Framework for Understanding Distance Education at the University of Minnesota, Duluth

Helen Mongan-Rallis, Trudie Hughes, and Kim Riordan, Education Department, University of Minnesota Duluth

Overview of the Study

The TEL Grant provided funding for the development of:

• A comprehensive framework or model of methods of distance education to be used to assist the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD), individual colleges within UMD, UMD departments and individual UMD faculty in making decisions about:
• Which courses or types of course would be appropriate to teach through some form of distance education
• Which methods of distance education are best for different contexts (example of different factors to consider: type of course and desired course outcomes; instructor’s teaching style and technology knowledge and skills; student knowledge and skills; instructor and student access to the technology needed to support distance education; administrative and technological support)
• What types of supports are need for a distance education course to succeed within the given context.
• A web-based course for university faculty, public school teachers, and other educators on how to design and teach courses through various methods of distance education. The course will be offered as a hybrid (face-to-face and online course) beginning in the the 2006/2007 school year.

Research design

1. In-depth phenomenological interviews with faculty who have taught using distance education, with administrators who are involved in providing support and/or leadership in distance education, and with students who have taken courses taught via distance education. As of April, 2006, in-depth interviews had been conducted with 18 faculty, 6 instructional technology support staff, and 4 senior administrators. Three faculty focus groups were conducted, attended by a total of 23 faculty. Student interviews, focus groups and surveys will be completed in April & May, 2006.
2. The following open-ended questions were used:
   • Interview 1: What have been your experiences with teaching with technology from the first time you used technology as part of your teaching until the present? 
   • Interview 2: What are your experiences in teaching with/learning with/providing leadership in technology and specifically with distance education like right now?
   • Interview 3: How have your past experiences in teaching with technology affected the ways in which you teach/learn/administer using technology and specifically using distance education right now? What might be some suggestions that you have for other faculty/administrators/students who are teaching/leading/learning using distance education right now, or who are considering teaching/leading/learning using some form of distance education? What questions do you have about distance education
3. Focus groups with faculty asking similar questions as the interview questions.
4. Participants could choose to remain anonymous. They have the right to edit anything that they have said before publication. Analysis was done based on the premise that theory will evolve and emerge from the data; thus there was no hypothesis at the start of the study. Interview and focus group data were sorted into emerging themes. Category codes were developed based on these themes. Interviews and focus groups will be open-ended (interviews approximately one hour each, focus groups about 1.5 hours each) and were tape recorded and transcribed. Interview data were initially sorted and analyzed by hand coding, but when data collection is complete they will be will be sorted and analyzed using Ethnograph, a qualitative research software program.

Preliminary Results

Definition of distance education:

Any form of education in which the instructor and students are not physically in the same place and/or not in the same time.

Overview of methods of distance education used at UMD:

This study revealed that there is no one common method of distance education being used at UMD, even within the same program or department. While some programs and departments have attempted to standardize of methods, interviews with the key faculty who are leaders in distance education at UMD revealed that there is considerable variation in methods both across colleges and departments as well as within departments and programs. The following primary categories of distance education are used at UMD:

1. Web-enhanced classes: face-to-face classes that use one or more online components such as:
• course syllabus and schedule with Internet link
• assignment guidelines and rubrics
• online review tests and surveys
• asynchronous discussion forums to enable students to discuss what they have learned in class, in readings, and from outside activities
• podcasts of lectures or guest speakers
• links to online gradebook
• link to WebDrop folder for electronic submission of assignments.
2. Independent study: customized, one-of-a-kind/very specialized courses designed by instructors alone, or in collaboration with students, to enable students to pursue individual projects and studies. These are taken for variable credit. The methods of study can take any form as defined by the nature of the topic, discipline and as agreed upon by the instructor and student. Students may communicate with instructors from a distance using electronic means (email, Internet based, or telephone) or may meet in person with the instructor as needed.
3. Individualized instruction courses (INI) offered through Continuing Education: These are be either fully online courses or traditional correspondence courses in which assignments are submitted by regular mail or using email (traditional "paper and pencil" approaches). INI's are semester length standard courses approved by collegiate curriculum committees. In the past all INI courses could be taken beginning at any time and lasting sixteen weeks from the date on which they were begun. Under that flexible starting date approach, students worked independently from each other at their own pace, submitting completed assignments to the instructor or teaching assistant on their own timeline. Many of the current INI courses are still offered in this format. However, there have been changes, such as in the psychology department, whereby students taking INI classes are required to begin and end the course at the same pace and progress as online learning communities through set units of study. Instructors of the online courses can choose to use WebCT/Vista as their course management system (CMS), use a departmentally custom designed CMS (such as was used in Psychology until the 2005-2006 school year), or create their own CMS using a combination of tools that they create or those supported by UMD Information Technology Systems and Services (ITSS).
4. UMD programs and courses offered at locations outside of Duluth but taught as face-to-face classes, usually in a compressed schedule and/or format e.g. UMD School of Business and Economics (SBE) MBA program offered by UMD faculty to students in Rochester, MN. The faculty members commute to Rochester and teach all day, weekend classes to students who work full time in the area during the week and take weekend classes. [Note: this model does not meet the definition used in this study of a distance education model, because faculty and students meet face-to-face and classes are taught as they would be if the students commuted to UMD rather than the faculty commuting to Rochester. However SBE considers this to be a distance education program because it meets an educational need that cannot be met by offering the program at UMD, since the students in the program cannot commute to UMD].
5. ITV/hybrid classes: Individual classes or whole programs taught over ITV or as hybrid classes using varying combinations of ITV, Internet based learning, and face-to-face instruction. For example:
• Master of Social Work program offered to students at ITV sites in Duluth, Bemidji, and Hibbing. All faculty members from the Social Work department teach in this program. They alternate teaching from each site so that all students have the opportunity to interact face-to-face with the instructors. Increasingly these courses are making use of web-based enhancements (for students to access course materials and for students to engage with peers in discussion using Web Crossing, an online discussion forum.
• Pharmacy program: a collaborative program between UMD and the Twin Cities. Students take all classes over ITV, commuting either to UMD or the Twin Cities, using WebCT/Vista as a CMS for materials that accompany the classes. Some classes are taught from UMD by UMD faculty, and others by Twin Cities faculty.
• Industrial engineering.
• Some M.Ed elective classes within the Education Department, with ITV sites in Morris and Crookston.
6. Online/hybrid classes: Individual classes or programs taught as hybrid using varying combination of web-based tools and face-to-face instruction. Example: Education Department M.Ed cohort classes are taught primarily online, using a learning community model taught almost exclusively through asynchronous discussion (using WebCrossing). Cohorts meet face-to-face at the start of the program, and thereafter may meet face-to-face once a month, or only meet face-to-face once a semester, or not meet again at all following the initial meeting.
7. Fully online classes: taught by individual faculty members who may be the only person teaching online in their department or one of a small group of online faculty members.

Our initial intention was to develop detailed descriptions of each of the methods and frame the distance education matrix around these methods to enable faculty to make choices about which method was best for them. However, we quickly learned that no two faculty approach their teaching in distance education using exactly the same approach, so to attempt to create discrete models of each method would be artificial and misleading. Instead we decided to create a framework that documents the use of distance education tools at UMD (see links below). An analysis of this framework should guide faculty in making decisions about which tools to use and how to combine their use in customizing their own method of distance education to site their specific content.

Development of distance education framework:

Before faculty members begin using the framework it is important to begin by examining the context of their teaching so that their selection of DE methods and tools in aligned with their context. To assist in this process we developed a set of guiding questions. Although these can be used by faculty members working independently, our recommendation is that they discuss their responses with others who can help support them in their preparation for teaching a distance education or hybrid class (e.g. with faculty technology consultant, mentor, colleagues who might also be working in developing distance education classes or who currently teach distance education classes).

