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Unintended Benefits of Distance-Education Technology for Traditional Classroom Teaching Author(s): Mark Evan Edwards, Sheila Cordray and Jon Dorbolo Source: Teaching Sociology, Vol. 28, No. 4 (Oct., 2000), pp. 386-391 Published by: American Sociological Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1318588 Accessed: 07-04-2018 00:46 UTC

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UNINTENDED BENEFITS OF DISTANCE-EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY FOR TRADITIONAL CLASSROOM TEACHING*

MARK EVAN EDWARDS SHEILA CORDRAY JON DORBOLO Oregon State University Oregon State University Oregon State University

WHILE RAPIDLY GROWING NUMBERS of universi-

ties embrace Internet delivery of distance education, critics have repeatedly decried this trend as a threat to effective pedagogy and creative control over instruction (e.g. Farber 1998; Noble 1998). However, soci- ologists have at their disposal analytical tools and skills for considering the non- obvious and potentially positive implications of this development (Portes 2000). Rather than embrace a solely negative stance, Mer- ton (1967) would have us consider the latent functions of distance education. This en-

deavor would steer us away from "naive moral judgments" (Merton 1967:124), al- lowing us to examine whether or not the explicit goals of Web-based distance educa- tion might unexpectedly strengthen class- room experiences on campus. Such an ex- amination speaks to enduring questions about how new technologies may shape the classroom experience for teacher and student (Cuban 1986).

Into the debate over the merits of distance

education we here insert a note of optimism over how electronic technologies may inad- vertently promote the improvement of tradi- tional courses. These unintended benefits for traditional classroom-based education derive

from how such technology creates interac-

"*An earlier version of this paper was pre- sented at the 1999 Pacific Sociological Associa- tion meetings in Portland, Oregon. Please ad- dress all correspondence to Mark Evan Edwards and Sheila Cordray, Department of Sociology, 307 Fairbanks Hall, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331 or Jon Dorbolo, Valley Library, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331. E-mail, respectively, should be sent to medwards@orst.edu, SCordray@orst.edu, and jon.dorbolo@orst.edu.

Editor's note: The reviewers were, in alpha- betical order, J. Michael Brooks, Carol Jenkins, and Karl Pfeiffer.

tion possibilities for students and teachers and requires creative and managerial capaci- ties in the teacher who chooses to use it

effectively. In short, we suggest that this technology, developed for other purposes, can strengthen traditional courses.

We are quick to assert that an unexamined adoption of the technology, of template- driven, cookie-cutter course construction is

not what we have in mind. Simply putting one's lecture notes on a Web page or "filling in the blanks" on generic course- administration software does not make full

use of the opportunities afforded by these technologies. In the dynamic course model we propose, the instructor still holds the primary creative and maintenance role and technology is selected for its appropriateness to the teaching goals at hand. Meanwhile, we remain agnostic on the relative merits of distance-education courses in comparison to on-campus traditional course delivery. Par- ties continue to disagree over the assessment of teaching effectiveness in distance learning (Boling and Robinson 1999; Farber 1998; Institute for Higher Education Policy 1999). We take as given the development of distance-education courses and the Internet

technologies to deliver them whether or not they accomplish what they promise to dis- tance learners. Our focus is on how the

technology and the instructor's efforts at developing distance-education courses might benefit traditional courses on campus.

UNINTENDED BENEFITS

Our list of unintended benefits is put forth as a set of propositions rooted in our experi- ence, inviting empirical analysis and discus- sion. We begin with the pragmatic technol- ogy transfer from distance-education courses into the classroom, and then consider the

Teaching Sociology, Vol. 28, 2000 (October:386-391) 386

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UNINTENDED BENEFITS OF DISTANCE-EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY 387

potentially positive effects on pedagogy and student-student, student-teacher, and teacher-teacher interactions.

Distance-education courses and transfer- able components. The development of cre- ative Web-based courses provides the possi- bility of spin-off components that are trans- ferable to the traditional classroom. In the

same way that NASA research ultimately led to improved heat-insulation materials and instant orange juice, we note how some components of distance-education course technology produce units that work as out- of-class teaching tools for on-campus classes. For example, a module designed for introducing path analysis and status attain- ment for a Social Inequality Web-based distance-education course has proven useful as a homework assignment for an on-campus course focused on research methods and

statistics (Edwards 1999a). This tutorial con- sists of a series of Web pages, each of which requires single-click responses from the stu- dent. For example, the student is asked to select a dependent variable (in this case, income or occupational prestige), an inde- pendent variable (education, for example), and then observe a scatter plot of the data and a regression line overlaid on the plot. Next, the student is asked to select the

control variable, is shown tabular output of regression coefficients and how to interpret those coefficients, and must finally study a path diagram with the computed coeffi- cients. An interactive quiz at the beginning and end of the tutorial automatically submits answers by email to the instructor, indicat- ing whether or not the student has learned something new in the process.

