Challenges of Online Learning

Short Paper 1

Nandhini Padmanabhan

Introduction

There are many issues and challenges associated with delivering a course online via the internet. These include development and revision of the course prior to being online, teaching the course once it goes live, quality control of online vs. on-campus courses, efficient time-utilization by faculty and students when online, encouraging interaction among students and faculty online, and methods and procedures for teaching an online course.

The articles I have worked on for this paper have each made a unique contribution in pointing out the key challenges in online education. I have outlined the main aspects of each article, and have also critiqued the summation of the article and the author’s point of view.

Summary

Yang & Linda [2005] in their article “Preparing Instructors for quality online Instruction”, state that the key challenge in online learning is preparing online instructors to deliver. Online education has changed the profile of an instructor from Professor-centered education to student-centered education. Instructors now have new responsibilities. Apart from the mainstream teaching, instructors additionally have to provide instructional and emotional support to the students, manage expectations associated with authoring courses while maintaining a full teaching load, and the requirement to provide ongoing technological support throughout the duration of the course. Instructors that move from teaching traditional classrooms, have to adapt to the new roles and become a mentor, facilitator and guide to the students. The main aspect of online learning is the use of technology. Traditional classroom teachers, who move to online education, often get frustrated with technology. Online instructors have to deal with multiple versions of software, provide technology support to students, and also go through a major shift in the way they organize and deliver course content. Since face-to-face interactions are eliminated, instructors often have to deal with sensing student’s reactions and emotions during a class. Ensuring academic honesty is another big challenge for online instructors.

Yang & Linda [2005], make some suggestions for instructors to cope with the many challenges presented by online instruction. A change in attitude towards technology-driven learning, true commitment and motivation are key to the quality of online learning. Instructors need to discover student’s learning preferences, integrate technology tools and apply appropriate instruction technology to ensure successful online instruction. There are so many different opportunities for the instructor to be a learner himself. Yang & Linda[2005] also state that intellectual change, monetary support, promotion or tenure, improved training and facilities, feedback from students, flexibility of teaching schedules are some ways to increase instructor motivation. Instructors have to educate themselves on technology and learn how to troubleshoot technical problems of students, learn how to interact with students through the web. Faculty training is thus crucial before online course delivery. Instructors must come up with a course plan, keeping their own teaching style in mind, and also the learning styles of the students in the online class. Yang & Linda [2005] conclude by saying that moving from traditional methods of teaching, to online methods of instruction can cause a dramatic shift in the perspectives of the instructor and their students. However, by holding a positive attitude towards teaching online, designing an effective learning environment, developing an interactive online teaching-learning community, online instruction can be successful.

Karen Frankola [2001], in his article, “Why Online Learners Drop Out?”, raises some serious questions on another interesting challenge posed to online educators. He states that according to the Chronicle for Higher Education, the drop-out rate of online learners is 10 to 20 percent higher than their face-to-face counterparts. The author bases his article on research done at GE Capital. The author states that the top reason for employees to drop out of an e-learning course in a corporate environment, is the lack of time. Corporate learners feel like they are constantly distracted by colleagues, while taking courses from their desktops. Managerial oversight is another reason why corporate learners are not motivated. Typical student motivation issues like, technology problems, lack of support, poorly designed courses, and incompetent instructors apply to corporate learners as well. Many companies dump courses on their students and fail to understand why students do not complete them. Hence the key challenge in online student retention is learner motivation. The author states that graduate students taking an advanced degree online have a much better chance of completing the course, as their motivation to land themselves in a better job with higher pay rates. However with corporate learners the problem is bigger as managers need to step in to motivate employees.

Frankola [2001], then talks about ways to face this challenge of course completion, and talks about how UCLA improved their completion rates. They put to practice, something called as “concierge service” or course managers. Course Manager is someone other than the instructor, who handles technical issues; manage student’s attendance and follows up on how much time students spend on a course. To sum up, the facilitator only needs to worry about course instruction and student interaction related to the course and the course manager will worry about non-course related issues. Frankola[2001], then follows up with another article on “Tips for Increasing E-Learning Completion Rates”. In this article he lists down some strategies that companies can enforce to achieve higher course completion rates. These strategies have been put together by Augusto Failde, Senior Vice President of Global Development at NYUOnline. The strategies include, designating some workstations for eLearning, publishing employee course completion rates so comparisons can be made, set targets for managers on course completion rates of their divisions, making sure managers take the courses first, set clear expectations on the importance of the course upfront, providing formal rewards, making it competitive and hence exciting for employees, launching a communications campaign etc. Karen Frankola [2001], concludes by saying that good companies should know the worth of their human capital, and must motivate and support employees in their commitment to life-long learning.

