Distance Learning and a Well Rounded Education:
A Dichotomy?
Zav
Dadabhoy
Director of Student Activities
Metropolitan State College of
Denver
Posted: May, 11, 2001 Student
Affairs Online, 2 (Spring)
All who have meditated on the art of governing
mankind have been convinced that the fate of
empires depends on the education of youth.
--- Aristotle
Preface
New technologies, and in particular, the Internet, have
transformed our society and our institutions. Indeed, the impact of
these new technologies has been so prodigious that many have labeled
the phenomenon as a revolution, the digital revolution. These
technological advances have also influenced education: colleges and
universities across the country are quickly designing and developing
new modes of delivering education, now known as distance education.
In doing so, many observers have begun to debate whether the
traditional core values espoused by education can be sustained in the
distance learning medium.
Values of Education
Colleges and universities pride themselves on providing
enlightenment through high quality learning opportunities: the
holistic education. The concept of developing the well rounded
student, the citizen leader, articulate and well versed in didactic
reasoning is central to such edification. Intrinsically, most
scholars will insist that these concepts capture the fundamental
essence of holistic education that colleges strive towards. Educators
will vociferously insist that the collegiate experience is more than
merely passing courses and earning degrees.
In their epic book How College Affects Students,
Pascarella and Terenzini (1991, p.1)
indicated that Americans expect their colleges and universities to
accomplish several lofty goals:
- transmitting the intellectual heritage of western
civilization
- fostering a high level of verbal and mathematical
skills
- developing an understanding of political, social and
cultural institutions
- facilitating reflective, analytical, critical and
evaluative thinking
- developing value structures and moral sensibilities
- facilitating personal growth and self-identity
- fostering a sense of career identity and vocational
competence
It is precisely because of these lofty notions of academia that,
like the African proverb, it takes everyone on a campus to work
together to provide the breadth and depth of learning. Today’s
ideal institutions have structured themselves into specialized areas
&endash; divisions that provide in-class instruction; working
side-by-side with a host of student support areas to provide
structured out-of-class learning opportunities and services &endash;
both working harmoniously towards a common goal: student
learning.
The Role of Student Affairs
Educators organized through divisions of student affairs provide
much of the out-of-class learning at colleges and universities. In
recent years, achievement of these educational outcomes has been a
focus of much scrutiny and discussion: Boyer (1987.
p2) chided educators to pay attention to the intellectual and
social quality of the undergraduate experience. In 1990,
he entreated educators to develop coherence between the in-class and
out-of-class activities. Similarly, the Wingspread Report chided
higher education for its lack of emphasis on student learning:
It is also time to readdress the imbalance that has led to the
decline of undergraduate education. To do so, the nation’s
colleges and universities must for the foreseeable future focus
overwhelmingly on what their students learn and achieve. Too much
of education at every level seems to be organized for the
convenience of educators and the institution’s interests,
procedures and prestige, and too little focused on the needs of
the students. (Wingspread Group on Higher
Education, 1993).
Professional organizations such as NASPA
and ACPA have joined this
call to pay attention to student learning outcomes and have
cooperatively developed discussion papers and projects promoting the
emphasis of student learning in the profession. The Student
Learning Imperative (1993) is an example of this initiative.
Evans, Forney and Guido-Dibrito (1998) theorize
that student development is one of the main goals of student affairs
and that "for the sake of our students we must help the academy
recognize the value of the whole person concept." (p. 14). Nuss
(1996) suggests that two concepts define the profession: "the
development of the whole person and the fact that student affairs was
established to support the academic mission of institutions of higher
education." (p. 39). She suggests that these two concepts are at the
heart of the future evolution of the field.
In their report on "Powerful Partnerships: A
Shared Responsibility for Learning" (1998) the American
Association for Higher Education (AAHE) urges us to work
cooperatively across all divisional boundaries to achieve common
student learning outcomes. "We ask that administrative leaders
rethink the conventional organization of colleges and universities to
create more inventive structures and processes that integrate
academic and student affairs; align institutional planning, hiring,
rewards, and resource allocations with the learning mission…"
(p. 15).
In a recent book on Good Practice in Student Affairs,
Schroeder (1999) maintains that the creation
of seamless learning environments must be a priority for student
affairs (p. 134). "Addressing this issue is not an option for student
affairs, but an obligation."
Boyer (1990) also urged colleges to be
actively involved in building community on campuses, suggesting that
the dynamics of support and collaboration that a community provides
should be an outcome that we actively seek. Tinto (1993) emphasized
the importance of interaction between individual students and the
campus communities, suggesting that these will enhance student
success and persistence. Similarly, Astin (1984)
proposed that students' involvement in their academic environment has
a direct impact on their success in college. This theory, the
Involvement Theory is another mainstay of student development
theories.
Yet, other concepts that define the student affairs profession
include concepts of civility and diversity. "A college education
should include being aware of cultural and class differences and
societal reward structures." (King, 1996). Yet
other outcomes are encapsulated by concepts of citizenship,
leadership and experiential learning.