Similarly, the tutorials and exercises in several of our courses have been effectively used in face-to-face versions of the same

courses (See Cordray 1999; Edwards 1999b). Cordray's interactive tutorial on the sociological imagination illustrates for stu- dents how social and cultural conditions can

affect their lives. This exercise, developed for a Web version of Science and Technol-

ogy in Social Context, proved so successful that it was adapted for use in an on-campus

version of the same course. In the Web

version students were asked to select from a

list of everyday situations and post to the discussion forum how they would handle the situation if they lived in 1850. A link was provided to a site giving a brief description of technological options in the mid-1800s. Choices included transportation issues (Your mother is very ill and may die. She lives 100 miles away. How do you respond?), medical practices (You are chopping wood and cut your leg with an axe. What happens to you?), and daily life (You are hungry. What do you do?). Other students in the distance course were asked to comment on the solu-

tions posted and to compare them with how they might handle the situation at the end of the 20th century. These discussions led to an understanding that daily life, even life and death, are affected by social conditions. 'Private troubles' are created and solved

through 'public issues.' In the face-to-face version of this exercise, students are placed in groups and asked to identify, through Web searches, the technologies available in the specified time period and to prepare a presentation discussing how their lives would be affected by social conditions and technologies in several different time peri- ods.

Edwards' (1999b) "Weber Towers" activ- ities provide a series of Web pages that simulate the dwellings of families from dif- ferent social classes. "Clickable" objects in the families' apartments reveal short (1 to 3 paragraph) texts that articulate how the so- cial meanings of material items vary by class. For example, 'baseball' or 'lottery tickets' are demonstrated to mean something different to someone living in a basement versus someone living in a penthouse. Over the academic term, students see stratification

processes illustrated in the short texts and in the unveiling of a hypertext novel that illus- trates the interrelation of differently situated families. This Web-based interactive project designed for distance-education students is being used as a source of illustrative data for class discussions in the on-campus version of the course. Several students have indi-

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388 TEACHING SOCIOLOGY

cated that they anxiously awaited the out- come of the story as the end of the academic term approached. In each of these described cases, modules initially designed for technology-dependent courses have become useful tools in technology-integrated courses.

Part-whole relationships and instruc- tional clarity. Good teachers always make sure that the individual components of their courses fit well into a coherent whole. They are also clear in their explanations of com- plex processes or techniques, showing how individual steps produce the whole. Instruc- tor clarity about part-whole relationships in the course, and in a particular class session, is a major component of high-quality teach- ing. We propose that such clarity for the traditional classroom is called forth in teach-

ers who develop Web-based distance- education courses.

Students may or may not immediately recognize the absence of good organization or thematic integrity in a course. And when they do not understand a process or tech- nique, they may attribute their confusion to their own inabilities or to the inherent diffi-

culty of the material. But instructors of all skill levels can create the dubious impres- sion of organization with official looking, but noncommittal syllabi that allow them wide latitude as the course progresses. They may explain detailed processes in a disor- derly, mechanical or uncreative manner that fails to communicate the material, while

never admitting to having prepared casually. Excellent teachers have a clear sense of how

the parts of a course fit into the whole and communicate this to their students. We sug- gest that teachers who attempt to develop innovative distance-education courses are

likely to strengthen their traditional courses in terms of organization, thematic integrity, and instructional clarity.

Instructors who have developed distance- education courses must have a thorough understanding of how the entire project holds together. Like a novel whose dramatic ending relies upon plot development early in the text, an online course requires careful

attention to how the parts contribute to the whole. One cannot easily re-organize the entire Web site part way through the term. Thus, the simple requirement of planning out the entire course for a distance-delivery class is likely to assist those same teachers in carefully planning their traditional courses. Organizational and managerial habits re- quired to teach a course at a distance are thus likely to be helpful in the traditional classroom.

Self-directed Web-based modules also re-

quire instructors to pay careful attention to detail and to outlining step-by-step pro- cesses. Because such modules are usually used by students in the absence of the teacher, these tools must be exceedingly well organized and tested to be effective. For example, in creating a Web-based tuto- rial on the construction and interpretation of a social-mobility table (Edwards 1999c), we carefully introduced students one step at a time to the actual insertion of cases to a

blank table, computing appropriate percent- ages, highlighting the internal and marginal percentages, and then interpreting the result- ing statistics. This Web-based activity helped undergraduate students carefully cre- ate a mobility table (something not many graduate students ever do), interpret its numbers, and write about it. The exercise

required us to break the process down into its component parts and then show students how these steps created the final table. The sequencing of processes in the Web tutorial required painstaking care in understanding how one step led to the other.

