I teach Human Anatomy and Physiology. Students learn about the skeletal system, nervous system, digestive system, and more in these classes. The most amazing piece of these classes comes at the end of their second semester, when the student finally realizes that none of the systems act on their own - they work in synchrony in order to function in a healthy manner within a particular environment. Each body part "collaborates" with many others in order to function correctly.
An educational system is much like the body in that it takes many parts to accomplish the work. Systems react to the environment in order to maintain homeostasis. The systems used to be much simpler and relied heavily on physical classrooms. The internet has created an environmental change in education that is promoting changes in the educational system. Margaret Spellings' Wall Street Journal article described some of the effects that are and may be seen in higher education mostly due to the internet. Online classrooms are growing in number and competency-based education is being explored by many institutions, including my own. These adaptations are not without dissent from internal stakeholders. Does a student get the same type of education if they take online courses rather than face to face courses?If not, is that better or worse for the student? If seat time is not the measuring tool and competencies are, does that mean that seat time is not valuable? Will face to face courses be a thing of the past or are these other modes of learning simply additions to the system required by a new environment? Unfortunately, these questions cannot be answered at this time. The system is in the throes of adjusting to the environment and the efforts have not had enough time to fully take root.
Community college education has also been historically focused on providing accessible education to the community in which the college resides. These colleges are now focusing more on the provision of accessible education to the global community. This report noted that online technologies are making education more accessible. The globalization of the marketplace demands that students are trained to work in a global workplace and education can provide that with online classrooms that have students from across the globe. Collaborative classrooms are being developed where teachers from one country can co-teach with teachers from another country. Not only can people from different countries collaborate in their teaching, but also people from differing disciplines. Of course, this isn't just seen in community colleges. Creighton's Interdisciplinary EdD program is a prime example of this.
Jon Husband's blog stated that leaders in this very interconnected environment must:
Leaders in education will need to do these things in order to initiate homeostatic mechanisms to survive and thrive in this technological environment.Become deeply aware of and truly mindful about the scope and reach of interconnected markets and flows of information. Understand how and why people are connecting, talking, sharing information. Be prepared to listen deeply, be responsible, be accountable and be transparent.
Reference for picture:
(nd). Retrieved from
http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view;_ylt=AwrB8p3vUMVTcRYAI8mJzbkF;_ylu=X3oDMTIza2UwbjhuBHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDaW1nBG9pZANiN2VkOTViNjBkZWUyODVhMzM1ODg4ZDM4MjM1NGViNgRncG9zAzI0BGl0A2Jpbmc-?back=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3F_adv_p
Nice post, Julie. Your comment that "...The system is in the throes of adjusting to the environment and the efforts have not had enough time to fully take root..." - so true. I am not a big Clayton Christensen fan ... but no one can argue that we in education (and other fields) are in disruptive times right now. Couple that with your observation that systems are interconnected ... and it suggests unique challenges for leaders.
ReplyDeleteI suspect some really interesting opportunities will also present themselves through all of this change.
DeleteJulie – That is an excellent analogy between the systems of the body and the elements of an educational system. There are many moving parts in both situations, and a failure in a single part can cause the entire system to fail.
ReplyDeleteI teach in the online environment, and we obviously take classes in the online environment. I find the notion of competency-based learning interesting, and it may be useful in a course like Anatomy and Physiology, or perhaps in some of my Health Finance and Budgeting courses. Yet, in a course that is challenging students’ thoughts on difficult abstract topics, such as the Catholic Social Teaching course I just took last term, I can’t fathom competency based learning. Even measuring ‘seat time’ in online courses is difficult – for example this term I’m taking two courses, one is one credit, one is three credits. I’m spending as much time, if not more, on my one credit course as I am on my three credit course! Something is out of whack with the system for sure.
From a connectedness standpoint, I love the notion of colleges and universities becoming more connected and teaching online courses across the continuum. The State University of New York system here in NY has online course work that they offer across their entire system, all 64 campuses, and I believe they are even offered to the community college as well, also part of their system. Great way to create connectivity and offer disciplines at one more rural campus that perhaps they do not have expertise available in.
Jill -
DeleteI agree with you that it seems that some courses and courses of study are much better suited for competency-based learning. I have been to conferences where some of the humanities teachers are struggling with competency-based structures that they are being essentially forced to conform with.
I'm not sure if you will know this or not, but does SUNY use the community college instructors or do they just teach the course as a listing at the community college? The community college where I teach has agreements with several four-year institutions to allow students to take courses from the four-year institution on our campuses, but I haven't seen the collaboration online yet.
Thank you for your comments!
Hi Julie!
DeleteVery good analogy of an education system and the parts of the human body! Currently, my workplace is also in the process of determining whether or not online courses would be valuable to military students. We are looking at incorporating a blended learning environment for our military students where they conduct online learning prior to attending the resident military course. I believe students are able to receive the same type of education by taking online courses compared to regular classrooms. However, it requires more work for the student to be actively engaged in online learning. As I continue my journey through Creighton’s leadership program, I am convinced this is the way of the future.
I agree that the work for the student and the instructor is increased in the online environment. It looks like the online education environment is not going away as many had predicted.
DeleteHello Julie,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your post. You are asking questions that I have thought about a lot recently. As a person who has invested the past 35 years of my life as an educator in a school that does 99.9% of its work in face-to-face classroom situations, I have thoroughly enjoyed and benefited from coming to understand the dynamics of online education through my participation in this program at Creighton. It has been a rich experience for me and I have been able to provide valuable leadership for our school and our teachers as we make this transition to an increasingly online instructional environment.
I do believe that you make good points about competency-based education. I know that I have learned a great deal in my studies here at Creighton over the past two years. However, I will never have the experience of being able to compare what I would have learned had I taken these classes in a traditional classroom setting. On the other hand, I can tell you that I would have learned nothing simply because I would not have been able to participate in this program. The 12-hour one-way commute simply would not have worked for me.
I do hope that we will soon see the emergence of a solid body of research that compares the efficiency of online learning with that of a face-to-face classroom situation. Clayton Christensen (2011) has projected that by 2019 at least 90% of students who graduate from high school will have taken one or more of their courses online. With such a pool to draw from, I expect this to be a heavily researched topic over the next decade.
Is your school is conducting such research at this time? Should they be?
Reference
Christensen, C. M., Horn M. B., & Johnson C. W. (2011). Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns. New York, NY: McGraw Hill.
Great questions! I am asking my teachers that teach online science laboratory classes to also teach a face to face section to compare and contrast. My counterparts at other campuses may be doing the same thing. Institutionally, the distance learning director is accumulating data as well. I have looked for credible studies on the efficacy of online teaching in science and have not found a lot of information either.
DeleteHi Julie!
ReplyDeleteVery good analogy of an education system and the parts of the human body! Currently, my workplace is also in the process of determining whether or not online courses would be valuable to military students. We are looking at incorporating a blended learning environment for our military students where they conduct online learning prior to attending the resident military course. I believe students are able to receive the same type of education by taking online courses compared to regular classrooms. However, it requires more work for the student to be actively engaged in online learning. As I continue my journey through Creighton’s leadership program, I am convinced this is the way of the future.
BlueWhite10