transformation of education

2009 IABR & TLC Conference Proceedings San Antonio, Texas, USA

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The Transformation Of The Fabric Of

Education In The Twenty-First Century Philip E. Burian, Colorado Technical University – Sioux Falls

Francis R. “Skip” Maffei III Colorado Technical University- Online

ABSTRACT

Education has changed significantly over the past three decades. Technology has been

a key driver but not the only element that has contributed to changing the fabric of

the way we learn. Institutions of all education levels now have to strategize about the

way the curriculum is delivered as well as improving their technology infrastructure, media

source integration, an extremely mobile workforce; all from a global perspective. Policies

and procedures must adapt to this education revolution. What has worked in the past may

no longer be a valid set of assumptions.

Keywords: Online, Remote, Distance, Learning Technology, Choices, Professional Learning Model

INTRODUCTION

What is education? Education is “the general term for institutional learning and implies the guidance and

training intended to develop a person’s full capacities and intelligence” (Webster’s New Encyclopedic Dictionary,

1993, p. 318). What this definition means is the goal or vision of the institution is to make the student more

successful in life through the development of his or her knowledge and intellect.

A quick review of the research report titled “Online Nation: Five Years of Growth of Online Learning” by

I. Elaine Allen Ph.D. and Jeff Seaman Ph.D. addresses the adoption of online education as both a viable and credible

option for academic institutions. The research report identified five online learning frameworks of which two

categories, engaged and fully engaged; tell an interesting and positive story. For example the engaged category has

“A sizable set of institutions (around 800, or 18 percent of all higher education Institutions) currently have online

offerings and believe that online is critical to the long-term strategy of their organization. However, these

institutions have not yet included online education in their formal strategic plan.”(Allen and Seaman 2007). For the

fully engaged category, the results are even better “Slightly more than one-third (35 percent) of all higher education

institutions (around 1,500 total) are fully engaged in online education. They believe their online offerings are

strategic for their institution and they have fully incorporated online into their formal long-term plan….” (Allen and

Seaman 2007). Simply stated, the future of online learning has the potential for positive growth as academic

institutions, employers, and the adult learner become more familiar with the online learning model or framework.

It has not been all that long ago that everything evolved around a traditional or physical campus classroom

setting. People could not watch a news story unfold on their television or iPod in real-time and across the globe.

This paper will provide a snapshot of education nearly thirty years ago based on experiences and a brief overview of

how learning and technology are intertwined today. Finally the paper will address a high-level blueprint that could

be implemented to develop a value-added and outcomes based educational experience for the learner. Online or

remote learning continues to gain momentum and instead of thinking and teaching local the model has become one

of thinking and teaching global.


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THE PAST

From a student’s perspective, the campus and classroom was the center of the universe. Materials provided

in the classroom were informative however; the real issue was what the student really needed to know. For the

instructor, a rather simple framework was deployed. The framework consisted of the following three points:

1. Tell them what you are going to tell them;

2. Tell them; and finally

3. Tell them what you told them.

Students attended courses in a campus classroom setting where they sat through hours of lectures and labs.

Exams were given weekly to assess student progress and a final exam was given to determine whether the student

could remember everything that was taught regarding a specific topic item. Multiple copies of the exams were made

using a mimeograph machine. Exams were not easy. Most exams were multiple choice and/or fill in the blanks with

an occasional essay question thrown in for excitement. Typical weekly exams consisted of 20-50 questions and end

of course exams could be well over a couple hundred questions. Students also received a lab grade which in some

cases had to be accomplished over and over again until they became proficient.

Each quarter or semester faculty would be randomly selected and evaluated based on specific classroom

presentation criteria. The criteria and the evaluations could be fairly lengthy and intense. After the faculty member

finished a specific lecture or lab session, the evaluating official would sit down and go over in detail the good, the

bad, and the not so good. Part of the critique criteria was habits or actions that were considered less than acceptable

in a learning environment such as looking at and reading the overhead transparencies as well as how to handle a

pointer or other teaching aid.

