EDUC 6135 - Distance Education Reflection Assignment

The Future of Distance Education

           

            Distance education has come a long way since the early days of correspondence study where students would receive materials in the mail, fill them out, and then mail them back to be graded.  As technology has advanced so has the ability to create and employ effective distance education courses and programs (Simonson, Smaldino, & Zvacek, 2015).  These advances have required professionals that design and develop curriculum to think about new ways of offering programs that may have traditionally been classroom based (Pina & Mizell, 2014).  This evolution has brought us to the present where, in 2013, one study showed that 70% of institutions indicated that online instruction was critical to their long-term plans (Simonson, et al., 2015).  This is the picture today, but how will distance education fare in the future?

            According to Simonson, et al. (2015), there is evidence that suggests that students are increasingly demanding to be allowed to take courses at a distance.  This seems to pan out with other evidence that exists regarding distance education at all levels.  According to Berge and Clark (2009), virtual schools are becoming more and more important as a means of delivering education from kindergarten through college and graduate studies.  I believe that in the next 5-20 years, these kinds of institutions will become more and more prevalent and, as more and more students complete their education via distance, perception of the usefulness and effectiveness of distance education will continue to increase.  Evidence suggests that perceptions about distance education are already changing According to Allen & Seaman (2007) who state that the proportion of people who felt that online learning outcomes were superior to face-to-face learning outcomes increased 34% since 2003.  Since that study was published 9 years ago, that proportion has most increased even more (Simonson, Schlosser, & Orellana, 2011).

            As an instructional designer, one of the roles that can be filled is that of an ambassador for distance education.  According to Simonson, et al (2015), a majority of people currently state that they would prefer to take a course in a face-to-face environment as opposed to taking a course via distance education.  There are many reasons for this attitude among learners.  Some learners feel that they would not be able to handle the workload of a distance education course (Dobbs, Waid, & del Carmen, 2009).  Others feel that their learning style may not mesh well with a distance education format (Dabbagh & Bannan-Ritland, 2005).  Still others feel that they will not receive the interaction they need (both with the instructor and peers) to be successful (Simonson, et al., 2015).

            To be a proponent for improving these perceptions, the effective instructional designer will engage in the creation of effective courses.  To address the problem of students feeling as if they cannot handle the workload of a distance education course, instructional design must take into account the general abilities of the class (Simonson, et al., 2015).  As the “tablet” generation matures and begins taking courses via distance, an effective designer will take this into account when designing distance education.  In addressing the learner’s perception that their learning style may not mesh with distance education, effective designers will address multiple learning styles in their design and help learners understand the context of the learning experience (Morrison, Ross, Kalman & Kemp, 2013).  Finally, instructional designers must take into account how learners interact now and in the future.  This may be completely different than what see now but in order to increase positive perceptions of distance education, ID’s need to analyze the potential for learner interactivity (Simonson, et al., 2015).

            How will I be a positive force for continuous improvement in the field of distance education?  First and foremost, as an instructional designer, it is imperative to assess new and better technologies for distance education as they become available (Simonson, et al., 2015).  An example of this is the advent of affordable virtual reality systems like the Oculus Rift.  As an instructional designer, how could this be used in a distance education context?  Additionally, professional organizations such as EDUCAUSE provide annual conferences where new technologies and techniques are presented as well as smaller workshops relating to best practices.  Keeping abreast of an implementing these best practices will greatly increase my ability to be a positive force for continuous improvement in the field of distance education.

References

Allen, I. E., & Seaman, J. (2007). Making the grade: Online education in the United States,

            2006: Midwestern edition. Wellesley, MA: Sloan Consortium.

Berge, Z., & Clark, T. (2009). Virtual schools: What every superintendent needs to know.

Distance Learning, 6(2), 1-9.

Dabbagh, N., & Bannan-Ritland, B. (2012). Online learning: Concepts, strategies, and

application. Columbus, OH: Merrill/Prentice Hall.