Such concern for instructional clarity is part of how any good instructor organizes and teaches a course. However, the develop- ment of distance-education teaching tools such as we have described requires even greater attention to detail because students are asked to learn on their own. Therefore, the instructor must anticipate all manner of potential misunderstandings, knowing that s/he will not be present to observe and respond to the confusion on students' faces. Good teachers in the classroom respond to those confused looks with alternate explana-

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UNINTENDED BENEFITS OF DISTANCE-EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY 389

tions. But good teachers may become even better teachers in the classroom by having to develop instructional tools that carefully an- ticipate points of student misunderstanding. Extending class interaction and increas-

ing teacher control. One of the promises of electronically-distributed education is the creation of virtual communities that partici- pate asynchronously in an online course (Brooks 1997). This form of interaction can be used effectively for a physically-present community of students who spend a few hours each week in the same room. When

creatively integrated into the course, these communication technologies can motivate students to invest more in their traditional

classroom setting than they might otherwise. As opposed to being sent off alone to read and study a text, students can now collec- tively participate in an out-of-class activity. The increased levels of extra-curricular ac-

tivity of modern students (usually in the form of full and part-time work or family obligations for older than average students) make the asynchronous quality of these forms of learning all the more effective for including all students. Thus, class interac- tion is extended not only quantitatively (more hours thinking about the material) but also in terms of including students who would otherwise only participate during class periods.

Using information technology can also extend didactic direction into more of the

students' learning time. University and col- lege curricula typically assume that for each hour spent in the classroom or lab, students will commit two or three hours of study time. Therefore, two-thirds to three-fourths

of the learning time in a college education is not face-to-face nor is it usually directed (i.e., while readings, written work, and problem sets may be required, how the learner accomplishes those tasks is com- monly left open). If teachers were able to effectively direct more of the students' avail- able learning time, it is likely that they would learn better. Information technology provides the means to effectively direct more of the student's available learning time

(i.e., to determine what they do with that time), whether that learning is through inter- action with other students or through using Web-based learning tools developed for distance-education courses.

The extended interaction between students

outside of class is not just post-lecture dis- cussion or illustration. It may also be used to encourage discussion that changes the nature of class periods. A typical image of a class period is that of the teacher provoking the conversation for the day, attempting to rally and focus a group of disconnected and unfo- cused individuals. However, with extended electronic discussion outside of the class-

room, the lecture period can take on the tone of a continued conversation in which the

instructor may draw upon comments made in a virtual discussion, call on someone to expand on an idea they already tentatively put forth, or even resolve disputes that developed in an online discussion. This dy- namic element of out-of-class student inter-

action can animate the classroom session to

an otherwise unlikely degree. Controlling, sanctioning, and rewarding

student participation and performance poses dilemmas for teachers who want students to

participate well in class and in group work. Free-riding in the classroom and in the working group cannot readily be sanctioned. Meanwhile, public rewarding of good par- ticipation potentially stigmatizes or embar- rasses students. The communication tech-

nologies used in distance-education courses may be effectively used to sidestep these problems in a traditional course. Students may prepare their comments more carefully before posting them in an online discussion as compared to the immediacy required in the classroom. Regularity of participation on an electronic bulletin board/discussion page can be quantified more readily than the number of times a student speaks up in class. Monitoring of work-group participa- tion can be observed online rather than

requiring group members to report on one another's contributions. Logistical problems (and hence excuses) for why work groups were unable to complete their projects be-

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390 TEACHING SOCIOLOGY

come much less difficult to address. Indeed, the instructor can participate in the online work group without needing to personally meet with each group. Thus, through the use of email lists, bul- letin boards, and threaded discussion groups that encourage extended inter-student partic- ipation, students can work together regard- less of schedules, their participation or lack thereof is clear to the instructor and other

students, and the teacher may participate in these small group discussions without having to be in several places at once. Student performance can be more reasonably ex- pected, more carefully monitored, and re- sponded to more personally.

Teacher as student: student feedback and self-assessment. The development of modu- larized teaching units from distance- education courses used in the traditional

classroom affords a unique opportunity for teachers to 'be as students,' asynchronously consuming the product. Like a chef stepping around to evaluate a meal from the alterna-

tive point of view of a customer, teachers may join students in evaluating the teaching module as a teaching tool.

There is a powerful personal quality to lectures-they are performances. It is un- likely that we teachers want students to critique our delivery and content each week, and students know this. Teacher hesitation

about evaluation derives, in part, from the fact that lectures are uttered from our own

lips and once spoken remain only in the memories and notes of student and teacher.