Faculty members were trained, armed with the secret classroom presentation recipe, worked in teams

before being allowed to instruct on their own, responsible for their own courses and all materials, evaluated, and

finally responsible for a feedback process to continuously improve the curriculum. Looking back after all of these

years the faculty was not a very student focused educational environment. The quality of the learning was not at the

top of the list of faculty responsibilities.

Students turned in evaluations after each course. The organization considered these evaluations as an

important part of the education process. Each and every one of the evaluations was reviewed to determine whether

the comment was invalid, valid, or needed follow-up. It was the instructor’s job to make sure every sentence,

objective, and description in the lesson plan was up-to-date and could be mapped to a specific class activity, event

and learning outcome.

THE PRESENT

With all of the complexities and distractions today, considerable focus is being placed on customer service,

flexibility, adaptability, and mobility. The questions are “What do students really need and want? Do students learn

differently than they did thirty years ago? Is the institution providing an education that will support the student need

for customized or tailored presentation? Is the institution leveraging technology properly? Can the institution

successfully integrate technology and content to create a beneficial learning environment? What's really ironic is

these questions were asked nearly thirty years ago when the institution implemented the transparency machine.

One implementation of the student acquisition of needed skills and knowledge is the utilization of

technology to facilitate the learning process. The key point to remember is the learning process rides on the back of

the technology to present knowledge to the student wherever they may be at the time. The classroom is virtualized in

structure, design, technology implementation, and the delivery method. The classroom is no longer just walls, a

whiteboard, and professor at a podium but rather the class is on the notebook computer in a hotel room, iPod file,

notebook computer in an airport, or watching an archived class presentation by the professor.

Next take the need or desire by a student for an education as the goal of an academic institution in order for

the student to be successful. Add to the mix the adaptability of the academic institution to blend the conventional


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campus academic environment with the online environment. What we now have is a student that given their

lifestyle, work demands, geographic location, and desire to acquire an academic degree, and the academic institution

that wants fulfill the student’s need for adaptability, mobility, and the acquisition of a degree?

Ultimately students want to be successful, but added into that desire to be successful is the academic

institution’s implementation of technology to fulfill the mobility. Added to the student need to be successful is the

university structuring of their curriculum and degree programs to be adaptable to either the campus or online

environment. What is really being talked about is giving the student “Choices” as to how they want to fulfill their

academic needs.

Today the faculty may be armed with notebook computers, Tablet PCs, iPods, interactive application

software, and all are connected to a wireless campus network so it is possible to communicate everywhere. When

entering the classroom students are waiting and already connected to the wireless network. Once the faculty

member is connected by the Tablet PC into the classroom interface the instructor can immediately engage the e-

learning application on the Internet Browser. The instructor remembers the remote students so the audio capability

is energized and records the session activities so the remote or distant student can view the activities and class

session at their convenience.

When the instructor is not in the classroom there is plenty to do. The short list consists of developing

rubrics, reviewing syllabi and course objectives, mentoring students, responding to email and voice mail, and

grading papers and exams. Students rarely turn in a hard or paper copy of an assignment. The classroom

assignments are nearly all uploaded to the e-learning platform and graded. There will always be a few discipline

related situations, as well as a few cheating and plagiarism issues. Students need to be cautioned that instant

messaging a friend during an exam for answers is not acceptable.

The faculty are continually looking for the secret process that integrates the whole thing just like it did

thirty years ago. Academic institutions have moved forward by developing strategic objectives, leveraging

technology, training faculty, evaluating student feedback, and consistently assess program and course outcomes.

Maybe all of this is the new secret academic success process. Maybe the ingredients just changed slightly over the

past thirty years and the recipe still retains similar properties, it just looks a little different. In order to understand

the student of today we must first understand what the student wants, needs, or expects from their post secondary

academic institution. Sloan Consortium in 2007 evaluated six delivery modes that the learners desire for their

postsecondary education. The results were enlightening and provide considerable encouragement for a blending of

technology, education presentation media, and the modeling of education to the needs of the workforce. Enclosed is

an extract of a portion of the study:

Consumer preference was evenly distributed across four of the six delivery modes. Seventy-six percent of

consumers interested in postsecondary education stated a preference for a delivery mode with at least some

online element, and eighty-one percent stated a preference for a delivery mode with at least some face-to-

face element.