Dobbs, R., Waid, C., & del Carmon, A. (2009). Students’ perceptions of online courses: The

effect of online course experience. Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 10(1), 9-26.

Morrison, G. R., Ross, S. M., Kalman, H. K., & Kemp, J. E. (2013). Designing effective

instruction (7^th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Pina, A. A., & Mizell, A. P. (2014). Real-life distance education: Case studies in practice.

            Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

Simonson, M., Schlosser, C., & Orellana, A. (2011). Distance education research: A review of

the literature. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 23(2), 124-142.

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., & Zvacek, S. (2015). Teaching and learning at a distance:

Foundations of distance education (6^th ed.). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing,

Inc.

EDUC 6135 Week 7 Application Assignment

This week we were asked to create a user's guide for an individual that is planning to move much of his training program (including all of the associated training manuals online.  To address this conversion, I created a user's guide that includes elements that the trainer will need to consider as he moves his training from face-to-face to a hybrid model.  In addition to taking the time to really understand the learners completing the training and creating learning outcomes that reflect what students will be expected to take from the training experience, the user's guide also covers how the trainer's role with change from being the "sage on the stage" to a facilitator of learning.  The user's guide also covers how the trainer should consider various technological tools and learning activities and how to encourage the learners to collaborate and communicate with each other.

Click here to view the PDF document of the user's guide.

The "Creeping Death" of Scope Creep

Oftentimes when you are working on a project, there comes a time when either some new policy or technology is introduced that can change the scope of the project mid-stream.  On other occasions, there is a desire to change the project as it currently stands because either the project manager, the project team or specific clients/stakeholders do not think the output is acceptable in its current form.  This is defined as "Scope Creep" (Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton, & Kramer, 2008).  Lynch & Roecker (2007) define scope creep as uncontrolled changes in the scope of a project or course as it was originally defined.  Regardless of how you define it, scope creep can cause serious problems with a project if not handled properly.

I have experienced this first hand, as I'm sure many instructional designers have, when designing a course for our cyber security master's degree program.  In this case, we began development of the course with one instructor but he was replaced with another instructor after we had already completed about 40% of the course development.  As you can probably guess, the new instructor wanted to change everything that had been developed previously because he didn't agree with the initial instructor's approach.  Naturally, this was a tad frustrating to myself as the project manager and the rest of the team because we were not given any additional time to complete the project, the deadline remained the same.

Specifically, the scope creep occurred mainly in the areas of assessment design.  As mentioned, we had already completed about 40% of the course, and had designed and developed assessment activities for those completed modules.  Now we were required to design and develop entirely new assessment activities which took longer than we figured it would because the new instructor was very exacting about how he wanted them presented.

As the project manager, I had to take a step back and assess the situation.  First and foremost, I worked to follow the steps laid out by Greer (2010): stay calm and pinpoint the exact change.  I must admit that i did fail somewhat on the first one because of the lack of flexibility on the deadline.  However, I did finally manage to stop throwing a tantrum and get down to work identifying exactly what the change was and defined what it meant.  Portny, et al. (2008) mention creating a change control system to handle scope creep and its ramifications.  This was something I did not do at this time but, having read about it in the text, believe it certainly would have assisted me and the rest of my team in dealing with the creep.  Another factor that Greer (2010) mentions is obtaining sponsor approval of changes and the corresponding changes to the project development plan.  This would have certainly gone a long way to help all of us, especially if the deadline had been revised to accommodate having to go back and re-work large sections, but no approval an altered deadline was forthcoming so we were stuck trying to get everything done in a much shorter span than we had hoped.  The end result was, while the course launched on time, none of us felt that it had the quality it could have had if our deadline had been extended just a week or two.

References

Greer, M. (2010). The project management minimalist: Just enough PM to rock your projects! (Laureate custom ed.). Baltimore, MD: Laureate Education, Inc.

Lynch, M. M., & Roecker, J. (2007). Project managing e-learning: A handbook for successful design, delivery, and management. London: Routledge.

Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.