Book Reviews
Learner-Centered Theory and Practice in Distance Education: Cases from Higher Education
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As online learning matures beyond
concerns about establishing its legitimacy, one of the key emerging issues could
be labeled ‘quantity vs. quality.’ Although improving the quality and quantity
of online education are both desirable outcomes, many proponents of online
education are more focused on “greater access, equivalent quality,” working to
make online learning become a significant, and eventually even seamless, part
of the mainstream of higher education. Other proponents are more concerned
with developing online education which improves the quality of the learning
experience, often motivated by witnessing how online learning supports improved
learning effectiveness. Some of these practitioners have been exploring the
application of theoretically and pedagogically-based approaches informed by
recent findings in the learning sciences, as described in such sources as the
National Research Council’s book How People Learn.
This latter topic is the focus of
Learner-Centered Theory and Practice in Distance Education: Cases from
Higher Education (hereafter LCTPDE), the product of a symposium held in
December 2001. This volume has two stated aims: to “bring the voice of the learning sciences to the study and design of distance learning,” and to describe a number of distance education programs that “reflect principles of engaged learning” in enough detail so that readers can “understand the pedagogical approaches and the implications of implementing those approaches” (p. xi). LCTPD has an explicit focus on program
rather than course design, and the eight distance education programs featured include
campus-wide, system-wide, and discipline-specific efforts. These programs
are organized into sections based on four themes -- community building,
problem-centered learning, innovative uses of technology, and scaling up. LCTPDE
deals with each program as follows: a primary chapter written by a practitioner
with first-hand involvement with the program, a formal reaction to the chapter
by a practitioner with expertise in one or more distance learning-related
issues, and an edited transcript of an informal group discussion of the primary
chapter held at the symposium. There is also a summary section offering policy
and corporate perspectives from leading practitioners on the approaches and
thinking reflected in the other sections of the book.
The book’s introduction by
co-editors Thomas Duffy and Jamie Kirkley of Indiana University is generally
neutral on the controversies surrounding distance education and the “polarized
discussions” which have resulted. LCTPD notes that educational quality depends
on learning design and learner engagement rather than delivery mode, and that
distance education is “right in the mix with all other courses in the dimension
of quality” as measured by faculty perception of course quality (p.4). Many
online learning practitioners have also experienced Duffy and Kirkley’s observation
that distance education has prompted greater attention to the quality of
teaching practices in classroom as well as distance education.
The introduction also makes it
clear that the book focuses on applying a particular quality standard in its
case studies: how well these distance education programs use “principle-based
design” informed by “tremendous gains in understanding how people learn” to
deliver effective learning (p.6). To its credit, the introduction not only
applies this standard to its case studies but to all higher education courses,
as Duffy and Kirkley lament the lack of attention paid to applying these
understandings in higher education, and in particular their “absence” in
distance education (although the book’s case studies themselves seem to
indicate a presence rather than absence).
The book’s introduction also
confirms that opponents of online education have little if any actual research
evidence to back their claims that classroom learning is superior. Duffy and
Kirkley’s discussion of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT)’s 2001 survey
brings to mind the 1999 Institute for Higher Education Policy report "What's
The Difference?" which called for a high level of research
verification (e.g., randomized experiments, tests with content or construct
validity) before accepting full-scale adoption of online learning, as if such
findings were available for classroom learning. Discussing the AFT survey
findings which express a similar viewpoint, Duffy and Kirkley note dryly that “this
concern is rather interesting given the lack of research on learning in the
undergraduate classroom” (p.4). As they point out, “most higher education
research relies on survey data” while “very little research has actually looked
at student learning in the classroom,” and the work that has been done suggests
that the quality of discussion and student learning in college classrooms is
questionable. Although it is not clear that the Duffy/Kirkley literature
review is a comprehensive one, the book’s introduction is worth reading for
this item alone.
LCTPD is a good place to get
acquainted with many theoretically and pedagogically-based approaches which are
becoming more common in online education design. Several authors (e.g., Polin,
Duffy and Kirkley, Bransford et al.) provide extensive explanations of the
theoretical foundations for the pedagogical approaches utilized in their
programs, and many others describe how their programs translate these theories
into practice. For instance, Linda Polin’s description of Pepperdine University’s online Master of Arts in educational technology (OMAET) program illustrates
the application of a sociocultural approach to program design (pp. 17-48), as
well as the value of contextual learning as happens in Pepperdine’s VirtCamp technology
training (p.45). Scott Grabinger’s chapter includes an informative table
comparing traditional and sociocultural instructional design approaches (pp.
51-53) which offers an excellent starting point for discussion. Karen
Ruhleder’s description of the University of Illinois’s graduate library science
program (LEEP) illustrates how online technologies are “supporting new forms of
engagement between students and instructors” (p.71), for instance by
illustrating how live synchronous discussion allows multiple channels (p.78)
and shared control of discussion (p. 86). John Stinson describes how Ohio University’s MBA program is organized around projects rather than courses (pp. 168-69,
172-73). However, contributors also note cases where practical
considerations inhibited the application of pedagogical approaches, for
instance Duffy and Kirkley’s description of how Cardean University’s business
model inhibited the building of collaborative course communities and the use of
more extensive qualitative assessments (pp. 133-35). The case studies
featured in the book also supply many informative examples of solutions to
thorny problems facing online educators, such as applying inquiry-based
approaches without sacrificing necessary content (Bransford et al., pp. 226-28)
or training large numbers of faculty in a new pedagogical method (Islas, pp.