While only 10.6% of consumers reported prior experience of a totally online program (and only 6.1%

reported such experience within postsecondary education), 19% expressed a preference for wholly online

programs. In terms of blended delivery, the experience and preference figures were also some distance

apart. While 16.6% of consumers reported blended program experience (with an estimated two-thirds of

this experience in a postsecondary setting), 32% expressed a preference for either primarily online or

online/on-campus balanced programs. Indeed, as noted above, adherence to the Sloan-C definition of

blended would further widen the gap between experience and preference.

So for both online and blended delivery, consumer preference appears to significantly outpace prior

consumer experience, and estimates of current market size.

The student of today wants an educational experience that is adaptable to their life situation, mobility of access,

flexibility of presentation, and above all options to gravitate between a campus setting and the online environment.


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THE FUTURE

So what's the future of the academic institution? We believe we are only at the threshold of what lies

ahead. Online education is still in its infancy. Academic institutions are still struggling to integrate the tools with

content so we can deliver solid and meaningful programs. Now institutions are looking at virtual based classrooms

hosting avatars.

One academic institution- Colorado Technical University (CTU) has copyrighted a model for bring the

real-world into educational situations. The Professional Learning Model has provided Colorado Technical

University with the framework for making the student a more skilled and knowledge member of society through the

application of group- or team-focused projects and presentations. The Professional Learning Model (PLM) like any

model is not the universal fix-all model that will correct all woes, but is more of a template, the applicability of

which is more specific in nature and less universally applicable. The university has found PLM was more adaptable

and malleable for a campus academic environment and required more adaptation for the e-learning or online

academic environment.

Regardless of the kinds of technology deployed or the next new framework developed, academic

institutions will need to consider the following critical elements as they move forward:

1. The professor's role needs to be changed to more of a coach or even a steward. Faculty must set

the vision and direction and have the students more engaged with their own education and

activities;

2. Academic institutions must implement and use an integrated suite of technology. Voice, video,

and data must come together and it must absolutely be easy to use. If the institutions believe that

email, voice mail, iPods, iPhones, Messaging and the like are going away we're fooling ourselves.

These tools must be integrated into the learning process;

3. Along with integrated technology, institutions must develop and provide rich content and

simulations. Institutions must find ways to work content and simulations into the curriculum and

not have massive slide presentations and lectures;

4. Relevant and to the point training must be provided. Programs, courses, content, and objectives

must be threaded and meaningful and not just busy work. Courses must support more of the

applied or hands-on learning and not just reading, memorizing and test taking. They must be

configured to encourage the student to be more exploratory;

5. Academic institutions need to accommodate those with busy lives and schedules. Online delivery

is an essential implementation solution. Whether a traditional educator or not, remote access is

not going away, and we must facilitate anywhere, anytime and anyplace course availability and

learning;

6. Practical and hands-on activities. Slide presentations are great for some things. Now that

institutions have mastered them, put them away and get the students working and participating in

real-world type situations and activities;

7. Academic institutions must partner with industry. We must listen to and understand their

requirements. Industry should and must be an integral and active part of our advisory boards.

Business organizations need people with specific skill-sets. These skills and needs must be

In Practice: CTU PLM places students in the active role of collaborative problem solvers and project

initiators confronted with the task of producing a deliverable that mirrors a real-world context and

assessment.


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integrated and threaded throughout the entire curriculum; and

8. Academic institutions need to make the classroom, online, and lab sessions both interesting and

fun again. They need to create an environment that the student enjoys attending and not relate it to

a lot of painstaking and nebulous busy work.

