This post is submitted for my Walden University class on distance learning. I was asked to respond to three questions: What do you think the perceptions of distance learning will be in the future (in 5–10 years; 10–20 years)? How can you as an instructional designer be a proponent for improving societal perceptions of distance learning? How will you be a positive force for continuous improvement in the field of distance education?
In the next 5-10 years, I think distance learning will continue to gain traction and respect in academic circles as well as corporate ones, since entire generations of distance-trained students will have moved into decision-making roles in education, business, and government. I don't see this as a hostile takeover or a diplomatic coup; I see it as continued adaptation to new demands and needs. I imagine distance education as an ivy vine that will slowly infiltrate even the bastions of the Ivy League, weaving itself into the fibers of our educational institutions across the board.
Twenty years from now, in 2031, I doubt that the term "distance learning" will continue to hold its present meaning--I expect "distance learning" to become subsumed into our definition of "learning". Traditional instructors will continue to adopt portions of the technology available to them, and "pure" face-to-face classes will become Web-facilitated, then blended... and will, gradually, join with whatever technology replaces the Web in twenty years. I think most educators are already on this road. Will traditional institutions still exist? Absolutely! They might even retain as many students as they have now. But I expect the overall market for education to grow as more and more people gain access to high-quality teaching at a distance, and I think education that incorporates distance will hold a much larger portion of the market than it does today.
Bates (in Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2009, p. 147) advanced a set of "golden rules" to guide instructional designers in developing technology-based instruction, including such ideas as "Good teaching matters", "There is no 'super-technology'", and "New technologies are not necessarily better than old ones". Simonson's version of Bates's final point is worth quoting here: "Technology is not the issue. How and what we want the learners to learn is the issue and technology is a tool (p. 147)." So too with distance learning. I think our responsibility for helping to improve both the image and the substance of distance learning is the same as our duty in any instructional design context: to ask the right questions, to think carefully, and to develop training that is efficient, responsive, and effective at meeting the needs of our learners. Delivering great training is a far better advertisement than any Super Bowl ad or direct mailing scheme.
More directly, what can we do to improve societal perceptions today? My personal commitment is to speak out, frequently, about my experiences as a distant learner with an unimpeachable undergraduate pedigree. I went to one of the finest liberal arts colleges in the United States, and I find my distance Masters program valuable and challenging. I don't whitewash over the problems I see, but neither do I withhold praise where Walden earns it. So I think we can change a lot by offering appropriate personal testimonials. Speaking as an instructional designer, I think an important way to improve perceptions is to make sure that we only propose particular delivery methods with sound reasoning and design to accompany them. If face-to-face instruction is the right choice for a particular topic, we should not hesitate to use it--and we should not agree to "slip by" using distance learning. But similarly, if a topic can be served by distant methods, we should boldly embrace them--and be prepared to explain our reasoning.
As far as being a positive force for pushing distance learning in new directions, I think the best I can say is that I will try. I will try new ideas. I will try to find ways to reach my future learners through technological means, whether that means offering bagpipe lessons at a distance, helping to develop distance-based education for new hikers, pulling Reachout's training toward including more online resources and communication methods, teaching New York's suicide intervention trainers through distant media... or whatever new opportunities arise. I will try. I will try, and I will look unflinchingly at the results. George Piskurich (2006) talks about rapid instructional design not as a one-time process but as a continuous spiral of improvement and analysis--like the successive approximation I learned in physics--and I take that as my model. I will improve distance learning by trying new things, by looking at the results, and by trying again until we reach the goal. That's my plan.
References
Piskurich, G. M. (2006). Rapid instructional design: Learning ID fast and right (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer.
Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2009). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (4th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Converting courses to blended instruction
As part of my MS, I've been asked to prepare a short checklist of ideas and tips for a trainer who's thinking of migrating a face-to-face training program to a blended instructional delivery model. The scenario is pretty free-form, and the only other information is that the trainer wants to make the change because of poor learner communication in the face-to-face class.
I broke my guidelines into four basic areas:
In an ideal world, my hypothetical trainer would follow all of my instructions. In the real world, he might do a few of them--possibly saving his learners from an excruciating videotape-the-lecture snorefest.
Here's the list of guidelines! Click to view.
I broke my guidelines into four basic areas:
- Things to consider before starting the transition
- Areas where distance education can be of benefit
- Changes to the trainer role
- Ways to help facilitate communication among the learners
In an ideal world, my hypothetical trainer would follow all of my instructions. In the real world, he might do a few of them--possibly saving his learners from an excruciating videotape-the-lecture snorefest.
Here's the list of guidelines! Click to view.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
The 'Myth' of eLearning? A reply
Posted in reply to Trent Batson's article, "The Myth of eLearning: There Is No 'There' There". I found Batson's article (and a worthy discussion about it) from Eric Tremblay's excellent blog, E-Learning Acupuncture
Many of Batson's claims about exciting new classroom prospects--coordinating learning done elsewhere, the use of portfolios, focus on written communication and collaboration, authentic learning and assessment--are hallmarks of the distance learning approach. That's intriguing given his flat claim that "distance education is an oxymoron". I wonder if he's reading the same research I am--or whether his claim is based in evidence. I'd love to hear.
The first page of his article seems to devote itself to carving out turf: "distance education is not, and should never be considered, a replacement of traditional on-the-ground learning". The irony is that most distance learning folks aren't interested in _replacing_ F2F universities; the focus is more on providing complementary alternatives, and much of the distance education literature focuses on blended approaches that incorporate both distant and face-to-face contexts.
I agree wholeheartedly with his assertion that employers want people who write well, collaborate well, and are skilled at assessing and handling complicated, difficult problems. I think he's wrong about the idea that in-situ universities are automatically the best way to reach these goals simply by dint of their physical presence.
As a check of concept, if his ideas are correct about the importance of being in a physical community with lots of other learners doing authentic tasks, we should expect that homeschoolers would have significantly poorer assessments than people who went to high schools--after all, the difference between a high school senior and a college freshman is quite small, and homeschoolers don't get a huge physical community with lots of other learners. But we don't see that difference in performance.
