Christopher K Morgan
The University of Sydney, Orange, Australia
Email: cmorgan@orange.usyd.edu.au

Students are increasingly spending less of their timeon-campus and in classrooms and are turning to fulfil their study requirementsthrough their use of information and communication technologies. From acurriculum perspective, this may appear to be an acceptable trend. For manystudents, however, achieving academic success requires more than this. Acritical motivational element for them is to have a sense of being a valuedmember of a learning community. This paper uses a case study as it explores theneed for educators to develop strategies that can build personal bridges withtheir changing students.

Tertiary students in formal award courses are generallyspending less and less time in the classroom. The number of weeks in eachsemester has been shrinking and there are fewer classes scheduled for them ineach week. While the educational administrators and the teachers are drivingthis, so are the students.

Administrators commonly have been seeking fewer timetabledsessions per student as they are under pressure to gain efficiencies and limitexpenditure. They also need their staff to be freed up to undertake research andfor other revenue generating activities such as commercial consultancies andconducting non-award short courses.

Many educators themselves have been responding tocontemporary educational thinking and have been turning from being the ‘sageon the stage’ to being the ‘guide on the side’. Their role has become oneof facilitating learner-centred activity rather than being the focus of ateacher-centred classroom. Their quest has been for their students to developindependent learning skills to enable them to become proficient lifelonglearners. This has required a rethinking of how they structure and deliver theircourses and in turn has led to more out-of-classroom activity for students and areduction in face-to-face class contact time.

Students are also seeking less commitment to class schedules.A study by McInnis, James and Hartley (2000) supports the findings of Kuh (1999)and shows the amount of time students spend on campus has declined with more oftheir time devoted to paid work. McInnis (2001, p5) talks of the changingattitudes and circumstances of students and laments an increase in requests forspecial arrangements to meet the demands of their paid work. He reports that theamount of part-time work for many full-time students now more closely resemblesthe patterns of students typically enrolled part-time.

All this has led to teachers, students and administratorsalike looking for new approaches to the educative process. It would seem verytimely therefore that there has been rapid development in the use of informationand communication technologies for educational purposes. Given the changingenvironment for administrators, teachers and students alike it is reasonable toassume that the utilisation in education of information and communicationtechnologies will be increasingly employed.

From the student perspective, technology is a tool that canallow them to address their personal priorities by shaping their experience as astudent to suit their own timetables. Technology can give them access toteaching and learning resources thereby reducing their need to be on-campus todo their study.

On first consideration, this might appear to be something tobe applauded - the students are utilising technology to access theircourse-related materials from a more convenient location rather than coming tothe campus and classrooms. They are making use of technology to replaceclassroom attendance; this allows them more time to engage in other activitiessuch as paid work. By transferring unrestricted power to students to do this,however, may not turn out to be in their best interests. Experiences ofinstitutions where they have employed liberal open learning practices such asallowing students to submit work anytime have been such as to recommend caution.These have found that the reality of providing unfettered freedom for thestudent has resulted in unacceptably low completion rates. If educators are toselect and implement strategies to avoid such an outcome, its underlying causesneed to be understood.

What then are the consequences associated with the provisionof more flexible course delivery models? What do students miss as theyincreasingly look for course arrangements which embrace information technologyto allow them to access teaching and learning resources without coming ontocampus?

In order to understand the ramifications of these changes,much can be learned from experiences with students who are not required to comeonto campus at all. Distance education providers have been well aware that acost of social disengagement can be low completion rates and acknowledge thattheir students are at higher risk of non-completion. They generally seek tominimise any institutional barriers to persistence and put in place supportprocesses with the intention of circumventing individual dispositional factorsthat may impede academic progress. A study into distance education studentpersistence reported by Morgan and Littlewood (1998) indicated that risk ofnon-completion was related to the relative importance to the student of theirstudies among other factors competing for their attention. It has to berecognised that with the changing patterns among those categorised as full-timeon-campus students, this risk now increasingly applies to them as well.

