U Tulsa to cut 40% of academic programming: CHE article

[ciao_yall]

(Just as an example, two of my former colleagues--both tenured before the internet was even a thing--scream bloody murder about the department offering any online classes, and the dean has gone along with their heckler's veto. The result is that students are simply voting with their feet and taking classes elsewhere, while the department's numbers continue to shrink). 

What is really the argument for online courses except that they are "the future?" Is there actually evidence that offering courses online provides real benefits for most students? I know the argument is that it increases access for students with jobs and busy lives, but often those are the very people who will do better if they have to come to class twice a week and stay connected to their schooling.

Perhaps, my perspective is skewed because teaching a course online seems awful to me. It takes away the part I like the most about teaching, interacting and engaging with students in a dynamic setting, and replaces them with the parts of the job I dislike, grading and fiddling with CMS software.

At our CC the online classes book up the fastest because students think they will be easier and less time-consuming than face-to-face classes.

As it turns out, the barriers to successfully completing the face-to-face classes are the same as those to completing online classes. Unblocked time to review the material and participate in online discussions. Someone to watch your kids while you do the class. Whatever-it-is to log in even when you are tired, just finished work, didn't sleep well to show up anyway. And the factors for success - relationship with faculty, meeting other students, learning from other students... just isn't there.

So, they have the highest failure rates.

Several of our Board members agreed to take a class at the college. Of course, they signed up for an online class, and the collective college response was "That's not really taking a class..."

[Wahoo Redux]

I will say, very selfishly, that I don't miss the blank looks of incomprehension when I ask students to respond to a reading which they clearly did not read before class.  I don't miss the unmuffled yawns, texting, and Amazon shopping sprees that I either have to ignore or police.  If there are tears, I don't see them over email.  And I don't miss the airborne toxic events associated with deep-fried fast food when students bring lunch to class---that I either need to ignore or police while I lecture or distribute exercises.

Plus, now that I work a 5/5, I am very relieved when I teach online and can have the whole Blackboard page set up before the semester starts and just let it run.

All that said, online classes are a joke and not really good education at all.  Perhaps the future will produce better and easier-to-use technology, but for now online classes should be done away with.

[Hegemony]

Many online classes may be a joke, but I don't think the ones I teach are.  I do my best to ensure that they're pretty darn rigorous. 

[Caracal]

Many online classes may be a joke, but I don't think the ones I teach are.  I do my best to ensure that they're pretty darn rigorous.

I don't mean to imply that the people who teach online are doing anything wrong or that an online course can't be useful. We all have to work within the constraints of systems. I teach some courses that have formats that I don't think are ideal for students. The job is still to do the best you can. I'm sure a good online course is more useful to many students than a crummy in face class.

[marshwiggle]

I think it's a mistake to compare online classes to face-to-face classes. Or rather, online classes aren't likely to ever be "better" than a decent face-to-face class. What they should be compared to, and what they can be better than, is the "face-to-face class you aren't able to attend".

Way back in the 80's, when "correspondence" courses involved mailing cassette tapes and/or vides, and mailed (i.e. "snail-mail") assignments and so on, they were useful to people who weren't able to be on campus. For example:

• Students in a co-op placement in another city who wanted/needed to pick up a course during their work term
• Students who needed a course to graduate but couldn't fit anything in their schedule
• Students who needed to retake a course they failed but which didn't fit in their schedule

The high drop-out rate of online courses reflects that fact that they require more self-discipline than regular courses, but when they're the only option available, they are valuable.

[Caracal]

I think it's a mistake to compare online classes to face-to-face classes. Or rather, online classes aren't likely to ever be "better" than a decent face-to-face class. What they should be compared to, and what they can be better than, is the "face-to-face class you aren't able to attend".

Way back in the 80's, when "correspondence" courses involved mailing cassette tapes and/or vides, and mailed (i.e. "snail-mail") assignments and so on, they were useful to people who weren't able to be on campus. For example:

• Students in a co-op placement in another city who wanted/needed to pick up a course during their work term
• Students who needed a course to graduate but couldn't fit anything in their schedule
• Students who needed to retake a course they failed but which didn't fit in their schedule

The high drop-out rate of online courses reflects that fact that they require more self-discipline than regular courses, but when they're the only option available, they are valuable.

I agree with this. What isn't so good is if many students are taking an online course instead of a face to face course they'd sooner not attend, rather than the one they can't. It also isn't great if departments are offering a lot of online courses just to appeal to students who don't like coming to campus. There's one department at my school that offers over half their courses, including most intro courses, online. That doesn't seem great.

[ciao_yall]

Witchita State is cutting their gen eds from 42 to 33.

Gen Ed in their world does include composition, public speaking and math which sounds more like general college requirements than the random history or philosophy class some of y'all are complaining about.

[wwwdotcom]

Perhaps you think this...

All that said, online classes are a joke and not really good education at all.

because you do this...

I teach online and can have the whole Blackboard page set up before the semester starts and just let it run.

If you aren't engaging students in the online environment, then why would you expect the same level of learning?  "Letting it run" seems to be the equivalent of telling the face-to-face students to simply read the book and show up for exams.

[polly_mer]

Witchita State is cutting their gen eds from 42 to 33.

Gen Ed in their world does include composition, public speaking and math which sounds more like general college requirements than the random history or philosophy class some of y'all are complaining about.