Some of Batson's points are excellent. But claiming them as a mandate for campus-based education and a rebuke of distance learning is a rhetorical device, not an evidential one, and it doesn't work for me.
Many of Batson's claims about exciting new classroom prospects--coordinating learning done elsewhere, the use of portfolios, focus on written communication and collaboration, authentic learning and assessment--are hallmarks of the distance learning approach. That's intriguing given his flat claim that "distance education is an oxymoron". I wonder if he's reading the same research I am--or whether his claim is based in evidence. I'd love to hear.
The first page of his article seems to devote itself to carving out turf: "distance education is not, and should never be considered, a replacement of traditional on-the-ground learning". The irony is that most distance learning folks aren't interested in _replacing_ F2F universities; the focus is more on providing complementary alternatives, and much of the distance education literature focuses on blended approaches that incorporate both distant and face-to-face contexts.
I agree wholeheartedly with his assertion that employers want people who write well, collaborate well, and are skilled at assessing and handling complicated, difficult problems. I think he's wrong about the idea that in-situ universities are automatically the best way to reach these goals simply by dint of their physical presence.
As a check of concept, if his ideas are correct about the importance of being in a physical community with lots of other learners doing authentic tasks, we should expect that homeschoolers would have significantly poorer assessments than people who went to high schools--after all, the difference between a high school senior and a college freshman is quite small, and homeschoolers don't get a huge physical community with lots of other learners. But we don't see that difference in performance.
Some of Batson's points are excellent. But claiming them as a mandate for campus-based education and a rebuke of distance learning is a rhetorical device, not an evidential one, and it doesn't work for me.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Selecting Distance Learning Technologies
(for a Walden University assignment: to identify distance learning technologies that would be appropriate for the given situation)
The problem: "In an effort to improve its poor safety record, a biodiesel manufacturing plant needs a series of safety training modules. These stand-alone modules must illustrate best practices on how to safely operate the many pieces of heavy machinery on the plant floor. The modules should involve step-by-step processes and the method of delivery needs to be available to all shifts at the plant. As well, the shift supervisors want to be sure the employees are engaged and can demonstrate their learning from the modules."
To me, the key here is the last sentence: "demonstrate their learning from the modules". Given that we're talking about safety issues, I want to make sure that we don't advocate a strictly online learning format: safety is too important to allow people to "demonstrate" their safety skills solely within the confines of a computer. As such, I want to make sure that floor personnel are invested in the safety factors and willing to participate in an in-person assessment during the training course.
In terms of teaching the information, I like the idea of combining several distance learning concepts: training videos, podcasts, and social media. With training videos, we can show learners exactly how to do the specific tasks associated with biodiesel safety in situ--that is, in the actual factory environment. By breaking the training videos into manageable chunks, we can build them into podcasts that the factory employees can carry with them--either to learn the material at home or, even better, to take it on a portable device and learn the safety concepts while standing on the factory floor. This offers the kind of situated, context-based learning that constructivist theory holds to be valuable.
Finally, we'll use social media concepts to encourage learners to comment on the podcasts with things they've learned from the shop floor. This will help to scaffold new learners, may help us to update or improve the training in future, and also demonstrates that we value the wisdom of experienced workers--which is important for motivation reasons as well as fostering the kind of engagement our clients want to promote. Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, and Zvacek (2009, p. 244) write that collective knowledge, networking, and collaborative combination of wisdom are critically important in developing Web 2.0 learning tools, and I think our training program should take this approach.
Heilesen (2010) completed a literature review of the academic value of podcasting and concluded that, although the evidence supporting academic podcasting is currently weak, there is reason to believe it will improve in future. In particular, he suggests that podcasting may help to shorten completion times and aid retention of material. Schlairet (2010) examined the efficacy of podcasting with regard to retention and learner understanding in a nursing school. She found that podcasting aided both motivation and understanding of technological issues, which makes her findings highly relevant for our proposed safety training in a biodiesel plant.
References
Heilesen, S. B. (2010). What is the academic efficiency of podcasting? Computers & Education, 55(3), 1063-1068. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2010.05.002
Schlairet, M. C. (2010). Efficacy of podcasting: use in undergraduate and graduate programs in a college of nursing. Journal of Nursing Education, 49(9), 529-533. doi:10.3928/01484834-20100524-08
Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2009). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (4th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.
The problem: "In an effort to improve its poor safety record, a biodiesel manufacturing plant needs a series of safety training modules. These stand-alone modules must illustrate best practices on how to safely operate the many pieces of heavy machinery on the plant floor. The modules should involve step-by-step processes and the method of delivery needs to be available to all shifts at the plant. As well, the shift supervisors want to be sure the employees are engaged and can demonstrate their learning from the modules."
To me, the key here is the last sentence: "demonstrate their learning from the modules". Given that we're talking about safety issues, I want to make sure that we don't advocate a strictly online learning format: safety is too important to allow people to "demonstrate" their safety skills solely within the confines of a computer. As such, I want to make sure that floor personnel are invested in the safety factors and willing to participate in an in-person assessment during the training course.
In terms of teaching the information, I like the idea of combining several distance learning concepts: training videos, podcasts, and social media. With training videos, we can show learners exactly how to do the specific tasks associated with biodiesel safety in situ--that is, in the actual factory environment. By breaking the training videos into manageable chunks, we can build them into podcasts that the factory employees can carry with them--either to learn the material at home or, even better, to take it on a portable device and learn the safety concepts while standing on the factory floor. This offers the kind of situated, context-based learning that constructivist theory holds to be valuable.
Finally, we'll use social media concepts to encourage learners to comment on the podcasts with things they've learned from the shop floor. This will help to scaffold new learners, may help us to update or improve the training in future, and also demonstrates that we value the wisdom of experienced workers--which is important for motivation reasons as well as fostering the kind of engagement our clients want to promote. Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, and Zvacek (2009, p. 244) write that collective knowledge, networking, and collaborative combination of wisdom are critically important in developing Web 2.0 learning tools, and I think our training program should take this approach.