In a conventional distance education environment, studentsare particularly reliant on their own intrinsic motivation to achieve progress.Similarly, as on-campus students spend less time attending the campus theyencounter fewer circumstantial prompts to attend to their studies. Increasinglythey become removed from the on-campus climate of being a member of a cohesivegroup of students moving through their course as a cohort. Their opportunitiesfor social engagement with their fellow students diminish as they spend less oftheir time on-campus and on their studies.

Technology can be used astutely to achieve social engagementfor those who do not otherwise have it. The following instance shows thedramatic effect that this can have. A small project was implemented amongstudents at a distance in a financial management unit of study at the Orangecampus of the University of Sydney in a deliberate attempt to improve thequality of their learning experience through building a greater sense ofcommunity and affiliation. The strategic use of the WebCT platform that hadbecome available offered the lecturer the opportunity to interact with studentsin an ongoing manner. The lecturer viewed this as an opportunity to provide thefactors necessary for high quality support for distance learners as cited byCowan (1994); viz timely prompting, encouragement and facilitativeinterventions.

The regular distance presentation utilising printed studymaterials was supplemented by the use of the WebCT platform. While thissupplementation was made available to all students only a minority was able orchose to make, use of it. In the first year 11 of the 51 enrolling studentsparticipated, in the second 15 of the 59, and in the third 19 of the 60.

The lecturer regularly sent group messages throughout thesemester when the unit was on offer and generated at least one such message eachweek. These messages frequently were focussed on facilitating the achievement ofthe learning objectives associated with the technical area of study. In additionother more personal types of messages were sent. The nature of these varied andincluded matters such as requests of students to respond with details of theirstudy progress, general items of news around the campus and in the life of thelecturer, notification when the lecturer would be away from the office anddifficult to contact, and progressive assessment performance details over thewhole unit so that individuals could monitor their own performance against thetotal enrolment. The tone of all messages was conversational and students wereencouraged to send their own group messages.

Each time students responded to a group message or elseinitiated one themselves, the lecturer sent them an individual encouragingresponse to ensure they registered, that their contribution was received andappreciated. When students did not reply, having been requested to do so in agroup message, then these students would be followed up by email on anindividual basis until they did reply. Additionally, the lecturer initiatedenquiry messages to individual students when they were later than expected insubmitting their assessment items or when he had not heard from them for awhile. He would also send personalised messages of encouragement to students whohad done particularly well or particularly poorly with their assessable work.

Other facilities available through the WebCT platform wereutilised such as asynchronous forum discussions whereby challenge questions wereposed, synchronous chat sessions, models and links. The thrust of the projecthowever was to have frequent, regular, personalised interactions between thelecturer and the student. Some management features were:

The lecturer assigning this task sufficient priority to enable the checking of the site at least twice each day. Rapid response was regarded as a quality issue in this project;

Monitoring of visits to the site to enable identification of students who had not been in contact for some time. These would be sent a personalised message by the lecturer either enquiring about some aspect of their study progress or following up on a previous interaction.

 

The outcome from building this affiliation and providingongoing personal contact was startling and is summarised in the following table.

Over the three year period of this study 89% of those whowere in the web supported group completed the unit while only 63% of those whodid not participate in this support process remained in the unit of study.

Major advantages do arise from completing a course on-campusas part of a cohort of peers. The development of an understanding of what it isto be a student and the feeling of belonging to the educational institutionprovide foundations for academic success. Opportunities abound for the studentto benefit from serendipitous interaction with fellow students and staff. Thesesocial contacts both in and out of the classroom build cooperative attributessuch as sharing and reciprocity. Engagement with others in the same courseconstantly differentiates and prioritises study obligations out from otherinterests and responsibilities. Those with less well-developed organisationalskills or personal motivation towards their studies can be pulled along by theirpeers in a slipstreaming effect.

Few would disagree when Donnan (2001) points out that somestudents have more dependant and social learning styles which are better met byinterpersonal, on-campus classroom settings. There may be many reasons whylearners tend to prefer a classroom experience over an online one butundoubtedly one reason is the opportunity to engage readily with the tutor andfellow students. Indeed Palloff and Pratt (1999, p11) have argued that for manystudents it is probably just as important for educators to meet the learner’sneed for social connection as it is to meet their content-oriented goals.