Link to Distance Education Guiding Questions

The responses to these guiding questions provide the foundation upon which individual faculty members, programs and departments can make choices about which method or combination of methods of distance education are best for them, and which distance educational tools would be appropriate to select initially and over time.

The framework represents a compilation of the findings from in-depth phenomenological interviews with:

• faculty who have taught using distance education
• instructional technology support staff who have worked with individual faculty, as well as whole departments and colleges to provide training and support for distance education initiatives
• administrators who are involved in providing support and/or leadership in distance education

As of April, 2006, in-depth interviews had been conducted with 18 faculty, 6 instructional technology support staff, and 4 senior administrators. Three faculty focus groups were conducted, attended by a total of 23 faculty. Student interviews, focus groups and surveys will be completed in April & May, 2006.

The Distance Education Framework provides an analysis the distance education tools that are currently being used at UMD and identifies the key findings as they relate to the following components of each tool:

1. Definition and primary elements
2. Rationale for using
3. Overview of ways in which each is being used
4. Advantages
5. Disadvantages
6. Technology requirements
7. Issues & problems
8. Emergent learnings and tips for using

Two versions of the framework are presented here:

1. Basic framework: with links to detailed descriptions of each tool, each on a separate page. This enables users to focus on reading in depth about each tool, one at a time.
2. Detailed framework: listing findings on each tool all within the same matrix to enable users to compare components across all of the tools.

Preliminary Summary of Initial Overall Findings and Recommendations

Key Findings

1. Improved student engagement and depth of critical reflection in particular as a result of online discussion forums

Specific examples of findings in this area:

• Every student in class is able to respond to questions.
• All students can be "heard" because even if one student posts repeatedly in an online discussion, other students can choose how much attention to give to that student's posts and can still respond without interruption.
• Students who are normally reluctant to speak in face-to-face classes report being more willing to do so online. Not only does this benefit them, but also the whole class benefits by hearing the opinions of all students rather than the most confident, dominant students who typically dominate face-to-face class discussions.
• Students become individually accountable and responsible for their learning, and instructor able to use the online forum to assess student responses systematically (especially if a rubric is used) and provide more frequent & individual feedback.
• Students build on face-to-face learning experiences, readings and outside experiences e.g. online discussion following guest speaker, field trip, movie, lab, or continuation of face-to-face classroom discussions.
• The process of writing responses leads to more in depth critical reflection & dialog -- writing helps students know what they know (as opposed to them writing merely to show others -- the instructor and peers -- what they know).
• If questions are well designed to have students connect their learning to their lives, it helps them examine their assumptions.
• The asynchronous format allows students to take the time first to make sense of what others are saying and then to think about and plan their responses. This is especially an advantage to students whose first language is not English.
• To be meaningful, questions asked by instructors (and other students) must engage students in higher level thinking (application, analysis, synthesis & evaluation, as well as in the affective domain) and call on students to connect the course theory to their own lives. This means that learners explore topics in much greater depth.
• A valuable use of the forum is for students to post drafts of their work and invite feedback from peers. Both the student receiving this feedback and those giving it benefit from this process of reading others' ideas, asking each other questions, responding to each other.
• Because they are able to "go to class" at any time, the process of student learning is more continuous. Especially at the graduate level, students report being more engaged on an ongoing basis in reflecting on what they are learning. Additionally, when they think of something they would like to say in response to a discussion, they don't have to wait for class to "start" -- they can enter the online discussion at any time to record their thoughts.
• Students (and instructors) are judged by the quality of their ideas and not by external appearance. This can be a very important factor for people who have experienced discrimination based on their physical appearance.
• Empowerment: By having their responses validated, their voices heard, and seeing their ideas contribute to the learning community, students gain confidence in speaking out even in face-to-face classes.
• Even after a discussion is over, students can refer back to it for review.
• Outsiders (such as experts in the field) can be invited to contribute to a discussion, greatly enriching the conversation and connecting it to real world contexts.