Heilesen (2010) completed a literature review of the academic value of podcasting and concluded that, although the evidence supporting academic podcasting is currently weak, there is reason to believe it will improve in future. In particular, he suggests that podcasting may help to shorten completion times and aid retention of material. Schlairet (2010) examined the efficacy of podcasting with regard to retention and learner understanding in a nursing school. She found that podcasting aided both motivation and understanding of technological issues, which makes her findings highly relevant for our proposed safety training in a biodiesel plant.
References
Heilesen, S. B. (2010). What is the academic efficiency of podcasting? Computers & Education, 55(3), 1063-1068. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2010.05.002
Schlairet, M. C. (2010). Efficacy of podcasting: use in undergraduate and graduate programs in a college of nursing. Journal of Nursing Education, 49(9), 529-533. doi:10.3928/01484834-20100524-08
Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2009). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (4th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Defining Distance Learning
(this post is submitted for an assignment in my Walden University course on distance learning. since it is a blog post, I have adopted a less formal tone than I would normally take in academic prose.)
From my early childhood as a computer-savvy youngster (exploring the internet through now-forgotten tools like gopher, Usenet, and Unix talk) to my online Master's program, I have labored long in the vineyards of distance learning. I remember blended distance learning during my time at Swarthmore, when some of my computer science classes with Lisa Meeden used Doug Blank's open source LMS (edventure) and other classes began using Blackboard for readings and discussions. A few years ago, I became a certified Wilderness First Responder through a blended distance program with the Wilderness Medicine Training Center. My sense of distance learning springs from these experiences, which were varied in scope, format, and style. I suppose I reflexively thought of distance learning as, well, what we do here at Walden: I sign into a website, read some texts, write some words, and press 'Send'. But if I had stopped to think--as I now have--I would have remembered all these different experiences of distance learning. In the course of reading my texts for the week, I was surprised by how much space in the literature (e.g., Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2009) seems devoted to arguing about what, specifically, constitutes distance learning. Why is this an important question? For me, distance learning is a moving target: it's a way to use available technology to meet the specific needs of people who aren't always in the same room as their teachers.
I learned from Huett et al (2008) that distance learning is making inroads into K-12 environs, where I would have expected socialization to be of such paramount importance that distance education wouldn't be accepted. Of course, I hated a lot of the social aspects of K-12, so it might not be a bad idea! Although the idea that distance learning is asocial still seems to hold a lot of traction, I think the lack of social interaction in distance education is largely a problem of technology rather than orientation, as I'll explain later.
I'm not sure I believe in the assertion Huett et al (2008) make that we're at a crux point for distance learning, where it will either be accepted or relegated to the dustbin of history. Since our assignment asks what will happen as distance learning continues to evolve, I'll use the language of evolutionary science and say that natural selection will weed out poorer distance learning options, but there isn't reason to believe that the world will select against effective distance learning programs on an evolutionary basis. If we build great distance learning programs now, that's wonderful... but if our first efforts fail, the set of needs that prompted distance learning in the first place--busy people with jobs, families, and wide geographic spread--will still exist. As long as those needs exist, people will continue inventing new methods for serving them, and distance learning will continue.
New forms of distance learning needn't be mutually exclusive. If enough learners want asynchronous online classes, someone will create courses and sell them to meet the need. If enough learners want synchronous online classes conducted by video, someone will build those classes. The pool is big enough for many kinds of swimmers, and I can only see one reason why particular forms of distance learning will disappear: people will lose interest in paying for them. This might happen because those models cost too much to deliver, or because newer technologies supplant them, or because political and social pressure makes them unattractive... but in the end, it all comes back to market value. The global nature of the internet makes it pretty likely that someone, somewhere in the world, will supply whatever form of education people want to buy.
I wonder whether we'll see a return to traditional classroom style teaching, mediated by technology. It's clear that technology has facilitated the rise of distance learning over the past 160 years, but we could also say that available technology has capped distance learning throughout its history. In the days of correspondence courses, the postman represented the apex of communications technology, enabling learners to touch distant points on the globe. But the limitations of the postal system (considered here as a technology) also hindered the development of new forms of distance learning: there was no capacity for real-time distance learning. Fast forward to 2011, and you'll find that technology still plays this dual facilitation/interference role. Thanks to cheap international data transmission and a rise of new profit-making business models, it's possible to video chat with people anywhere on the globe, and we're seeing distance learning models that use this capacity. But the computer systems and data networks aren't yet strong enough to support video chats with 30 other people--so we haven't seen that yet. When the technology advances to that point, perhaps we'll start to see digital classrooms that meet at specified times with 30 students all listening to their instructors via video chat, with concurrent opportunities for live debate and discussion where everyone sees and hears everyone else. Available technology will define the playing field, and it will be up to us to use it.
I hope I've lent the impression that I think of distance learning as a process or a category rather than a specific set of ideas, constructs, or methods. Just as we now enjoy a multitude of options for learning at a distance, the future will offer a plethora of choices--perhaps including some of the formats we use today. I believe that the advent of new technologies will continue to enable ever-changing forms of distance learning, and that the learners themselves will tell us which choices hold value.
Huett, J., Moller, L., Foshay, W., & Coleman, C. (2008). The evolution of distance education: implications for instructional design on the potential of the web (Part 3: K12). TechTrends, 52(5), 63–67.
Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2009). Teaching and learning at a distance: foundations of distance education (4th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.