Terenzini and Pascarella (1994) summarized most of these views by
claiming that both academic affairs and student affairs are central
to the educational mission of colleges; "academic affairs tends to
students’ cognitive development while student affairs ministers
to their affective growth." (p. 32). They claim that the real quality
of undergraduate education depends on factors such as the
institution’s educational climate, social involvement, peer
interactions and co-curricular experiences (p. 29).
Two thing seems clear from all of this literature: there is an
explicit set of theoretical expectations that guide the profession,
and the concepts of student learning and out-of-class experiences are
inextricably tied to the heart of professional practice in Student
Affairs.
The Effect of The Digital Revolution on Education
These demands and challenges on higher education are somewhat
exacerbated by the advent of the Internet age and the expectation
that the Internet must be incorporated into the learning and research
environment (Palloff & Pratt, 1999;
Van Dusen, 1997). This new era is driven by
the rapid rate of innovation in Internet and computer
technology, and the creation of new and growing cybernetworks which
in turn, serve as catalysts in the knowledge revolution that promises
to affect virtually every aspect of life in the future. The Internet
is rapidly proliferating our daily lives, and knowledge networks and
Internet technologies have quickly moved from the research stage of
development towards consumer utilitarianism.
The dramatic transformation of our culture as a result of digital
technologies have, in turn, created demands that higher education
include these new technologies in their daily business (Palloff
& Pratt, 1999). Colleges and universities are beginning to
determine how they use Internet technologies to fulfill their mission
and are grappling with the paradigmatic shift from organizing
themselves as institution focused to student centered (Van
Dusen, 1997).
Already, educators are engaging in a growing trend in education
termed "distance education." Colleges across the country are in a
race to develop "online classes" where instruction is delivered
across the Internet instead of the classroom. Citing cost benefits
and other trendy concepts such as "student centered" education, new
courses, and even universities are being rapidly created. Assuming
that online education is merely a teacher-to-student web based
interaction is too simplistic a view, and akin to a sellout of all
the noble values educators have cherished, nurtured and practiced for
so long. It challenges our very assumptions about what a college
education should be, with little provision for the rich out-of-class
interaction that is so essential to our current concept of a
well-rounded, holistic education.
And, even as we observe this phenomenon, we are beginning to
witness the formative years of a new network, the Internet2. While
the Internet2 will be between 100 and 1,000 times faster, this next
generation of the Internet is more than just a faster web service. It
will enable completely new possibilities such as digital libraries,
virtual laboratories, and tele-immersion, all of which can be
transmitted in seconds, in real-time, and will little or no
degradation of quality. Concepts such as real-time videoconferencing,
virtual reality simulations, 3-D imaging, multicasting, gigaPoPs will
become conversational terms of the future, just as dot-coms, portals
and the web currently are. The Internet2 will provide a convergence
of multimedia capacities, with services such as telephone, radio,
television and other multimedia technologies becoming standard
practice on the net. And just as the current version of the Internet
has done, the Internet2 will certainly further impact society, and in
turn, our system of education.
Education’s Response
Higher education must respond to the digital revolution quickly
and harness these technologies to meet the challenges and
opportunities of the future. Clearly, it must find ways to provide
the holistic education ideals through the alternative medium of the
Internet. Much of student affairs’ online interests and presence
has revolved around essential support services. Little, if any,
emphasis has been placed on developing online mechanisms to develop
community or provide out-of-class experiences. For example,
registration, admission and financial aid processes have been
provided on the web at many colleges and universities. Student life,
student activities and other such services have yet to make the
transition to providing actual experiences on the Internet, and use
their websites much as one would use a bulletin board outside
one’s office.
Smallen (1993) proposes a test to determine
the effectiveness of Internet use and information technology
applications within the context of the higher education mission:
Successful applications of technology to the learning
process, at any institution, will be ones that address variances
from the ideal learning environment. Technology applied in a
manner oblivious to these variances will not improve teaching and
learning, and will waste critical institutional resources (p.
22).
Unfortunately, there is currently a lack of vision and imagination
about how these new Internet technologies could be used to improve
the quality of learning (Bates, 2000, p. 58).
Rather than a comprehensive strategy, various departmental units and
individuals within each institution have adopted an independent,
entrepreneurial approach to creating their own web presence. As a
collective, what we have is a piecemeal approach to the digital
revolution. Each departmental has gallantly taken on the "Lone
Ranger" approach and done the best job they could with the resources
available to them. What we need is a collective vision, an approach
to harness the digital age as a strategic asset. What we need is a
vision to use technology to bring distance learners a taste of the
richness and variety of a traditional on-campus learning
experiences.
