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February 16, 2006
Truly A Hero to His Department!
Bob Szymanski at the University of Central Florida teaching the MIS class using online distance learning, entirely. This term, he's teaching 900 students, but has taught as many as 1200. While the class, with its 900 to 1 student to FTE ratio, has been a huge economic success, Bob fears the numbers require him to be more of a course administrator than an educator. He spends a large proportion of his time fixing course access, email, and other connectivity problems.
On the other hand, student attitudes about the class improve as the class moves along. Bob writes:
"There is a change in perception of the course as the semester passes. In the past, I have asked students to share their satisfaction rating with the completely online course. I do this near the start of the term and then at the end. There is usually a flip-flop in satisfaction rating. Early in the term it is about 75%-25% in favor of those dissatisfied with the online course. By the end of the term, it is 75%-25% in favor of those who are satisfied. I've done this only twice, but the results were similar."
Bob breaks the class into six units and requires students to submit an assignment for each. He also concludes each unit with an objective test. Because he cannot grade all 900 assignments for each unit, he randomly selects two assignments for grading for each student. That still leaves him with a total of 1800 assignments to grade each term. He does have some assistance, but still, grading is a time constraint.
The advantages that Bob sees for distance learning to him personally are that he can teach the class from anywhere. He need not be on campus, so he can travel while he's teaching and he can work from home. Bob has young children and this enables him to arrange his schedule around theirs. On the downside, he finds himself teaching 24/7. The students have some of the same advantages ... they can take the class anywhere and need not travel to class. For the more mature students, that advantage works well, but for some, it provides too much freedom. They need the structure of a class to attend.
Recently, Bob and UCF have decided to change the format of the class, probably not going back to the traditional small class, but, instead, finding some alternative mid-way. According to Bob, they're changing the format because
"We want to use it (the class) as a tool for promoting the MIS major, not because it has not been a success. We are having a lack of success recruiting students into the MIS major via this format. I'm not so sure that is has not been an educational success. As I mentioned, for me, I do feel I spend more time administering the class than teaching. However, feedback from surveys have been mixed. Some students feel it was an excellent educational experience, while others did not."
Are others teaching MIS using distance learning techniques? If so, what have been your experiences?
Posted by DavidK at February 16, 2006 09:43 AM | Permalink