2. Changes in beliefs about the roles of teachers and learners

A theme that emerged in interviews with faculty and technical support staff was a shift in instructors' beliefs about the roles as instructors and students. As instructors become more experienced in teaching using distance education methods, there seems to be a tendency for them to see themselves more as being facilitators of learning rather than content-delivery experts. As more and more information becomes available to students online in increasingly high quality forms (e.g. MIT courses online and open to the public to; refereed journals online), there is less need for faculty to use class time to lecture and provide information. Instead they are requiring students to make greater use of online resources, be more responsible in preparing for class and in building on what they have learned from class. What this does then is to enable instructors to change the focus of face-to-face time spent with students in class, so that there is more active engagement with and among students, having them apply what they have learned. Additionally, more and more faculty use the Internet as a significant tool in their teaching and expect students to do the same in their learning.

3. Influence of distance education on faculty members' face-to-face teaching

Once faculty have taught using distance education, most report that this informed and improved their teaching in face-to-face classes, so that the face-to-face classes increasing employed those methods of distance education that can better meet the learning needs of face-to-face students (example: using online discussion forums to build on classroom learning experiences).

4. Training and professional development of faculty in distance education methods and skills

• A strongly emerging theme was the high quality of technical support and training that has been provided and continues to be provided to faculty by ITSS and more recently by collegiate and departmental technology support people. UMD's history of providing a comprehensive and diverse set of options for technology training appears to have been pivotal in enabling the early adopters and now the next wave of instructors to use distance education. In particular, the most commonly cited strengths were: just-in-time and regularly scheduled one-on-one technical support by faculty technology consultants; the Tech Camp program, the Technophyte program, and the most recent Bush grant (whose focus is not on technology or distance education, but rather on faculty helping students to become more responsible, self-directed learners); relative ease of faculty obtaining necessary technology (computers and peripherals) and the belief in allowing faculty to use this equipment not only for professional purposes, but also for personal reasons (a number of faculty commented that being allowed to use technology such as their computers and digital cameras away from work has given them the confidence, skills, and enjoyment needed for them to be willing to risk trying the tools in their teaching).
• Mentoring in teaching skills required for distance education: faculty engaged in distance education reported that there is a significant learning curve in becoming skilled in teaching using distance education, both in terms of technology skills, but even more so in learning effective teaching practices within the model(s) of distance education that they use. Faculty who have received one-on-one mentoring from colleagues reported this as a very significant factor, and faculty who have not received mentoring have stated how much they wish they could have had mentor. Also: faculty who have been mentors have reported how much their mentoring role has helped them in their own teaching and been a revitalizing and motivating force (especially if they have been given release time to be mentors so that they have been able to do a quality job and not be overwhelmed by this).
  

5. Increasing "hybridization" of courses

As the methods of distance education and accompanying technological tools are understood better and faculty become increasingly skilled in their use, they appear to be adopting increasingly varied combinations of distance education methods and tools. Some faculty are moving away from fully face-to-face classes to hybrid formats in which students do not meet for every class, replacing some class session with online discussion forums. Initially the hybrid classes tended to use only one method of distance education in combination with face-to-face classes. Faculty also reported initially implementing the same hybrid approaches across all of their classes. However, as understanding of the range of distance education methods has increased, faculty have become more skilled in matching the methods and tools to the needs in their particular contexts. e.g. the same instructor may choose to teach fully face-to-face in one class, fully online in another, and combine a variety of methods in another, depending on the type of class, nature of students, and desired outcomes.

6. Importance of faculty having the experience of being on the receiving end of distance education

Faculty who have been distance education students themselves report being more empathetic and understanding of students and better able to define a more balanced and manageable approach to teaching using distance education.

