deliver instruction as well as traditional modes--at least when we look at student populations as large groups" (Young 1). WHAT QUESTIONS/DEBATES STILL REMAIN OPEN FOR FURTHER RESEARCH?Russell and others admit, however, that there is still plenty of research to be done in this arena. In particular, we don't know exactly which students are suited for virtual education, or how to prepare students who initially may seem unsuited to be successful in this environment. In the Chronicle article, Young points out that "a similar review of distance-education studies released last year by the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, however, found that existing research on distance education leaves too many questions unanswered (See an article from the Chronicle, April 16, 1999)" (Young 2). Among those unanswered questions are the following: Which academic subjects are delivered more effectively via distance education than others? What elements are necessary in distance education to ensure student success? Is the knowledge that students in distance education acquire the same as that learned in a face-to-face class? Is it possible to successfully deliver entire academic programs at a distance (Young 2)? The question raised above about successfully offering entire programs online is one that we think we are answering, along with others in higher education. See, for example, the description of Stanford's online graduate program in electrical engineering (Sanoff). These and other questions are the very ones we are seeking to answer as we continue to evaluate both courses and programs delivered at Utah State University. We will speak in the next section about efforts to broaden our distance education delivery to other new programs and initiatives to move our scope of inquiry beyond an English of humanities department.
ONLINE LEARNING AT PRESENT AT USU As we mentioned in the introduction, we regularly offer Internet-based sections of all composition courses, and we offer an entire graduate technical writing program. Under construction are a linguistics program and a graduate-level theory and practice of writing program, all offered entirely online over the Internet. The evolution from testing and developing took place in stages. First, we created the first-year English classes and the software necessary to distribute them. Then, using the information we gained from these early classes, we significantly improved our software and began offering test classes in a variety of other areas. Some of these classes included hybridized classes that combined literature in traditional classrooms with Internet support. Others combined televised literature classes with Internet support, and graduate level, technical communications classes. Some of these test classes proved successful, others did not (the televised literature class, for example, was awkward). From these tests, successful and unsuccessful, came the programs we presently offer and the software/hardware combinations we use to offer them. TECHNOLOGIES Students, whether taking the online courses or programs at the university, concurrently in high school, or from home, work in virtual classrooms on the Internet. They access these classrooms electronically by modem or by direct, online link. A typical scenario: a student working from home or in a computer center taps into the nearest high school or college system by modem. From there he or she communicates through the Internet directly with a SyllaBase classroom. The online classes, taught by faculty, lecturers, or graduate instructors, are provided with their own classroom environments, instructional tools, and writing resources found at the SyllaBase classroom. SOFTWARE AS IT PRESENTLY EXISTS The evolution from testing and developing took place in stages. First, we created the freshman English classes and the software necessary to distribute them. Then, using the information we gained from these early classes, we significantly improved our software and began offering test classes in a variety of other areas. We use SyllaBase to deliver all of our online programs over the Internet. From an institutional point of view, SyllaBase is a scalable and cost-effective solution for online education: because the system is automated and driven by a database, it can deliver a dozen or a thousand courses with equal speed and efficiency without having to spend money to retain extra technicians. To access a course, students do not need any additional hardware or software beyond a standard computer with an Internet connection and an Internet browser. What makes the SyllaBase software unique is its ability to empower teachers. Using SyllaBase, teachers can create and customize their own online classroom environments without the necessity of learning HTML and without depending on a Web master or a computer technician. The teacher simply enters information directly into Web forms, selects options and features; and the “virtual classroom” takes shape immediately. And yet, the virtual classroom can be changed by the teacher at any time. SyllaBase provides large-scale solutions to those wanting to deliver courses online because it is driven by a sophisticated SQL database rather than managed by technicians. Thus, in a matter of minutes, SyllaBase can create as many courses as needed. TECHNICAL WRITING MASTER'S DEGREE In the academic year 1998-1999, Utah State University switched from a quarter system to a semester system. While going through this process, we looked long and hard at our teaching loads and our programs. Perhaps our most obvious problem was our master's degree in technical writing. We had only eight students matriculated, four graduating, and no new applicants. We could see no justification for continuing the program except that we felt it was important to maintain credibility for our undergraduate technical writing program. Having taught several of our first-year English courses, Dr. Hailey was convinced that the same approaches could be applied to an online master's program. Recognizing that