From my early childhood as a computer-savvy youngster (exploring the internet through now-forgotten tools like gopher, Usenet, and Unix talk) to my online Master's program, I have labored long in the vineyards of distance learning. I remember blended distance learning during my time at Swarthmore, when some of my computer science classes with Lisa Meeden used Doug Blank's open source LMS (edventure) and other classes began using Blackboard for readings and discussions. A few years ago, I became a certified Wilderness First Responder through a blended distance program with the Wilderness Medicine Training Center. My sense of distance learning springs from these experiences, which were varied in scope, format, and style. I suppose I reflexively thought of distance learning as, well, what we do here at Walden: I sign into a website, read some texts, write some words, and press 'Send'. But if I had stopped to think--as I now have--I would have remembered all these different experiences of distance learning. In the course of reading my texts for the week, I was surprised by how much space in the literature (e.g., Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2009) seems devoted to arguing about what, specifically, constitutes distance learning. Why is this an important question? For me, distance learning is a moving target: it's a way to use available technology to meet the specific needs of people who aren't always in the same room as their teachers.
I learned from Huett et al (2008) that distance learning is making inroads into K-12 environs, where I would have expected socialization to be of such paramount importance that distance education wouldn't be accepted. Of course, I hated a lot of the social aspects of K-12, so it might not be a bad idea! Although the idea that distance learning is asocial still seems to hold a lot of traction, I think the lack of social interaction in distance education is largely a problem of technology rather than orientation, as I'll explain later.
I'm not sure I believe in the assertion Huett et al (2008) make that we're at a crux point for distance learning, where it will either be accepted or relegated to the dustbin of history. Since our assignment asks what will happen as distance learning continues to evolve, I'll use the language of evolutionary science and say that natural selection will weed out poorer distance learning options, but there isn't reason to believe that the world will select against effective distance learning programs on an evolutionary basis. If we build great distance learning programs now, that's wonderful... but if our first efforts fail, the set of needs that prompted distance learning in the first place--busy people with jobs, families, and wide geographic spread--will still exist. As long as those needs exist, people will continue inventing new methods for serving them, and distance learning will continue.
New forms of distance learning needn't be mutually exclusive. If enough learners want asynchronous online classes, someone will create courses and sell them to meet the need. If enough learners want synchronous online classes conducted by video, someone will build those classes. The pool is big enough for many kinds of swimmers, and I can only see one reason why particular forms of distance learning will disappear: people will lose interest in paying for them. This might happen because those models cost too much to deliver, or because newer technologies supplant them, or because political and social pressure makes them unattractive... but in the end, it all comes back to market value. The global nature of the internet makes it pretty likely that someone, somewhere in the world, will supply whatever form of education people want to buy.
I wonder whether we'll see a return to traditional classroom style teaching, mediated by technology. It's clear that technology has facilitated the rise of distance learning over the past 160 years, but we could also say that available technology has capped distance learning throughout its history. In the days of correspondence courses, the postman represented the apex of communications technology, enabling learners to touch distant points on the globe. But the limitations of the postal system (considered here as a technology) also hindered the development of new forms of distance learning: there was no capacity for real-time distance learning. Fast forward to 2011, and you'll find that technology still plays this dual facilitation/interference role. Thanks to cheap international data transmission and a rise of new profit-making business models, it's possible to video chat with people anywhere on the globe, and we're seeing distance learning models that use this capacity. But the computer systems and data networks aren't yet strong enough to support video chats with 30 other people--so we haven't seen that yet. When the technology advances to that point, perhaps we'll start to see digital classrooms that meet at specified times with 30 students all listening to their instructors via video chat, with concurrent opportunities for live debate and discussion where everyone sees and hears everyone else. Available technology will define the playing field, and it will be up to us to use it.
I hope I've lent the impression that I think of distance learning as a process or a category rather than a specific set of ideas, constructs, or methods. Just as we now enjoy a multitude of options for learning at a distance, the future will offer a plethora of choices--perhaps including some of the formats we use today. I believe that the advent of new technologies will continue to enable ever-changing forms of distance learning, and that the learners themselves will tell us which choices hold value.
| Concept map - Click to view full-size |
References
Huett, J., Moller, L., Foshay, W., & Coleman, C. (2008). The evolution of distance education: implications for instructional design on the potential of the web (Part 3: K12). TechTrends, 52(5), 63–67.
Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2009). Teaching and learning at a distance: foundations of distance education (4th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
TSA needs some instructional designers!
Hi friends,
If you live in the USA, you've doubtless heard something of the furor concerning the new AIT/backscatter image scanners in some of our airports, and the contemporaneous development of "enhanced" patdowns--which many people have compared to groping or sexual assault. Outrage is high, lines are long, and it seems as though the Transportation Security Administration may finally have gone too far.
But the interesting thing comes from Department of Homeland Security's internal proceedings, as reported by the American Civil Liberties Union. Many of the complaints listed refer to training design: TSA made no plans to update its training, did not train TSOs (officers) to use the current equipment, did not provide TSOs with time to complete required trainings, and most importantly, developed training assessments in such a way that TSOs were able to merely sign a declaration affirming that they had completed the training and learned the materials (Ito, 2010).
That's right: their training methods apparently include no final assessment of learner capabilities, and rely solely on signed statements that the learners have understood it all. It also sounds like their recurrent training program consists of reading materials alone, without any sort of practical experience or assessment.
Perhaps an instructional design team could have helped them to avoid the current fiasco. (Yes, this is tongue-in-cheek, but I think there's also some truth to it. The way that agencies choose to support or ignore their training needs has lasting impact on their relationships with the public, and they need to pay attention.)
References:
Ito, S. (2010, November 17). TSA has no time to train its screeners. Retrieved from http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty/tsa-has-no-time-train-its-screeners .
If you live in the USA, you've doubtless heard something of the furor concerning the new AIT/backscatter image scanners in some of our airports, and the contemporaneous development of "enhanced" patdowns--which many people have compared to groping or sexual assault. Outrage is high, lines are long, and it seems as though the Transportation Security Administration may finally have gone too far.
 |
| Image from Furry Girl/feminisnt.com |
That's right: their training methods apparently include no final assessment of learner capabilities, and rely solely on signed statements that the learners have understood it all. It also sounds like their recurrent training program consists of reading materials alone, without any sort of practical experience or assessment.