Student hesitation derives from the power difference between student and teacher. But

the stand-alone, ontological otherness of the teaching module or Web page we have created allows us as instructors to approach the learning tool as a student to see how it does or does not communicate effectively. This experience of taking the role of the other is easier when approaching a physi- cally and temporally separate creation in- stead of a lecture; we may stand alongside students to evaluate the item as a teaching tool rather than assess it as a personal performance. Indeed, solicitation from stu-

dents about effectiveness not only improves the teaching tool itself but also provides students a chance to think about their learn-

ing, helping them become self-conscious thinkers who can better understand how they learn. This process further presents an espe- cially unique experience for students-the chance to see how their teacher learns, and

to see how their suggestions help improve the pedagogy for the next cohort of students.

Team work and pooled expertise. While the earliest creators of Web-based distance-

education courses operated independently, the institutional embrace of distance educa-

tion makes possible more team development of instructional activities and strategies. In delivering a traditional-classroom experi- ence, instructors need no special help other than the occasional visiting speaker or the visit from the audio-visual specialist to set up the video projector. However, Web- based distance-education media calls for

technical, graphical, and pedagogical exper- tise that no one person can reasonably be expected to possess. Constraints on faculty members' time and departmental resources prevent most individuals from developing all of these skills. Hence, collaborative work between a subject-matter expert (the instruc- tor) and media specialists (programmers, graphic artists, and course developers) offer the most promise.

At our university, experience in the col- laborative generation of courses and course components has been very positive except for the usual challenges of co-production. Team-based educational development has been necessary for the creation of innovative and appropriate pedagogical uses of this technology. Admittedly, increasing market and organizational pressures to expedite and homogenize these courses may limit such collaborative possibilities in the future. However, our experience demonstrates that with institutional support, the pooling of expertise has led to creative innovations in course design and in the adoption of compo- nents for traditional on-campus courses. This cross-disciplinary pedagogical develop- ment was not an intended goal of distance education.

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UNINTENDED BENEFITS OF DISTANCE-EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY 391

DISCUSSION

Teaching skills called forth by online-course development, technology used in online courses, and the stand-alone elements of

those courses can strengthen many tradi- tional classes on campus. Admittedly, the unintended benefits of distance-education

technology for the traditional classroom are not available to everyone. Not all universi- ties embrace distance education, and others lack the resources to provide extensive stu- dent access to such technologies. Instructors who are forced to use this technology are not likely to be convinced, and uninspired, cyni- cal teachers in the traditional classroom are

not likely to become good teachers simply by using distance-education technology. However, as the resources for developing distance education become more available to

on-campus teachers, many may find that the use of distance-education technology pro- vides opportunities for improving on-campus classroom education.

REFERENCES

Boling, Nancy C. and Daniel H. Robinson. 1999. "Individual Study, Interactive Multimedia, or Cooperative Learning: Which Activity Best Supplements Lecture-Based Distance Educa- tion?" Journal of Educational Psychology 91:169-74.

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Towers. Retrieved July 10, 2000 (http:// osu.orst.edu/pubs/sociology/edwards/webref- erences.html).

. 1999c. "Mobility Tables Construction and Interpretation Tutorial" Social Inequality (Soc 426/526 Oregon State University). Retrieved July 10, 2000 (http://osu.orst.edu/pubs/sociol- ogy/edwards/webreferences.html).

Farber, Jerry. 1998. "The Third Circle: On Education and Distance Learning." Sociologi- cal Perspectives 41:797-814.

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Noble, David F. 1998. "Digital Diploma Mills, Part II: The Coming Battle Over Online In- struction." Sociological Perspectives 41:815- 25.

Portes, Alejandro. 2000. "The Hidden Abode: Sociology as Analysis of the Unexpected." American Sociological Review 65:1-18.

Mark Edwards is assistant professor of sociology at Oregon State University. He teaches social inequality (on campus and via the Internet), research methods, and sociology of work and occupations. His research fo- cuses on work and family, determinants of welfare participation, and sociology of housing.

Sheila Cordray is an associate professor of sociol- ogy at Oregon State University. Her primary field of interest is social change. This interest has led to re- search projects in natural-resource areas and using sociological insights to understand the role of science, technology, and the media in American culture. She hopes to do more teaching using the Internet.

Jon Dorbolo is the Distributed Learning Developer at Oregon State University, designing distance- education courses. He has been teaching InterQuest: The Fine Art of Philosophy, osu.orst.edu/instruct/ phi201, since 1993. Jon has received university and state-level awards for his leadership in developing online education.

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