Recommendations

1. Before selecting which methods and tools of distance education to use, it is important to align them with context in which they will be used:

The selection of distance education methods and distance education tools by an individual faculty member or by programs and departments should be based on a careful and systematic analysis of such factors as:

• Goals and underlying philosophy of the program in which the courses are taught .
• Nature of the subject and specific course objectives.
• Needs and abilities of students. Examples: graduate vs. undergraduate; age of students and extent to which they are working while attending school; living in town vs. living in rural areas (where access to Internet is through modem); background and culture; skills and abilities (related to the discipline , life skills, and technological expertise).
• Needs and abilities of faculty. Examples: expertise, confidence, and experience in using technology and in distance education methods; what motivates faculty (what they need in order to want to teach given courses); teaching skills both in face-to-face and distance education contexts; rank (since tenured faculty tend to feel less vulnerable that non-regular and tenure track faculty in being able to experiment with learning to teach using distance education methods); living in town vs. living in rural areas; background and culture.
• The extent and availability of technical support for the methods and tools that instructors would like to use.

2. A call for leadership and vision in distance education at the university level:

A very significant theme that emerged consistently across interviews was the need for leadership and a distance education vision. Specific issues mentioned related to this theme were:

• Need for a clearly defined role of distance education at UMD.
• Reluctance or hesitancy for faculty to commit to distance education until they know if this is something that is going to be supported by the university.
• Need for centralized office of distance education that provides consulting, training, and support structure for distance education across campus.
• Technical support: Key questions asked where about what the relationship is between and among technical support provided by: UM system, UMD ITSS, individual colleges, and individual departments; and who is responsible for providing technical support for students.
• Ensuring that distance education initiatives align with accreditation requirements (and helping make the case to accreditation bodies to show how standards are being met in distance education programs).
• Policies and procedures for supporting distance education initiatives (during the time in which this study was done, significant progress was made in this area, with an agreement being reaching between the UMD administration and the faculty union on this).

3. Scalability and sustainability of the method of distance education and the tools used within each distance education method:

Scalability and sustainability need to be considered when making decisions about the extent to which different distance education methods and tools can be supported by the administration. While pilot programs that operate outside the regular confines of existing programs are key in enabling early adopters to made advancements, it is important that plans be made for how successful, new programs can be maintained and integrated into the long term plans for the department, college or the larger university. The issues of scalability and sustainability have been sources of conflict between faculty and administration in the area of distance education in some departments.

• Administrators have been concerned about the offering of new distance education courses and programs outside of the regular workload of existing faculty (either by having faculty teach these courses as overload or by hiring adjuncts to teach new courses). To administrators this is a serious concern because the programs are vulnerable since faculty can decide they no longer want to teach on overload; because of the fear that faculty will compromise the quality of their regular workload in order to complete their overload teaching; and because having overload courses taught outside or the department structure (through Continuing Education) means that administrators are unable to make the case for needing to create new faculty positions within the department to meet the increased number of programs.
• From a faculty perspective, teaching on overload through Continuing Education frees them from being answerable to (and constrained by) departmental evaluations and restrictions on courses and thus encourages them to take risks and challenge themselves, such as in learning new distance education teaching methods. Although faculty earn additional pay for teaching overload, in the case of faculty who have taught distance education courses as overload, it appears that their motivation is far more intrinsic (e.g. seeking challenge, new learning, and belief in improved opportunities afforded students).

4. Sustainability of faculty

A theme that emerged strongly was that many faculty who have been early adopters of distance education are becoming worn-out because of the extra time that it takes to teach using distance education. This is especially the case in models of distance education that use online threaded discussion as a significant component of the course, but also in all distance education classes that require more time to develop initially and then to maintain the online components. Almost without exception all faculty reported the extra time that it takes them to teach using distance education. Additionally, related to this, most faculty who teach online reported feeling as if class is always in session. Unlike face-to-face classes in which faculty teach and interact with students in each course only for three hours a week in class and maybe another three hours outside of class during office hours, in an online class teaching can become a 24-7 endeavor unless faculty set very clear limits for themselves and their students about when and how often they will be online and responding to students.