Perhaps an instructional design team could have helped them to avoid the current fiasco. (Yes, this is tongue-in-cheek, but I think there's also some truth to it. The way that agencies choose to support or ignore their training needs has lasting impact on their relationships with the public, and they need to pay attention.)
References:
Ito, S. (2010, November 17). TSA has no time to train its screeners. Retrieved from http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty/tsa-has-no-time-train-its-screeners .
Thursday, July 8, 2010
What makes teachers great? (survey data)
Introduction
I spent a lot of time last month thinking about what it is that makes teachers great. My graduate schooling focuses on the value of instructional design--which is to say that we're primarily concerned with the curriculum rather than its delivery. The actual concept gets a lot fuzzier than that, but there it is.
I really believe in the power of teachers, though. Although it makes me crazy when teachers claim credit for their students' accomplishments (we need to avoid the savior complex, folks), I think that good teachers offer truly marvelous gifts to their students. I had a few teachers who fundamentally altered the way I saw my place in the world, and at least one who saved my life. For Mr. Bryan Thompson, my first-grade teacher, I offer this thanks: I would probably not be here today if it weren't you. Thank you.
In thinking about teachers like Mr. Thompson, I started wondering: what is it that students value in their teachers? Is it the same thing that school boards value? See, teaching is a funny thing. We rely on teachers to offer us all kinds of subject knowledge, but some of them seem to go further and share wisdom or hope or compassion or something more than the simple result of focused intelligence. Some of them change more than our brains. How do they do it?
I trace the path of my life through several branching points where a truly great teacher helped me find my own way. I wondered if other students shared this sense of having been "guided" by their teachers, not in the sense of "guidelines" that we have to follow, but of a "guide book" that shows us what's possible.
So I created this survey. I was surprised by how quickly the responses came in--it turns out that people love to talk about their favorite teachers! (I was also surprised to learn that SurveyMonkey starts charging you money after you receive a certain number of responses). The results surprised me.
Caveats, disclaimers, and it's-not-our-faults
The survey is not perfect. I did the best I could with it, but I have not yet taken research methods or statistics. I tried to reduce bias in the questions, but it's imperfect. I'm also not going to show you all the free-text responses directly, since people wrote some astonishingly personal things about themselves. So the analysis on that stuff is mine.
Also, if reading this analysis ruins your life (or makes you want to become a teacher), it's not my fault. Srsly.
Survey design
Method. The survey was conducted using SurveyMonkey, a free Internet-based tool that allows, well, free surveys. It provides rudimentary statistics (deeper ones are available for a fee) and allows the tracking of individual responses (i.e., it's possible to see each respondent's answers to all the questions, separately).
I tried to eliminate bias in the phrasing of questions, and also tried to make sure that choices were similar in scope and tone. I also set the survey to randomize the presentation order of most choices. Some questions allowed free-text "Other (please specify)" options.
Confounding variables. I posted the survey address to my Facebook profile and asked my friends to fill it out and then share it with their friends. Initially, most respondents were first-order friends of mine. As time drew on, more and more responses came from nth-order friends (those with distant, unknown connections to me). The issue here is that I am not friends with a random distribution of people, nor are my friends. Some themes that run through my friends list: students at elite universities; musicians; actors; people who volunteer or work at crisis hotlines; backpacking aficionados; people who live in northern New York, Scotland, or Philadelphia. Make of this information what you will.
Survey data and analysis
In total, 111 people responded to the survey. SurveyMonkey will only let me see the results of the first 100 responses without paying a fee. Given the relatively small difference in responses, I am reluctant to pay--but I would be willing to buy in if people felt it was important, especially if they were willing to contribute to the cost. In any case, this analysis draws only on the first 100 responses (which means that all percentages are also raw counts).
Question 1 asked for simple demographic information. 66 people provided it; 34 chose to skip the question.
Question 2: Highest education level
2. What's your highest level of formal education?
The interesting thing here is that our sample size is highly educated and, to my eye, unusually so. 57% of respondents have done some form of graduate education, which seems high for the general populace. There exists the possibility that this group of people holds especially passionate views about teachers, given its predilection for advanced education.
Question 3. Type of schools
3. Looking at your primary and secondary education (before college), what kind of schools did you attend? (check all that apply)
The interesting thing here is that nearly everyone spent some time in public school. Since this is "check all", the totals add up to more than 100%. It would be interesting to see, in follow-up research, where the highest incidence of "really great teachers" occurs (in terms of school type) after normalizing the data for population size. I think a lot of us hold the belief that the best teachers are found in private schools, and that homeschooling isn't as focused on teachers. It would be interesting to see.
Question 4: Number of great teachers
4. Think back to the best teachers you've ever had. Think of the people who really changed your life in some way, or inspired you, or gave you the kick in the pants you really needed. They might be formal classroom teachers; they might be mentors; they might be employers; they might be neighbors. How many great teachers did you have BEFORE college?
I left this question deliberately open to interpretation because I wanted to isolate the variable (presented later) of what went into being a great teacher. This is just a count.
Question 5. What subjects great teachers teach
5. Thinking of those great teachers, what subjects did they teach? Alternatively, what was their field of expertise? Check as many as apply. If you had several great teachers, or your teachers had many specialties, check as many boxes as you like--but only think of the _really_ good teachers.
Teachers everywhere, take heart! No matter what you teach, there is room for good teachers. Every category had at least one really great teacher in it, which was interesting given how few students take classes in, e.g., agriculture. Remember, also, that these statistics are not normalized: I did not think to ask how many students took each class. So, for example, I can't tell whether English has a high percentage because English teachers are especially amazing or because everyone has to take English.
That said, I was surprised by the results here. I expected to see that "creative" disciplines like music and art would take the lion's share here, which probably reflects my own bias as an occasional music teacher. But the neat thing is that every field of study across a typical school had quite a few great teachers.
The top five: English (57%), music (45%), social studies/history/government (44%), elementary school (42%), and physical sciences (37%). Mathematics is just behind, with 34%.
To me, this says pretty clearly that, in the eyes of learners, great teaching is about the person, not the subject.