Policy Recommendations
The Internet is merely an alternate medium for student affairs to
conduct its work. Technology is not the antidote for organizational
and leadership woes. Dyson (1999) points out that it will not solve
existing organizational problems, nor will it change operations
sufficiently to make the dysfunctualism in institutions become less
significant. "It is a fallacy to believe that the technology is
automatically going to change culture…. Information age
technology won't fly if it is hobbled by industrial age
organizational cultures (p. 144)."
Bates identifies several components of quality in providing
technologically based learning services. One of these is content (p.
65). He also suggests that the same objectives sought by educators on
campus could be achieved in the virtual environment (p. 199).
Colleges and universities must begin to develop ways to provide
the intentional learning opportunities, they are charged with
creating, in the Internet medium. They must concentrate on
information and knowledge transmittal, and use the Internet as a tool
to deliver the co-curricular learning experiences called for by our
profession.
To achieve these goals in the online environment, some of the
policy considerations that an institution must identify include:
- How does the use of the Internet achieve the overall
learning mission of the college and contribute to institutional
renewal? How can all student affairs’ departments begin to
use the Internet to actually provide the same level of services
online as they do on campus?
- How does the college assess the total learning of the
student &endash; especially in terms of the overall quality of
undergraduate education outcomes of its graduates?
- What are the organizational barriers that need to be
addressed? Internet users are less likely to understand
campus-based organizational boundaries, and may be more
interested in functionality than the department(s) that offer
the service. As such, special attention should be paid to the
navigation system student affairs web sites offer. Essentially,
online students would be better served by a navigation system
that was based on functional need clusters than some type of
departmental directory system.
- How can departments begin to conceptualize the Internet as
another medium for the provision of services? And then, what
must they do to provide this content using the Internet.
- How can the college, and in particular the division of
Student Affairs, assume responsibility for its students'
technological preparedness? How can this become another goal in
a college’s endeavor to graduate well-rounded
citizens?
Illustration
There are some examples of how colleges and universities could
provide leadership in providing meaningful on-line opportunities. All
of them require them to do a paradigm shift, where they learn to use
the web as a strategic asset rather than as a bulletin board outside
their office door. The trick is to conceive of an online presence in
much the same way as they think of campus based service. Let us
examine what is possible:
Boyer (1990) urged colleges to be actively
involved in building community on campuses, suggesting that the
dynamics of support and collaboration that a community provides
should be an outcome that we actively seek. Tinto (1993) emphasized
the importance of interaction between individual students and the
campus communities, suggesting that these will enhance student
success and persistence. Student activities units are largely
responsible for developing interventions that contribute to building
this sense of community.
Yet, one of the most frequent criticisms heard about the push
towards online education is about the lack of community in the
virtual world. It is almost as though people perceive there is a
barrier, and simply define the concept of "community" to be outside
of any virtual presence. This is not correct. While colleges and
universities’ virtual presence provides new challenges for
creating community, educators can not expect their strategies of
yesterday to provide solutions for tomorrow. It requires some
innovative, creative thinking, and perhaps even some trial an
error.
Let us examine one solution: a virtual bulletin board (often
called a forum!). If it is setup as an electronic student lounge, it
could be an opportunity for students to engage in community building,
networking and information sharing using the electronic medium as a
tool. In practical terms this provides an opportunity for students to
share ideas, voice concerns, make friends and network with other
students, faculty and staff. The proposed initiative seeks to create
an online community of learners interacting with each other to
discuss shared college experiences. This solution is truly an
imperative for commuter-based campuses who can use this technology to
alleviate the commuter syndrome by making it easier for students to
network, share and collaborate.
Discussion board topics could vary from the general (discussions
about student interest, student life issues) to the specific (such as
ride-sharing, off-campus housing, and peer-advice). Note that this is
not a call for a "chat-room" rather for a hierarchical discussion
board archived for a period of time and open to use by any student -
with or without passwords or login scripts. Imagine the potentially
lively debate about student government issues, extensive campus
questions, and other collaborative ventures.
Conclusion
The possibilities are endless; only limited by educators’
imagination and willingness to "think" in the new medium. Student
organization accounting services, leadership education sessions,
networking possibilities with alumni and prominent professionals in
various academic fields, virtual reality narrations of campus based
traditions, and online data bases offering information about service
learning opportunities and matching student interests with service
opportunities. There are just some of the other possibilities. The
potential is as exciting as it is endless, and in reality, they are
relatively easy to implement.
The trick, clearly, is to engineer a paradigm shift in the way
educators conceive and offer student affairs possibilities online.
Until that happens, educators will continue to use technology as a
burden, rather than harnessing its potential as a strategic
asset.
The question then finally becomes simple: "do we want to do
better?" Should we be satisfied by a patchwork quick fix that looks
great in reports, but probably is too short sighted to give us the
long term benefits educators want, or magically expect the digital
revolution to provide itself?
The digital era has begun. Educational institutions need to catch
up with the rest of the world and use technology as a strategic asset
rather than merely reacting to it!
References
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[1999, November 15]
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