there was a palpable demand for postgraduate education among working, professional writers, Hailey created and taught a series of test classes. The classes were designed to combine the online interactivity possible with the first-year English classes with the structures common to graduate seminars. While these early classes were less than problem free, it was clear that the idea of distance education designed specifically for this community was viable. The department designed a complete program around these early classes, and in July of 1997 the Utah State Board of Regents approved it. Today, the program boasts 25 matriculated students, a similar number of students applying for matriculation, and a few part-time students. We offer three classes a semester, and they are always full with 20 students per section. We teach students as far away as Uzbekistan, Thailand, and Israel. We also recruit teachers who would not normally be able to teach in a traditional classroom environment (e.g., George Hayhoe, Editor of The Society of Technical Communication journal, Technical Communication, lives in South Carolina). SUPPORT ACROSS THE CURRICULUM We also host courses for a number of other departments at Utah State, including Business, Engineering, Instructional Technology, History, and Geography. Finally, English courses using SyllaBase are also being offered at BYU and other regional universities. In fact, we are currently collaborating with Colorado State University on a grant proposal to the Fund for Improvement of Post-Secondary Education to further develop and implement the SyllaBase technology at another university (See description of the FIPSE LAAP grant below). THE FUTURE OF ONLINE LEARNING AT USU Now, we are poised to expand our offerings in three new areas: (1) We are working to offer a second graduate program (Theory and Practice of Writing Master's degree), one that is in great demand by practicing teachers in Utah; (2) We are working to offer a Certificate in Linguistics; and (3) We are currently pilot testing online versions of the second general education writing course, English 2010: Intermediate Writing. The online English 2010 course may also be offered through the Utah Electronic Community College in the future. These three areas of course development are detailed below.
We have been approached by several of the Utah State's extension centers in the state over the past several years to provide them with a graduate program in writing in addition to our Technical Writing M.S. degree. The other master's degree would be geared toward practicing public educators in English. We currently offer such a degree on-campus, called the Theory and Practice of Writing, and it consistently enrolls 18-20 students each year. Many of those who receive this degree become teachers in two-year colleges in the state and region, including Salt Lake Community College and Ricks College. Many others who receive the degree are already practicing public school teachers wishing to enhance their teaching abilities. However, teachers who cannot travel to Logan to take their courses are unable to avail themselves of this degree. The outcome of this particular master's degree is better public school teachers and community college teachers who are able to teach writing to their students in a more effective way. We have not been able to provide such a program off-campus because of a shortage of available staff who could travel to the remote centers and teach the courses. The SyllaBase online classroom provides us with a solution to the staffing and distance problems because we can contract with faculty anywhere to teach in the program and can deliver the courses to anyone who has Internet access, no matter where they live. Furthermore, as with the technical writing program, we can reach out to qualified teachers who can teach these classes online. In meetings with the USU Extension centers, we have proposed a curriculum for the online Theory and Practice of Writing Master's degree. The on-campus program needs to be adapted somewhat to accommodate distance delivery. Our former Graduate Studies Director is the facilitator of this program and has been given released time this year in order to design and develop the online courses. The program would be a non-thesis option. Instead of writing a thesis, teachers in this program would conduct a Graduate Internship in their schools. In this internship, teachers would research a pedagogical question or problem and write an extensive discussion of this teacher/practitioner research. The internship model is currently being used with great success in our other online master's degree program, Technical Writing. In addition to the internship, teachers in this degree program would create an online portfolio in which they collect relevant lesson plans, essays, creative writing, and so on, which they had written for courses in their program. Again, the portfolio model is currently being used successfully in the Technical Writing master's degree. Instead of a formal "defense of thesis," students would defend their portfolios with Utah State's faculty in an online chat situation. Fortunately, the SyllaBase online classroom already provides the classroom tools to post portfolios and to conduct online chat sessions. The online program would be equally as good in quality as our excellent on-campus program. Many of the public institutions in the region who recruit and hire graduates of this master's program offered by Utah State can attest to the abilities of these graduates. UNDERGRADUATE LINGUISTICS COURSES Dr. McLaughlin, an English department faculty member who teaches both technical communications and linguistics at Utah State University, has been working this past year to provide linguistics courses for students online. His courses also use the SyllaBase online classroom. In conjunction with the office of Continuing Education, Dr. McLaughlin has designed several linguistics courses that may be taken independently or in a series. The goal is to eventually offer a Certificate