Such social connections are missing with the conventionalprint-based distance education delivery model and perhaps this is reflected inrelatively low persistence levels. However, as illustrated by the case studypresented above, when that missing element can be inserted through a carefullymonitored communication process using online technology, then the opportunityarises for considerable improved persistence levels being achieved. Suchpositive experiences may well lead some to change their preferred learningsituation. For instance Merron (1998) has reported on unsolicited comments fromstudents about a positive bulletin board experience rating it more conducive tolearning than the traditional classroom setting in terms of allowing students tointeract in an organised and logical manner.

That is not to say that online teaching automatically meetssuch a need. In fact, Zielinski (2000, p72) believes that the majority ofweb-based courses pay insufficient attention the need for the learnerconnectedness. The University of Illinois has produced a report (1999) where thenecessity is emphasised for the tutor to make the effort to create and maintainthe human touch of attentiveness to their online students. It argues that goodlearning is collaborative and social and reaches the conclusion that onlineteachers should develop the facilitation and e-moderating skills that promoteheightened interaction.

It is easy to become enchanted with technologicaldevelopments and forget the human factors associated with learning. Morereliance will be placed on information and communication technologies ineducational contexts as students continue to spend less time on-campus, so it isparamount that educators develop models for engaging students and creatingeffective collaborative learning environments. The social dimensions of learningmust be addressed in association with curriculum issues.

Effective engagement by educators with out-of-sight studentsrequires vigilance and skill. A personable approach coupled with an enthusiasmto build and facilitate a learning community goes a long way. To create andadminister the kind of online support that achieves high completion rates can bedemanding on the tutor's time. To effectively engage with students personallymay involve collecting information on the student's personal backgrounds,interests, life experiences and current employment, then referring to this whengiving performance feedback. It may involve being prepared to communicate withstudents in some form on perhaps a daily basis. It will almost certainly involvefrequent viewing of class online submissions and commenting on common problems.Such management by the tutor together with providing prompt feedback on issuesraised and on assignments submitted electronically should lead to studentssensing they are being watched over and cared for, and build their sense ofbelonging and commitment.

The rewards associated with gaining more satisfied learnersand higher persistence rates through heightened online engagement come at aprice. It takes a commitment by the tutor to spend the time needed to connectwith their absentee students by utilising the technological tools to build andmaintain bridges with them. Committed educators able to invest their energiesand skills to build these bridges with their students through their personalapproach when using technology will make a difference. The rhetorical questionis, ‘do academics have the time and energy to do this?’ It will beinteresting to watch how academics respond to being asked to pay the priceassociated with meeting the needs of their students as they go less on-campusand more online.

Cowan, J. (1994). How can you assure quality in my support, as a distance learner? Open Learning, February, 59-62

 

Donnan, P (2001), ODLineTalk, email discussion forum of the Open and Distance Learning Association of Australia, 20 August.

 

Kuh, G (1999) How are we doing? Tracking the quality of the undergraduate experience from the 1960s to the present, Review of Higher Education, 22:2, pp 90-120, Winter

 

McInnis, C. (2001) Signs of disengagement: The changing undergraduate experience in Australian universities, Centre for the Study of Higher Education, University of Melbourne, available at www.cshe.unimelb.edu.au

 

McInnis, C., James, R. & Hartley, R. (2000) Trends in the first year experience. DETYA Higher Education Division, Canberra

 

Merron, JL (1998), Managing a web-based literature course for undergraduates, http://about.webct.com/library/index.html

 

Morgan, CK and Littlewood, J (1998), Missing Persons: The Case of the Disappearing Students. In Distance Education: Past, Present and Future, Cranston, B (ed), National Organisation for Distance Education Students, Central Queensland University Publishing Unit, North Rockhampton, pp149-153

 

Palloff, R & Pratt, K (1999), Building learning communities in cyberspace. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

 

University of Illinois Faculty Seminar (1999), Teaching at an internet distance: The pedagogy of online teaching and learning, http://www.vpaa.uillinois.edu/tid/report/tid_report.html

 

Zielinski, D. (2000), Can you keep learners online? Training, Vol 37, No. 3, pp65-72