Roper [2007] makes very interesting observations on a third aspect of online education – challenges faced by learners. The author, in his article “How students develop online learning skills”, states that students can easily locate an online program or course that is both convenient and accessible; they may face significant challenges in developing a new set of skills for this type of learning. As there are not many case studies involved in the study of online learners, the author himself has devised his own research methodology to survey a group of online learners. The questions for the survey prepared were reviewed by course designers, faculty and administrators. The survey results were obtained from 53 students. The author gets a good idea of challenges faced by online students and what some students did to beat the challenge and succeed in the online courses they took.

The author narrows down on seven key areas that are challenging for online learners. They include time-management strategies, using online discussions effectively, knowledge retention strategies, posing questions to add value, motivation, feedback to the instructor on effective instruction techniques and peer-networking. All of these areas have to be addressed in order for the learner to be successful. Effective time management comes from self-discipline. Chalking out a clear schedule for course-work, and then sticking to the plan, is an important step for learners to take in order to meet course needs successfully. Online discussions have to be fruitful and every discussion point posted, should add value to the discussion. The author talks about the “use-it or lose-it” technique for retention. Students who employ learning from a class immediately in their studies or work life can better retain the knowledge gained. Hence, the author states that such learners must post their experience of knowledge application in discussion boards for the benefit of peers. Motivation is a self-experience and every student can be motivated by different factors. Creating a self-motivation plan and developing personal techniques to stay motivated are important aspects of online education. The instructor should receive regular feedback on your thoughts on instructional strategies used to deliver the course. Does the strategy work for you, what else needs to be done should be clearly articulated to the instructor for more effective instruction. Peer relationships are long standing; way after the course has been completed. Online learning exceeds traditional boundaries of physical time, and hence has limitless capabilities in bringing peers and classmates together. This networking can help in creating career opportunities later.

Critique

The three articles I have summarized above, very clearly elicit three different dimensions in the challenges faced in online learning. Yang & Linda [2005] present the challenges faced by the instructor. Roper [2007] talks about the challenges posed to the student. Frankola[2001] talks about a whole new dimension, which is retaining online learners to complete course and the challenges faced by companies and universities in increasing course completion rates.

Yang & Linda [2005], have done some thorough research in highlighting one of the key challenges in Online Education – Online Instruction. I agree that the instructor has to shift focus from teaching traditional classrooms to the online mode of teaching. This shift in focus has to come with appreciation and acceptance of technology as a powerful tool in imparting education. Now does this shift in perception come overnight for traditional teachers? For some yes, but for most, the lack of face-to-face interaction with the students, the satisfying experience of seeing them understand, learn and grow, is never matched in online learning. So, in order for online instructors to have a satisfying teaching experience online, they have to take the initiative to understand student perceptions, learning styles, employ an interactive and engaging course design, stimulate active and rich discussions with the students through discussion boards and of course aim at getting strong student feedback at the end of the course. This kind of inner satisfaction will be the best motivation for teachers to overcome the barriers of online education, and conduct successful courses online. It is true that student plagiarism is a tough area for online instructors. However I believe that this challenge exists in traditional learning too. I also believe that a good instructor will invent his own creative ways of detecting such behavior among students and will be able to ensure clean learning. Posing questions to individual students about the assignment, making a note of patterns of behavior will help in detecting harmful student behavior without face-to-face interaction.

While the author makes some interesting observations on how instructors can beat the challenges posed by online learning, I tend to disagree on the issue of instructors’ need to be trained to troubleshoot technical problems for students, understand software version issues etc. I strongly feel that an additional role in the classroom needs to be created to manage technical/admin related tasks. While the instructor has to understand the technology in order to maximize its potential in the classroom, it cannot be the job of the instructor to solve technical issues. This will steer him/her away from the main goal of teaching. Hence facilitator roles should be clearly defined and demarcated and with the proper training and attitude online instruction can even surpass traditional instruction in many areas.

When I read the article on “Why Online learners drop out?”, the author Frankola [2001], really made me sit up and pay attention. The author has a very crisp style of articulation. He mentions that Penn State World Campus students now take World Campus 101, which is a course to help students gear up for online study. It helps them understand the reality of online education. I strongly agree with the author in his statement that self motivation is the best way for a learning model to succeed. However, when self motivation is low, it is the responsibility of the instructors and managers to take cue, and evolve strategies to increase motivation.