in Linguistics. These courses are especially significant to Utah State extension centers which seldom have the trained linguistics faculty available to teach required courses. Linguistics is a specialization within English and requires faculty expertise that is not readily found in English faculty who are trained in literature or in writing. Most colleges and universities have but one, or possibly two, trained linguists on their faculties. When the regular linguist is on sabbatical, there is often a need to cancel courses for a year or more. Having these courses available online alleviates these staffing problems. The Certificate in Linguistics, as conceived by McLaughlin, will consist of the successful completion of six of the nine linguistics courses offered online. The nine three-semester hour courses being offered online consist of Linguistic Structures (English 4200); Phonetics, Phonology, Morphology, and Syntax (English 5210, repeatable); Languages of the World, and Languages of Native America (English 5210, repeatable); History of English (English 4210); Historical and Comparative Linguistics (English 5210, repeatable). These courses are currently available to students via Continuing Education at Utah State University. Since these course are independent and not a part of any degree program, they can be taken by students from any institution in the state, or anywhere in the world, for that matter, and the credits transferred to their home institutions. We have already had students from Utah and from other states enroll in these linguistics courses. ENGLISH 2010: INTERMEDIATE WRITING As previously described, the English Department has been offering English 1010 online now for several years. Many of our students and instructors have expressed an interest in expanding our offerings to include English 2010 as well. In fact, several students approached the Director of Writing to specifically request online English 2010 after a successful experience in online English 1010. Again, using SyllaBase, we are poised to offer 2010 to students as an alternative to the face-to-face version. Because English 2010 involves learning how to conduct research and how to produce researched arguments, it is also a natural for online delivery. We are piloting tests classes of English 2010 spring semester, 2000. The number of resources now available to students via the Internet, including online libraries, is expanding at a phenomenal rate. Students in an online version of English 2010 use these resources readily. They post their work in online portfolios and conduct peer review sessions with their peers via the Internet. Like 1010, this second writing course is very effective in the online medium, since it is a course about writing. In addition to the online courses, many of the sections of English 2010 that we currently offer are Web-assisted, using the SyllaBase classroom to post syllabi, exercises and assignments, to hold class discussions, and so on, thus extending the face-to-face classroom. It is not a large leap, then, to conduct an entire English 2010 course online. By conducting and evaluating the pilot classes, we are assuring that the outcomes of the English 2010 online program are comparable to the outcomes for the traditional version of English 2010, meeting all of the goals and objectives for that course. Students in English 2010:
The only objective that does not currently lend itself to the online environment is that of oral presentations based on student research. However, the students in the online course present their work visually by posting it to the class's Web site. And, the oral presentation requirement, because it is part of the new general education requirements at Utah State, is present in a number of other general education courses--so, students will achieve this competency in other courses. As the Board of Regents worked with the colleges and universities within the Utah System of Higher Education during the conversion to semesters, it sought to standardize general education curricula for ease of articulation across the system. The standardization of goals and objectives for English 1010 and English 2010 across the system has been particularly effective. An advantage of having a version of English 2010 available online is that students at any institution in the system, including those enrolled in the Utah Electronic Community College, can take the online version of both English 1010 and English 2010 from Utah State and transfer the credits back to their home institution. Furthermore, teachers at other institutions in the state can also offer English 1010 and English 2010 online, using the SyllaBase Online Classroom as the site for their courses. GRANT INITIATIVES Over the past five years, we have received almost a million dollars in grant funding to support our investigations of online teaching and learning. This year, we have submitted proposals related to online teaching and learning to agencies as listed below. We are also in the process of setting up a Center for On-Line Education (COLE) as an official Utah State University Center of Excellence. Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education (FIPSE)
Learning Anytime Anywhere Partnerships (LAAP)
National Science Foundation Curriculum Enhancement Grant (NFS)
Utah System of Higher Education Higher Education Technology Initiative 2000 (HETI)
Environmental Protection Agency Region Eight, Digital Water Management Instruction.
WORKS CITED Carnevale, Dan. "Logging in with . . Rob Kling." The Chronicle of Higher Education: Distance Education. Feb. 21, 2000. http://chronicle.com.Carr, Sarah. "Psych Students Learn More Through Distance Ed But Are Less Satisfied." The Chronicle of Higher Education: Distance Education. Feb. 2, 2000. http://chronicle.com Sanoff, Alvin P. "Long-Distance Relationship." ASEE Prism. Sept. 1999 Young, Jeffrey R. "Scholar Concludes That Distance Ed Is as Effective as Traditional Instruction." The Chronicle of Higher Education: Distance Education. Feb. 10, 2000. http://chronicle.com.
|