going online: more of the same or re-creating engineering education?
DESCRIPTION
The rush to take more courses and more degree programs online continues to rise exponentially. Too often this decision is made in a “Ready, fire, aim!” mode. Institutions decide to “go online” to increase enrollments and revenues but do so too often without seriously considering how course and degree offerings, and the design of these, align with the institutional mission and strategic goals. When online learning is simply construed as digitally capturing what already happens in a traditional on-campus classroom and streaming that to remote students, institutions fail to capture the exceptional opportunities that online learning provides for creating fundamentally better ways to teach and learn. Those opportunities can reach new, strategically targeted students, can increase teaching skills of all involved faculty, and can synergistically improve teaching on campus. This paper will explore key strategic opportunities that online learning presents for improving the quality, reach and impact of engineering education, when focus, effort and resources are explicitly committed to doing so, rather than simply getting off-campus students to enroll in existing traditional on-campus offerings. The paper will primarily draw upon the experiences of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s College of Engineering in developing new distance graduate engineering degree programs. The College has committed to building best-in-class degree programs that build from centers of strength within the College and which strategically deliver value to the College. This strategic value is derived by creating new, stimulating opportunities for faculty to teach highly experienced engineers, learn with them through challenging, authentic project-based learning, and create spillover benefits for faculty on-campus teaching and research. Rightly viewed and applied, online learning creates genuinely new, creative opportunities for teaching and learning, rather than a burden of teaching more of the same. The focus on quality with which UW-Madison College of Engineering has pursued the creation, delivery and support of online learning has been recognized by major national awards for quality from the Sloan Consortium, The University Continuing Education Association, and the American Distance Learning Association. In January 2012, U.S. News & World Report’s first-ever ranking of online degree programs rated U-Madison’s online engineering degree programs first in two key categories of proven quality: teaching practices and student engagement; and student services and technology.TRANSCRIPT
The Move to Online:More of the Same or
Re‐Creating Engineering Education?
Wayne P. PferdehirtDirector, Graduate Distance Engineering
Degree Programs
University of Wisconsin‐Madison
ASEE Annual Conference, 2013
If Online Education is the Answer,What is the Question??
• What is your goal?– What is the motivation driving your interest in online learning?
– What needs, opportunities, and constraints are part of the puzzle?
• Online education can be a means, but is not an end
• Let your end be a vision worth your university’s very best people and efforts
2
Going Online: A Typical Scenario
• Starts with a desire to increase institution’s revenues• Instructors understandably want a model that requires as little change as possible to their teaching practices
• Goal is to have online courses be “as good as existing on‐campus courses”
• The result– Record and stream existing lecture‐based courses– More of the same
• What’s wrong with that?
Is “As good as classroom instruction” an Adequate Goal?
• Going online can remove/reduce barriers to education– Who learns– Who teaches– When teaching and learning happen– How teaching and learning happen
• Done well, online education practices can improve classroom practices
• Can be a game‐changer for colleges and departments
4
How do you envisiononline learning?
• A digital file cabinet
5
How do you envisiononline learning?
• A one‐way hose for streaming course recordings and related content
6
How do you envisiononline learning?
• An opportunity to create a new learning space– collaborative– engaging– authentic– new freedom in where, when, and how learning occurs
7
Using “the Move to Online” to Re‐Create Engineering Education
• Decide to use your initiatives in distance education as strategic opportunities to make major advances in the nature and quality of education offered by your institution.
• Decide (really decide) to make meeting the needs of students as the #1 priority.
• Engage experienced, capable instructional designers in the design of programs and each course.
8
Using “the Move to Online” to Re‐Create Engineering Education
• Effectively support faculty throughout course development, delivery, and evaluation.
• Use online formats and tools to build effective, meaningful community in support of learning
• Integrate learning and professional practice as part of coursework
9
Using “the Move to Online” to Re‐Create Engineering Education
• Use what you learn and new learning assets for online courses to improve all courses
• Build new and deeper connectionsbetween your faculty’s research and industry
10
Some Practical Advice
• Use group projects in online courses to develop skills needed to lead and contribute to globally distributed teams
• Thoughtfully complement asynchronous learning with interactive web conferences
• Have students contribute meaningfully to online learning– Lead web conference presentations– Lead asynchronous discussion forums
11
Some Practical Advice
• Provide free access to tools that enable student groups to meet and work effectively anytime, anywhere– Project groups– Study sessions, etc.
• Use online tools to engage alumni in networking, learning, and teaching
• Engage the best faculty, speakers, and resources, wherever they are
12
Re‐Creating Engineering Education
• Create a vision worthy of your faculty
• Create a path and stepping stones to get there
• “You must be the change you wish to see in the world”
– Mohandas Gandhi
• “There is no passion to be found playing small –in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.”
– Nelson Mandela