Question 6: What makes teachers effective
6. What was it about those teachers that made them so effective for you? Do you have a sense of why their messages really got through for you? Alternatively, what made the great teachers different from the mediocre ones? This question is optional, but I would love it if you would answer!
This was a free-text question, so I have no statistics to offer you. A few general themes emerged, though, and I'll present them with quotations from respondents.
"They didn't just teach the subject content, they taught about life. They were able to put the content aside when necessary and teach life lessons - while they were passionate about their subject, they knew that there was life beyond it." "I could always tell the difference between a teacher who was there because it was their 'job' and a teacher that was there because they really loved to teach and cared if they made a difference."
If you're a teacher, you've probably spent some time wondering whether it really matters how hard you try, and wondering whether your students notice. They do. Really. The responses for this question were 20 pages long, and I wish I could share them all with you. Students notice, they care, and they remember for their entire lives. It matters.
I find it interesting that, although I didn't impose any structure on the responses, they fell into broad categories that pretty much mirrored my later questions. One general theme that wove through a lot of responses was the concept of treating students as whole people: learners who also have to live in the world, who are trying to puzzle it out, and who need sturdy guides. Respect is a pretty big theme in many responses, as is love. Love is a dangerous word in schools these days, but we seem to need it--and it seems like we withhold it at some peril. Note that I'm not advocating anything untoward here--I'm just saying that we seem hungry for the knowledge that our teachers care about us.
Question 7: Influence on profession
7. Was your choice of profession (or direction of study) directly influenced by one of those great teachers?
Depending on how you count the "Others", we see somewhere between 65% and 81% of respondents choosing their life directions based on a few great teachers. That's a pretty hefty impact. Follow-up studies might explore what people mean when they say that someone influenced their decision, and what that means in terms of actions.
Question 8: What matters most
8. This is a total cheap-shot question, and it's exactly the kind that we all hate survey designers for writing. Sorry. Assume for the sake of discussion that all teachers are adequately qualified to teach their subjects, meaning that they possess adequate subject expertise and sufficient teaching ability to convey that expertise in a classroom. Above and beyond that, which of these qualities is MOST important for a truly great teacher? (i.e. which of these best differentiates great teachers from adequate ones?)
Wordiest. question. ever. Seriously, I should have made the question shorter. But there it is.
I think it's fascinating that visible excitement about the subject trashes all other options, especially when we consider the variety of subjects taught (Question 5). Not only do we love the music teacher who's out gigging on the weekends, but we also love the chemistry teacher who's giggling in the corner as she makes baking soda volcanoes, the math teacher who runs a website on how to solve brain teasers, the history teacher who publishes analyses of thirteenth-century combat tactics, and the gym teacher who plays five sports and coaches six more. We love teachers who show us something of themselves, who make it obvious why they chose this profession.
And we love teachers who connect with us on a personal level. We don't seem to care as much about whether they're geniuses in their subjects, although several people expressed scorn for teachers who didn't seem to know their craft and, e.g., gave credit for history papers about fictitious battles between countries that don't exist. But subject area knowledge seems like a sufficiency condition, not a demand in itself.
This question forced people to rank their priorities, which was uncomfortable for many people. I got a number of nasty emails for making people choose. Whatever else it shows, it seems clear that we rank the "soft" skills (passion and personal connection) vastly higher than the "professional" ones, at least when it comes to separating the truly great teachers from the rest of the flock.
Conclusions
I'm fascinated by the results, and I would love to study this more. I expected that visible excitement would be important, but I had no idea it would be such a clear winner. I wonder how we measure it. How do you tell whether I care about my subject? Is it the same way someone else would figure it out? How did those teachers establish a good rapport with students? I teach crisis counseling and suicide intervention in my day job, which means that I spend a good part of my professional life teaching people how to establish rapport. Should I be offering to help teachers keep that skill polished?
Lots of teachers wonder whether their work really matters--it's so hard to know whether we're doing a good job, especially since our "products" tend to move around and defy categorization. For 100 Facebook users, it seems like teachers really did matter. Every one of us had a teacher who fundamentally changed some aspect of our lives for the better.
So what do the results mean we should do differently? You're free to make your own choices about that, but for me? I'm going to make sure I show my students why I care so much about teaching them. I'm going to tell them why I turned down more lucrative job opportunities so I could share what I know. And I'm going to keep making it a priority to know them on a personal level.
Epilogue
Did you learn something from this? Tell me! Leave a comment on the blog, or email me at hollis easter at g mail dot com. Have some ideas for the next thing to study? Let's hear 'em! I would love to see whether the same results hold true for a larger data set. If you're interested too, let's see if we can find funding to make it happen. It won't take a lot of money.
I think these results are pretty interesting, and I hope you do too! Pass the link on to a teacher you know, or post it to your Facebook page. Let's talk.
There was one really neat side effect of this project. A lot of respondents wrote in afterward and told me that the survey gave them the push they needed to go thank those teachers who meant so much to them. There's a challenge there for us all: to give thanks for the gifts others offered us. I'm going to work on doing it more; will you join me?
Finally, I triple-dog-dare someone to cite this research in an academic paper.
Thanks for reading.
Hollis
I spent a lot of time last month thinking about what it is that makes teachers great. My graduate schooling focuses on the value of instructional design--which is to say that we're primarily concerned with the curriculum rather than its delivery. The actual concept gets a lot fuzzier than that, but there it is.
I really believe in the power of teachers, though. Although it makes me crazy when teachers claim credit for their students' accomplishments (we need to avoid the savior complex, folks), I think that good teachers offer truly marvelous gifts to their students. I had a few teachers who fundamentally altered the way I saw my place in the world, and at least one who saved my life. For Mr. Bryan Thompson, my first-grade teacher, I offer this thanks: I would probably not be here today if it weren't you. Thank you.