These are only a few suggestions that can be used to put innovation back into education. As educator’s we

must also determine how to adjust processes and assessments to synch-up with this direction. It's been our

experience when we develop the policies and standards first we limit ourselves and our creativity. It seems to box

us in. For those who haven't even implemented the technology elements as of yet, your institution is already behind

the power curve and to grow the institution’s primary focus will be on making the technology work and integrating

the solutions.

During the summer quarter of 2009 we will be conducting an experiment referred to as an online digital

summer camp. This course will utilize a number of video and audio recording, social networking, and online

document and collaboration tools. Specific objectives and deliverables have been defined and we will be observing

individual and group interaction and tool usage. Creativity, interaction, and quality are just a few of the criteria that

will be observed and evaluated. We believe that students will not only learn how to use the technology but it will

facilitate a more exploratory approach toward learning and meeting the course objectives and deliverables.

Giving a student a choice starts to address, from the online learning perspective, the needs of the student

and how the academic institution can fulfill those needs. The findings and implications for practice that were

identified in the ALN Principles of Blended Environment study report will go a long way toward understanding how

choices provide opportunities for student academic success. The study found the following: (ALN Principles of

Blended Environment, 2004):

Learners want convenience, flexibility, affordability, relevance (immediate applicability, and usefulness for

employability), competence, reliability, choice, personalization, and rapid feedback

To design courses to accommodate various learning and teaching styles, Twigg lists five key features for

improving access and quality of learning, from the Pew Learning and Technology Program monograph

“Innovations in Online Learning”

The responsibility the online learning institution has is to support the student’s desire to excel, with a

convenient, flexible, mobile, and adaptable learning presentation environment.

With all of this said, a few questions remain to be asked and addressed. Are we as academic institutions

just fine-tuning over and over what we already do (continuous process improvement in order to reduce costs,

improve efficiencies, and bolster value)? Are we really innovating and changing the very fabric of how we learn or

are we being pulled in that direction? What about social skills? What about how we treat and deal with others?

How about pride and job quality?

SUMMARY

The student learner of the 21st century seeks education that is adapted to their life-style, work commitments,

and life events. They look to the post secondary educational systems to effectively embrace and implement

technology, while ensuring the presentation of a quality and valuable learning experience. To achieve the student

learner centered success, educational systems will need to constantly and continuously adapt the learning platforms

while providing the mobility the student learner needs to be successful. The technology changes, is changing, and

will continue to evolve and the academic community needs to adapt to the changes and present the student learner

with the best possible educational opportunity that will fulfill their needs.

It is our hope that this paper will provide some ideas and discussion on how we as individuals and learning

institutions can successfully blend the technologies of today and tomorrow with the adaptability, mobility, and lives

of our student learners of the future. We have some enormous challenges ahead. Challenges that will require us to

think differently about the very foundation and fabric of the way we learn, teach, and communicate.


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REFERENCES

Allen I. Elaine PhD and Seaman, Jeff PhD; Online Nation Five Years of Growth in Online Learning, Sloan

Consortium (Sloan-C) Massachusetts; 2007

Allen I. Elaine PhD; Garrett, Richard; and Seaman, Jeff PhD; Blending In The Extent and Promise of Blended

Education in the United States; Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C) Massachusetts; 2007

Colorado Technical University Strategic Business Strategy and Plan; 2008

Colorado Technical University Choices; 2007

Leasure, David PhD; Teaching and Learning with CTU’s Professional Learning Model (CTU PLM™) Computer

Science Technical Report Number CTU-CS-2004-001; Colorado Technical University, Colorado Springs Colorado

ALN Principles of Blended Environments A Collaboration; Edited by Janet C Moore; Sloan-C Online Research

Workshop, Sloan Consortium; Massachusetts; 2004

Webster New Encyclopedic Dictionary. New York, New York, Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers Inc. 1993

United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor and Statistics, Career Guide by Industries, 2008

(Computer Systems Design and Related Services – Training and Advancement)

http://www.bls.gov/oco/cg/cgs033.htm

http://www.bls.gov/oco/cg/cgs033.htm