308-311).
LCTPD is also a treasure trove of
useful “nuggets” pertaining to a wide range of educational issues. Some of
these nuggets will be familiar to most readers but are still worth a reminder,
for instance that constructivism is a theory of how we know and not a theory of
pedagogy (Bransford, open discussion, p. 104) or that campus-based students
often work harder than online students because the latter are more experienced
and focused learners, not because campus courses are more difficult (Ruhleder,
open discussion, p. 104). Other nuggets are fine points which may require
more careful study for many readers, for instance Lani Gunawardena’s
distinctions between open inquiry, directed inquiry, and controlled
(non-)inquiry (pp. 148-49).
A thorough perusal of LCTPD will
reward the reader with his/her own individual haul. A few of my favorites are Champagne’s
“embedded assessment” approach to evaluation as an alternative to “evaluation
as autopsy” (pp. 285-88), identifying social engineering and group dynamics as
useful skills sets for instructors to have (Eoyang, open discussion, p. 67),
and how Polin’s and Ruhleder’s programs use chat (pp. 39-41; 75-86), which
offer interesting ideas on its uses even for those practitioners (such as
myself) who are generally quite skeptical of its utility.
The reader will not treasure everything
in LCTPD, of course. OMAET’s online virtual office (pp. 37-39) is of dubious
value in my opinion, and one also wonders how Purdue’s TCCT program can
maintain its rich teacher-to-student ratio (pp. 266-271) even if one admires
TCCT’s blurring the distinction between distance and classroom education in
apparently effective ways. Mark Schlager’s notion of applying the Hippocratic
oath (“do no harm”) to e-learning design is rather overreaching; criticizing
“strictly asynchronous e-learning systems” as possibly harmful fails to
recognize how little we know about what forms of engagement “cause harm to the
learning experience” in online or any other type of learning (p. 96). The
fact that these interpretations are open to debate, however, illustrates that
LCTPD has succeeded in describing some of the contours of a new territory:
applying current conceptions of learning to designing higher education programs
is an open frontier, not a settled one.
The Open Discussions sections of
the book definitely add value relative to the usual chapter or chapter-reactant
formats. The frankness of the open discussions reflects the value of including
participants with multiple perspectives and differing views. For instance, Polin
freely admits that assessing learning effectiveness is a weak aspect of the OMAET
program (pp. 62-63), while Ruhleder provides less than satisfactory answers to
some tough questions about policy questions such as technology selection and
use of adjuncts (pp. 100-103). However, these discussions simply illustrate
how LCTPD’s quality standard raises the bar in terms of assessing the effectiveness
of the programs featured. One wonders what classroom-based programs are
receiving comparable scrutiny and when we will see the companion volume Learner-Centered
Theory and Practice in Classroom-Based Education: Cases from Higher Education
-- if ever. Prima facie, LCTPD provides additional evidence that
distance education programs are scrutinized far more closely by administrators,
accreditors, and other stakeholders than are classroom-based programs.
However, the open discussion sections
suffer from some of the drawbacks of face-to-face, real-time discussion:
interesting questions are left unanswered, or issues are identified but not
fully explored or are missed altogether, as the discussants must move on to the
next paper. For example, despite LCTPD’s explicit emphasis on the SUNY project
as an example of “scaling up,” much of the discussion of the project (pp.
386-92) misses the essential point that scaling up means achieving both
reasonably high quality and increased accessibility through scale, rather than
maximizing quality. As a result, some discussants propose alternative
strategies based on (perceived) maximizing of quality (e.g., more synchronous,
reducing student dissatisfaction rates from 10% to zero) supported by examples of
programs which lack the ability to scale. As co-author Duffy points out, most
of the chapters in LCTPD describe “boutique” programs “focused first on
creating a rich learning experience” (p. 11), many of which are not scalable
models. Unfortunately, some of the LCTPD participants seemed to have lost
sight of this during the open discussion. The fact that even the high caliber
of LCTPD’s participants demonstrated this shortcoming illustrates the potential
of “quantity vs. quality” to be a divisive issue and a perceptual gap whose
bridging will require much additional work.
Another shortcoming of LCTPD is
its age; the book’s material is three years old as of this writing (November
2004). Fairly enough, LCTPD represents itself as the beginning of the conversation
on this important topic; still, one wonders how its participants’ work and
views have evolved in the past three years, or for that matter how participating
in the symposium may have changed their thinking. Nevertheless, LCTPD is an
excellent starting point and resource for online learning practitioners who are
exploring the application of theoretically- and pedagogically-based approaches
to distance education programs.
Book: Learner-Centered Theory and Practice in Distance Education
Authors: Thomas M. Duffy and Jamie R. Kirkley, editors
Format: Cloth
Publication Date: 2004
ISBN: 0-8058-4577-1
Available from: Lawrence Erlbaum
Related Web Site: https://www.erlbaum.com/shop/tek9.asp?pg=products&specific=0-8058-4577-1
Reviewed by John Sener, Sloan-C Director of Special Projects
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