Read the whole article.  The take-one-course-from-each-field is exactly the random courses we dislike and constitute the other 20+ credits still in gen ed.  One college-level math class is completely inadequate unless it's a course after calculus III.  Freshman comp and rhetoric are generally something which college-ready folks will AP/IB/dual credit or otherwise skip.

[ciao_yall]

Witchita State is cutting their gen eds from 42 to 33.

Gen Ed in their world does include composition, public speaking and math which sounds more like general college requirements than the random history or philosophy class some of y'all are complaining about.

Read the whole article.  The take-one-course-from-each-field is exactly the random courses we dislike and constitute the other 20+ credits still in gen ed.  One college-level math class is completely inadequate unless it's a course after calculus III.  Freshman comp and rhetoric are generally something which college-ready folks will AP/IB/dual credit or otherwise skip.

Who is we? I had a lot of choices for gen eds in college and was still pretty intentional in the ones I chose.

And I would like to think most students take a similar approach. "From List A of 27 classes, which one would you like to choose?" Yes, perhaps the most convenient class may win, still, in my experience with most students is that they read the list, find an intriguing title and try to learn more before finding a way to fit it in.

[Wahoo Redux]

Perhaps you think this...

All that said, online classes are a joke and not really good education at all.

because you do this...

I teach online and can have the whole Blackboard page set up before the semester starts and just let it run.

If you aren't engaging students in the online environment, then why would you expect the same level of learning?  "Letting it run" seems to be the equivalent of telling the face-to-face students to simply read the book and show up for exams.

A bit too literal, my friend. 

[polly_mer]

And I would like to think most students take a similar approach. "From List A of 27 classes, which one would you like to choose?" Yes, perhaps the most convenient class may win, still, in my experience with most students is that they read the list, find an intriguing title and try to learn more before finding a way to fit it in.

That's the argument for having a bunch of elective slots that fit nicely with a solid major core for people who want a more freeform education or the true liberal arts education of 40 credits major, 40 credits general education, and 40 credits electives.  Some places do have a general education program that is designed to be a major and a purposefully selected minor as a way to give a good education.  However, that's seldom pushed by the people who are worried about their teaching jobs that are supplemental to the fields that generally come in at about 130 credits.

That pick-from-a-list-of-27-courses is not at all the argument for "All educated people need to have been exposed to these 6/8/10 categories of knowing about the world so we can claim we teach all those soft skills. Therefore, each student must take one class from each of these M discipline lists that also meet the N categories of knowing about the world yet won't give anyone much of anything who doesn't already have a pretty good K-12 background."

Also, the idea that there would be 27 courses that meet one of the M of N requirements indicates having a huge school or really lax requirements. 

[marshwiggle]

Also, the idea that there would be 27 courses that meet one of the M of N requirements indicates having a huge school or really lax requirements.

Since I have no experience of this, I'm curious. Do institutions have concrete requirements for what it takes to get on "the list"? For instance, "students will write at least one 2000 word essay and do an oral presentation in each of these courses". That way it would support the idea of developing communication skills, etc. If any course could be taught with autograded assignments and a multiple choice final and still meet the requirements then the whole "soft skills" thing is bogus.

[polly_mer]

Also, the idea that there would be 27 courses that meet one of the M of N requirements indicates having a huge school or really lax requirements.

Since I have no experience of this, I'm curious. Do institutions have concrete requirements for what it takes to get on "the list"? For instance, "students will write at least one 2000 word essay and do an oral presentation in each of these courses". That way it would support the idea of developing communication skills, etc. If any course could be taught with autograded assignments and a multiple choice final and still meet the requirements then the whole "soft skills" thing is bogus.

Ideally, a course getting on the list requires a form/proposal explaining how the course meets the general education requirements to be on list X and a faculty committee reviews the proposal and may even require the proposing faculty member to respond to questions in person or in writing to the committee's satisfaction before putting the course on the list.

Even more ideally, any substantial changes to the course then must go through the faculty committee and/or every course is reviewed on a schedule (not more than 5 years and three is better) to ensure that the course as it is being taught still meets the requirement to be on the list for one of the N ways of knowing or soft skills practice.

A good institution that values education will have processes to ensure that the standards are being upheld, although that means a lot of discussion regarding the trade-offs in academic freedom (teach your course as you like...) and shared governance (...as long as the students who pass the course are meeting all the stated learning outcomes).

It's much easier to keep the standards high when people buy into the institution and view their responsibilities as contributing their piece to a learning community in which the goal is student success (at least for the students who try) and the general education N ways of knowing are really being supported by everyone.

It's pretty easy to let standards slip when the staffing is done term-by-term with the armies of whomever is willing to accept a pittance to keep the wolves at bay outside their personal abode this month.  Handing someone a syllabus for Course 18 in Area D and hoping for the best out of an interchangeable cog is not nearly the same as having people who have personal ownership of their courses with strong motivation to do their best to support students to learn and grow as part of a shared learning endeavor.

[Wahoo Redux]

It's pretty easy to let standards slip when the staffing is done term-by-term with the armies of whomever is willing to accept a pittance to keep the wolves at bay outside their personal abode this month.  Handing someone a syllabus for Course 18 in Area D and hoping for the best out of an interchangeable cog is not nearly the same as having people who have personal ownership of their courses with strong motivation to do their best to support students to learn and grow as part of a shared learning endeavor.

Be fair, Polly.  That is sometimes but not always the case.  You certainly do sound like you have it in for the adjuncts simply because they are adjuncts.  Stay calm.

However, you have once again provided a great rational for why we need to all work toward FT hires, be they long-term NTT or TT.  Good job.