As an instructor, I have always emphasized the importance of maximizing the performance of each of my students, in each class that I led. I saw the failure of any one of my students as a personal failure to my teaching effectively. Although this objective seems unrealistic, it is often the goal of every instructor at some time in their career.
It is critical to quality impact for instructors not to accept what is thought to be inevitable and uncontrollable failure from a student’s effort, but to pursue excellence by capitalizing on the moments of strength and plan for the moments of weakness with interventions.
This ability to focus on pedagogy for success has resulted in my being honored with Educator of the Year for Student Success. It is a prestigious honor, but I did not rest on my proverbial laurels and have continued to consistently improve the content, delivery, and engagement methods to meet the needs of a dynamic audience. This leads us to the topic at hand of on-line education. (distance learning)
Many educational entities have moved to the online arena and present the material “on-demand” to maximize the ease of access and the size of the audience, not to mention maximizing the profit related to each student engaged. On the surface, this appears to be the direction of the 21st century, but it carries the risk of not meeting the real needs of the individual and compromising the overall objective of education on a whole, especially technical training, which requires a true understanding and application of the information provided in the instruction. This means that the course provided must ensure results.
Visualize
As I visualize a classroom, I see a body of students each with a different communication and learning style and more importantly, a different and varied set of needs. “Standardized”, “canned’, “on-demand” classes do not fully meet those challenges. In fact, presenting information and instruction in that fashion places the responsibility for instruction and learning upon the individual in a single communication style, with a generalized set of anticipated needs, leaving the responsibility for fulfilling those needs upon the student. Moreover, there are no effective methods to proactively respond to comprehension decline during the course and provide interventions to prevent the student from failure.
The Student & Curriculum Developer
I have participated in on-line, on demand instruction from both sides. As a student, I finished the courses I took, feeling, “less than fulfilled” in not receiving the objectives that I took the course for in the first place. For those that met my needs, the required amount of effort significantly fed discontent. As a curriculum developer and course “overseer”, I met the needs of the syllabus and the corresponding “pass rate”, but always felt that the basic elements of instruction were lacking and the true objectives of student success were less than my experience in a classroom setting not to mention that there was a certain allowance for student failures. (questioning the rigor of the content and its application).
Combining my emphasis on Student Success with the overall mission of the Continuous Improvement Institute (Cii), which is “to provide world class expertise” in every interaction, resulting in “significant, positive differences in the performance of organizations and the lives of individuals” we have worked diligently on the identification of the venue that meets the unspoken needs of the student and the entity presenting. To that end, enter the ”on-line/hybrid” model.
On-line/hybrid education is not new or disruptive, but when properly conducted, it focuses on the true needs of the participants and provides a higher level of educational performance and student success than canned, on-line materials and delivery.
10 of the basic recommendations for hybrid delivery that will help ensure that the course meets the expectations of each of the participants:
The course has regularly scheduled class times for the duration of delivery, just as if it were done in a classroom.
The instructor is an expert in the field being presented and not just an administrator of the delivery system.
The instructor begins the class by presenting what they believe the class should deliver.
The first assignment to the participants is for them to provide their expectations for the class.
The instructor then consolidates the participant responses into a presentation addressing each expectation in common. Individual expectations that may or may not be delivered by the material is addressed “one on one” with an opportunity to address the individual’s unique requirements.
The goal and objective of this series exercises is to ensure agreement of all expectations and the “costs” (work required of the participants and the instructor) for each.
The instructor then documents the expectations and during the delivery of the material and exercises, points out or mentions to the class the alignment of the materials/exercises to the previously agreed expectation.
Surveys and polls are used throughout the course. This allows adjustments and adaptations to be made and or addressed during the delivery of the course.
Periodic competency checks are made at tactical point in delivery to ensure that the entire class is meeting expectations.
Non-conformance to class participation requirements are addressed immediately by the instructor to ensure that the individuals are on track. (through one-on-one video conferences or phone calls).
Although there are numerous other techniques used to take on-line delivery of education to the level of a classroom, this helps establish a foundation for success that cannot be guaranteed by on-line, on-demand course structure.
Questions?
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