I do have some thoughts however, on a few different angles that the author could have researched on how to motivate employees from completing online courses. From my past experience as a corporate learner, it is my belief that the courses you take should have a direct relevance to your work. You must be able to quantify your benefits for your own personal or professional development, if not, you will not be motivated enough to complete the course. Another thought is conducting post evaluation session, weeks after the course has been completed. This way a student can share the benefits and how they put the knowledge acquired to practice. Keeping the discussion boards active long after the course has ended will give learners the outlet to reach out to fellow classmates and share experiences. The author also mentions that self-paced courses must have interesting assignments/activities as part of the course work, to engage the learner. I think it is extremely useful that Frankola [2001] mentions the course manager role allocated to each course by UCLA. The course manager will solve technical issues, will also address any problems that students have with the instructor and will maintain regular contact with students and instructors to make sure the course progresses seamlessly between students and instructors. This method used by UCLA should be used by all online course providers to clearly define the instructor role. This can also be used to address the problems and challenges faced by instructors according to Yang & Linda [2005].

I found the survey conducted by Roper [2007] very effective in bringing out some key issues and challenges faced by learners. It is always a good idea to find out how students in the past, coped with these challenges, in order for you to take hints and follow suit. I especially liked the format of the survey as the questions were open-ended, and hence gave room for the students to write about their experiences, and self-devised strategies on how to face challenges as an online learner. However the age groups of people and educational backgrounds of people taking the survey are not mentioned. It would have been more effective if the survey included adult learners, or corporate learners. It would have been interesting to read about their views on motivation, time-management strategies etc. The author brings out an interesting point related to online discussions. The students can take time to think about the questions they want to pose. More time for thought helps students frame their questions better and hence enable richer and more meaningful class discussions.

Conclusion

I researched a number of articles on challenges faced by the Online Education system. A lot of research has been done in this area, and the conclusion everywhere is the same. Though traditional classrooms will never be replaced, eLearning is the way of the future. Online education is a powerful mode of instruction, in spite of its drawbacks and challenges. There is no one way to beat the challenges of online learning. However it is the responsibility of all those involved - the instructors, course administrators, course designers, technical support team and the students, to adapt to this new style of learning and let the best features of online education shine through.

Annotated Bibliography

Yang, Y, & Cornelious, L.S. (2005). Preparing instructors for quality online instruction. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 8(1), 1-16.

This article examines the challenges and barriers faced by online instructors. There is a shift in attitude of instructors teaching traditional classrooms as they move to online instruction. The author outlines the new roles and responsibilities of online instructors and how this change can be achieved. It is important for instructors to master, design and delivery strategies and learning styles of online learners. Online education moves away from the traditional professor-centered teaching to student-centered teaching. One of the key challenges for traditional “sage-on-the-stage” teachers is to now become “guide-on-the-side” mentors/facilitators. Instructors should have some knowledge in Instructional Design elements in order to adapt courses according to learning styles of students. Quality of instructors is one of the key issues, to ensure a successful online learning system. The author details techniques for the instructors to help prepare them for online teaching.

Frankola, K. (2001, June 3). Why Online learners drop out?. Workforce Management, Retrieved from http://www.workforce.com/archive/feature/22/26/22/index.php

Frankola, K. (2001, June 3). Tips for increasing elearning completion rates. Workforce Management, Retrieved from http://www.workforce.com/archive/feature/22/26/22/223517.php

The above two references are successive magazine articles written by Karen Frankola, who is an eLearning Solutions Manager at NYUOnline. One of the challenges of online education is the high drop-out rates. The author examines the new-hire orientation online program at GE Capital. He goes on to examining why employees and students drop out of courses and what can be done to retain them. Online degree completion rates are much higher than the corporate scene. This article mentions some methods employed by universities like Penn State World Campus and UCLA to increase course completion rates. The author digs deeper and pinpoints the reasons why employees do not complete online learning programs mandated by the company. In the successive article, Karen Frankola talks about ways to increase course completion rates in corporate firms. He lists down detailed strategies that the management can employ in order to increase employee motivation to complete courses.

Roper, A.R. (2007). How Students develop online learning skills. Educause Quarterly, 30, 62-65.

One way to overcome challenges is to learn from past experiences. In order for the online education system to be successful, the students have to understand and make full use of the advantages of online learning as against traditional learning. Roper conducts a survey for students who successfully completed an online degree. The survey results show the main areas where students have difficulty, and certain strategies that students use to beat these challenges. Efficient time management strategies, creating peer networks, making the most of online discussion boards, using discussion boards to help retain course content are some of them. Constant feedback to the instructor on which instruction techniques work best, will help the instructor modify course design and instruction to learner needs. Staying motivated is a constant challenge for online learners. The author states that identifying and employing personal techniques to stay motivated through a course is important.