Hello, and welcome to Teaching, a weekly newsletter from The Chronicle of Higher Education. Today, Beth shares the findings of an analysis of the online offerings at three community colleges and three public research universities. Then Dan passes along some recent research you might want to be aware of, as well as a few book suggestions you’ve shared with us. Let’s get started.
Better Approaches to Digital Learning
Debates around online education often get stuck on the question of whether it’s as good as face-to-face learning. Perhaps the better question is, How can online education get better? After all, many students choose online courses for their convenience, and in-person classes are often not an option for them. More than six million people take online courses each year, including one of every four undergraduates.
“Making Digital Learning Work: Success Strategies From Six Leading Universities and Community Colleges” wades into those waters with a study of three community colleges and three public research universities, all of which have at least 20,000 students, and enroll significant percentages of Pell-eligible students and students who take online classes. The authors crunched a lot of data to determine how digital technologies affect access, student outcomes, and return on investment.
First, the good news. Researchers from Arizona State University and the Boston Consulting Group found that online education can boost retention and graduation rates, while saving students time and money. But — and this is a big one — to be successful, colleges need to develop a variety of delivery models to match students’ needs, and make significant investments in things like instructional design and student support services. In other words, don’t expect a series of videotaped lectures to get the job done.
A lot of the report is aimed at higher-education leaders who want to think strategically about ROI. But I’ll focus here on a few things that are most relevant to our readers, those on the front lines of teaching.
Colleges in the study reported higher retention and graduation rates — as well as faster time to degree — for students who took at least some courses online. This lines up with research out of the State University of New York system, which found that a blend of online and face-to-face classes seems to work best for many students. The digital-learning study also found that the student body becomes more diverse with online offerings: They draw more older students, women, and Pell Grant recipients.
High-quality digital courses don’t just happen, the report notes. They require instructional designers, data analysts, multimedia experts, and strong student-support staff. The colleges in this study were willing to invest quite a bit of money: The University of Central Florida, for example, spends more than $8 million a year on its 90-member staff in its Center for Distributed Learning. Working with a team of specialists can provide a faculty member with valuable expertise in the areas of learning science, course design, and technology, while ensuring a level of consistency for students taking digital courses. Those additional investments, the report found, can be offset by reduced overall delivery costs (namely, larger class sizes, fewer physical facilities, and potentially greater use of adjuncts).
A number of colleges also build online tutoring and coaching into their online courses. And some give faculty members the technology needed to provide personalized feedback to students — which is often critical to maintain engagement with online students.
Faculty members are often hesitant to try online teaching, but the study found that successful institutions engage senior professors early, take a collaborative approach to decision making, support strong professional-development programs, and offer incentives like additional pay or course release to help smooth that path.
If you want to dive into how particular colleges handle these issues, the report includes short case studies of each institution. I’m also interested in hearing your stories about going digital. What did you find useful — or wish you had available — when you began teaching online, or made part of your course digital? Did you get training and, if so, what about it was particularly valuable? Email me at beth.mcmurtrie@chronicle.com and we may share some of your stories in an upcoming newsletter.