In thinking about teachers like Mr. Thompson, I started wondering: what is it that students value in their teachers? Is it the same thing that school boards value? See, teaching is a funny thing. We rely on teachers to offer us all kinds of subject knowledge, but some of them seem to go further and share wisdom or hope or compassion or something more than the simple result of focused intelligence. Some of them change more than our brains. How do they do it?
I trace the path of my life through several branching points where a truly great teacher helped me find my own way. I wondered if other students shared this sense of having been "guided" by their teachers, not in the sense of "guidelines" that we have to follow, but of a "guide book" that shows us what's possible.
So I created this survey. I was surprised by how quickly the responses came in--it turns out that people love to talk about their favorite teachers! (I was also surprised to learn that SurveyMonkey starts charging you money after you receive a certain number of responses). The results surprised me.
Caveats, disclaimers, and it's-not-our-faults
The survey is not perfect. I did the best I could with it, but I have not yet taken research methods or statistics. I tried to reduce bias in the questions, but it's imperfect. I'm also not going to show you all the free-text responses directly, since people wrote some astonishingly personal things about themselves. So the analysis on that stuff is mine.
Also, if reading this analysis ruins your life (or makes you want to become a teacher), it's not my fault. Srsly.
Survey design
Method. The survey was conducted using SurveyMonkey, a free Internet-based tool that allows, well, free surveys. It provides rudimentary statistics (deeper ones are available for a fee) and allows the tracking of individual responses (i.e., it's possible to see each respondent's answers to all the questions, separately).
I tried to eliminate bias in the phrasing of questions, and also tried to make sure that choices were similar in scope and tone. I also set the survey to randomize the presentation order of most choices. Some questions allowed free-text "Other (please specify)" options.
Confounding variables. I posted the survey address to my Facebook profile and asked my friends to fill it out and then share it with their friends. Initially, most respondents were first-order friends of mine. As time drew on, more and more responses came from nth-order friends (those with distant, unknown connections to me). The issue here is that I am not friends with a random distribution of people, nor are my friends. Some themes that run through my friends list: students at elite universities; musicians; actors; people who volunteer or work at crisis hotlines; backpacking aficionados; people who live in northern New York, Scotland, or Philadelphia. Make of this information what you will.
Survey data and analysis
In total, 111 people responded to the survey. SurveyMonkey will only let me see the results of the first 100 responses without paying a fee. Given the relatively small difference in responses, I am reluctant to pay--but I would be willing to buy in if people felt it was important, especially if they were willing to contribute to the cost. In any case, this analysis draws only on the first 100 responses (which means that all percentages are also raw counts).
Question 1 asked for simple demographic information. 66 people provided it; 34 chose to skip the question.
Question 2: Highest education level
2. What's your highest level of formal education?
- Middle school (finished 8th grade): 0%
- High school (finished 12th grade): 2%
- Partial college/university: 12%
- Associate's degree: 3%
- Bachelor's degree: 24%
- Partial graduate school: 8%
- Master's degree: 30%
- ABD doctoral studies: 5%
- Doctoral degree: 10%
- Post-doctoral studies: 1%
- Other: 5%
The interesting thing here is that our sample size is highly educated and, to my eye, unusually so. 57% of respondents have done some form of graduate education, which seems high for the general populace. There exists the possibility that this group of people holds especially passionate views about teachers, given its predilection for advanced education.
Question 3. Type of schools
3. Looking at your primary and secondary education (before college), what kind of schools did you attend? (check all that apply)
- Public school (usually organized by geographic boundaries): 93%
- Private school: 19%
- Home schooling: 3%
- Summer camps focused on a learning topic (music camp, sports camp, art camp, math camp, CTY, Scout camp, etc.): 25%
- Other (please specify): 5%
The interesting thing here is that nearly everyone spent some time in public school. Since this is "check all", the totals add up to more than 100%. It would be interesting to see, in follow-up research, where the highest incidence of "really great teachers" occurs (in terms of school type) after normalizing the data for population size. I think a lot of us hold the belief that the best teachers are found in private schools, and that homeschooling isn't as focused on teachers. It would be interesting to see.
Question 4: Number of great teachers
4. Think back to the best teachers you've ever had. Think of the people who really changed your life in some way, or inspired you, or gave you the kick in the pants you really needed. They might be formal classroom teachers; they might be mentors; they might be employers; they might be neighbors. How many great teachers did you have BEFORE college?
- 0: 1%
- 1: 5%
- 2: 18%
- 3-5: 49%
- 6-10: 18%
- More than 10: 9%
I left this question deliberately open to interpretation because I wanted to isolate the variable (presented later) of what went into being a great teacher. This is just a count.
Question 5. What subjects great teachers teach
5. Thinking of those great teachers, what subjects did they teach? Alternatively, what was their field of expertise? Check as many as apply. If you had several great teachers, or your teachers had many specialties, check as many boxes as you like--but only think of the _really_ good teachers.
- Mathematics: 34%
- Physical sciences (physics, chemistry, earth science, biology, etc.): 37%
- Technology/shop class: 4%
- Agriculture: 1%
- Physical education/sports: 5%
- Music (music performance, music history, etc.): 45%
- Dance: 2%
- Art (studio art, art history, etc.): 12%
- Social studies/history/government: 44%
- English: 57%
- Economics: 3%
- Foreign languages: 21%
- Health: 2%
- Elementary school (where you had the same teacher for every subject all year): 42%
- Vocational skills: 2%
- Religious studies: 4%
- Extracurricular activities: 18%
- Other (please specify): 15%
Teachers everywhere, take heart! No matter what you teach, there is room for good teachers. Every category had at least one really great teacher in it, which was interesting given how few students take classes in, e.g., agriculture. Remember, also, that these statistics are not normalized: I did not think to ask how many students took each class. So, for example, I can't tell whether English has a high percentage because English teachers are especially amazing or because everyone has to take English.
That said, I was surprised by the results here. I expected to see that "creative" disciplines like music and art would take the lion's share here, which probably reflects my own bias as an occasional music teacher. But the neat thing is that every field of study across a typical school had quite a few great teachers.