If efforts at distance education are to continue to grow and and be sustained, attention must be given both by leaders and by individual faculty to factors that will enable the faculty to retain their enthusiasm and vitality and not become burned out. Providing extra credit for distance education courses and/or extra compensation for the development of distance education courses does help address this issue, but does not seem to be sufficient. Other possible areas to explore in responding to this issue could be: Having technical support provided to faculty (could be one of the functions of a central office of distance education); creating teams that work together on distance education courses (as opposed to faculty working in isolation from colleagues and from technical support people); guiding faculty to explore on an individual basis what changes they can make in their teaching so that the needs of the students and the faculty member are still met, but that lead to a more balanced work and stress load for all.

5. Clarification misconceptions about distance education

• Lack of common understanding and agreement of what distance education is: There appears to be little if any common understanding of and agreement among different colleges, departments and even within groups of faculty in the same department or program about the definition of the nature, scope, and purposes of distance education. The danger of this is it leads to plans being made without first ensuring that all involved in making the plans are speaking about the same foundational definition.
• Comparison of distance education with face-to-face instruction (a) as if there is only one method of distance education and one method of face-to-face instruction, thus enabling them to be compared with each other and (b) as if face-to-face education, also sometimes called "traditional education," is not only one agreed upon method, but also the gold standard against which distance education can and should be measured. It is one thing to compare student achievement in specified outcomes in a given course taught face-to-face methods with achievement of outcomes in the same course taught using distance education methods, but quite another to cite the inadequacies of distance education in comparison with so-called "traditional" education.
• One size fits all: the perception that departments or programs should adopt one method/model of distance education and use one or a narrowly defined set of tools within this model for use in all courses as opposed to recognizing that there are many methods of distance education informed by significantly different beliefs about the purpose of education, the role of the teacher and the role of learners. This attitude towards distance education is in contrast to perceptions within these same departments and programs about face-to-face teaching, where traditionally instructors have had considerable latitude in their choice of teaching methods and tools (strongly upheld by policies and a culture of academic freedom).
• Department culture and/or pressure from colleagues: both because of misconceptions about distance education and because of lack of clear statement of support for distance education initiatives from the highest levels on down, common concerns raised by faculty were:
  • (a) Tenure track faculty should not engage in distance education because it will undermine their work towards tenure
  • (b) Tenure track faculty are often the ones who have the strongest skills and readiness to engage in distance education, yet if they wait six years before becoming involved in distance education they will have become out of date in their distance education knowledge and skills and may be so invested in their face-to-face teaching that they will not want to change to using distance education.
  • (c) In some departments where little if any distance education is happening, colleagues who do not understand what distance education is have been very disparaging to and about instructors who are teaching using distance education. While this is less of an issue for tenured faculty engaged in distance education (because of the security afforded them by being tenured), it is very threatening to non-regular and adjunct faculty who feel either that they should not even engage in distance education, or, if they do, that they should "keep under the radar" about their efforts for fear of losing their jobs.
  • (d) Teaching using distance education is not recognized as being meritorious both for annual merit review and for promotion and tenure. This leads to a reluctance on the part of some faculty to invest their time and energy in teaching using distance education methods.

Next Steps

1. Focus groups with and surveys of students
2. Interviews with additional faculty
3. Full final report, including literature review and case studies of some of the people who were interviewed and quotes from many of the interviews to illustrate the methods that are described
4. Proposal of Distance Education Tech Camp (taught as hybrid face-to-face and online class during 2006-2007 year)
5. Development and teaching of graduate course on distance education at UMD
6. Workshops for UMD faculty on study findings
7. Presentation of findings at conferences
8. Publication of findings

References

Overview of TEL Grant Study

Summary of findings