Throughout my paper,there are a few debates, but my focus isn't on the debates. My focus is on a solution to the problem at hand. To better understand a solution, I supposed I should look closely at the debates in detail. First, the debate between university and professors. The university wants to expand the online course selection and create revenue through enrolling students online. In opposition, many teachers are hesitant to teach these classes because a.) they are scared of the unknown and b.) failure rates are high. This leads to creating a better system for teaching professors how to teach online classes so that every teacher for an online class is educated on how to lead an online class in the best way possible. Also, requirements will be stricter to take online classes so these teachers are working with students who strive to do well instead of slackers who think online classes are an easy solution to traditional classes.
Another debate is between students and teachers. Is it the teacher's responsibility to motivate students to try harder in classes or is it solely the student's responsibility to strive to do well in classes? Although it is obvious that the student must try to do well in classes, online classes are a relatively new approach to higher education and the kinks in the system need to be worked out before placing all the blame on the students. Yes, it is important to limit the student body of online classes to students who will understand the work load of an online class, but more work has to be done before any true blame is placed on anyone. Teachers need to figure out a way to positively motivate students through certain methods that need to be transcribed to an online course. Once all possible measures have been taken to strengthen the system, then we can assume the failure is the fault of the student and not the class or the teacher. Again, it is very important to strictly limit which students take online classes. If it is true that many students that fail online classes also fail other classes consistently, then making the students meet certain requirements will eliminate this pool of students.
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I'd encourage you to look for debates in the scholarly literature regarding ways of motivating online learners. For example: I have heard people talk about "online learning communities" (getting students to feel committed to other members of the class as you would in a physical community of neighbors) as a potential motivating factor. Do people debate this issue? I assume they do -- scholars love to debate. What are the lines of debate regarding motivating online learners?
ReplyDeleteI think you are right to point out the implicitly opposed perspectives of professors and students surrounding the question of motivation. But it is not useful to focus on that opposition or to call it a "debate," since it does not make a difference in the end who is most "at fault" when students do not succeed in online classes. Yes, saying "it's the student's fault" does justify continuing to offer online courses when the failure rate is so high. But the focus should be on how we can lower the failure rate -- and the debate that matters is over what approach has the best chance of succeeding at that.
ReplyDeleteWhen you step back from the issue and adopt an academic perspective, or the perspective of an administrator, you recognize that the only questions that matter are the ones that can make a difference in how online courses are taught to encourage success. Since we cannot control how students feel and should not be out to blame students for their failures, we can at least take steps to address the behavior: perhaps by trying to select students most motivated to succeed online, or designing courses that motivate success. Therefore, the debates that should be the focus of your paper are the debates among those positing different theories of motivation -- especially motivation in online education -- that can help explain what makes some online classes succeed and others fail.
I hope that helps. In some ways, this is a more complex example of the perspective problems I am seeing more widely among students at this stage and which I plan to write about in our blog in the next couple of days (look for my next post).
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