The top five: English (57%), music (45%), social studies/history/government (44%), elementary school (42%), and physical sciences (37%). Mathematics is just behind, with 34%.
To me, this says pretty clearly that, in the eyes of learners, great teaching is about the person, not the subject.
Question 6: What makes teachers effective
6. What was it about those teachers that made them so effective for you? Do you have a sense of why their messages really got through for you? Alternatively, what made the great teachers different from the mediocre ones? This question is optional, but I would love it if you would answer!
This was a free-text question, so I have no statistics to offer you. A few general themes emerged, though, and I'll present them with quotations from respondents.
"What made it exceptional was their love for what they were doing". "The positive energy they gave out and obvious sense of wanting students to succeed." "Teachers that found a way to challenge me." ". . . it was simply teachers that demanded my own thought and effort to the practice . . . in order to be successful." "She had faith in me." "She gave me confidence and the where-withall to ask why? I don't think I had a real 'Me' personality before her."
"They were creative, enthusiastic and passionate... And had a great sense of humor" ". . . took extra time with the kids that needed it. They sacrificed their time, to make sure that the kids knew the material before moving on with the rest of the work." "I think she tricked us into thinking that [subject] was easy." "No one ever felt stupid in her room." "They went out of their way to help me." "Because of his encouragement, I am a [professional] today."
"Teachers who enjoy teaching can make learning magical." "They were both curmudgeons. They didn't bend over backward to make the class 'enjoyable' for every single person, but if you invested time/attention you would get a lot out of their classes." "Great teachers challenge you to leave your comfort zone." "They responded to the unique in me." "My great teachers held us up to high standards, [and] gave praise only when it was due". "The great teachers saw that I was bored and preoccupied, rather than disrespectful or 'bad'." "They were also fearlessly quirky, and had great senses of humor."
"They didn't just teach the subject content, they taught about life. They were able to put the content aside when necessary and teach life lessons - while they were passionate about their subject, they knew that there was life beyond it." "I could always tell the difference between a teacher who was there because it was their 'job' and a teacher that was there because they really loved to teach and cared if they made a difference."
If you're a teacher, you've probably spent some time wondering whether it really matters how hard you try, and wondering whether your students notice. They do. Really. The responses for this question were 20 pages long, and I wish I could share them all with you. Students notice, they care, and they remember for their entire lives. It matters.
I find it interesting that, although I didn't impose any structure on the responses, they fell into broad categories that pretty much mirrored my later questions. One general theme that wove through a lot of responses was the concept of treating students as whole people: learners who also have to live in the world, who are trying to puzzle it out, and who need sturdy guides. Respect is a pretty big theme in many responses, as is love. Love is a dangerous word in schools these days, but we seem to need it--and it seems like we withhold it at some peril. Note that I'm not advocating anything untoward here--I'm just saying that we seem hungry for the knowledge that our teachers care about us.
Question 7: Influence on profession
7. Was your choice of profession (or direction of study) directly influenced by one of those great teachers?
- Yes, and I chose to do what they do: 33%
- Yes, even though I chose to follow a different path: 32%
- No, they didn't influence my decision: 19%
- Other (please specify): 16%
Depending on how you count the "Others", we see somewhere between 65% and 81% of respondents choosing their life directions based on a few great teachers. That's a pretty hefty impact. Follow-up studies might explore what people mean when they say that someone influenced their decision, and what that means in terms of actions.
Question 8: What matters most
8. This is a total cheap-shot question, and it's exactly the kind that we all hate survey designers for writing. Sorry. Assume for the sake of discussion that all teachers are adequately qualified to teach their subjects, meaning that they possess adequate subject expertise and sufficient teaching ability to convey that expertise in a classroom. Above and beyond that, which of these qualities is MOST important for a truly great teacher? (i.e. which of these best differentiates great teachers from adequate ones?)
- Mastery of the subject (as evidenced by knowledge): 3%
- Mastery of the subject (as evidenced by advanced degrees): 0%
- Visible excitement about/passion for the subject: 42%
- Strong personal rapport with students: 27%
- Ability to provide instruction that reaches most students: 13%
- Other (please specify): 15%
Wordiest. question. ever. Seriously, I should have made the question shorter. But there it is.
I think it's fascinating that visible excitement about the subject trashes all other options, especially when we consider the variety of subjects taught (Question 5). Not only do we love the music teacher who's out gigging on the weekends, but we also love the chemistry teacher who's giggling in the corner as she makes baking soda volcanoes, the math teacher who runs a website on how to solve brain teasers, the history teacher who publishes analyses of thirteenth-century combat tactics, and the gym teacher who plays five sports and coaches six more. We love teachers who show us something of themselves, who make it obvious why they chose this profession.
And we love teachers who connect with us on a personal level. We don't seem to care as much about whether they're geniuses in their subjects, although several people expressed scorn for teachers who didn't seem to know their craft and, e.g., gave credit for history papers about fictitious battles between countries that don't exist. But subject area knowledge seems like a sufficiency condition, not a demand in itself.
This question forced people to rank their priorities, which was uncomfortable for many people. I got a number of nasty emails for making people choose. Whatever else it shows, it seems clear that we rank the "soft" skills (passion and personal connection) vastly higher than the "professional" ones, at least when it comes to separating the truly great teachers from the rest of the flock.
Conclusions
I'm fascinated by the results, and I would love to study this more. I expected that visible excitement would be important, but I had no idea it would be such a clear winner. I wonder how we measure it. How do you tell whether I care about my subject? Is it the same way someone else would figure it out? How did those teachers establish a good rapport with students? I teach crisis counseling and suicide intervention in my day job, which means that I spend a good part of my professional life teaching people how to establish rapport. Should I be offering to help teachers keep that skill polished?
Lots of teachers wonder whether their work really matters--it's so hard to know whether we're doing a good job, especially since our "products" tend to move around and defy categorization. For 100 Facebook users, it seems like teachers really did matter. Every one of us had a teacher who fundamentally changed some aspect of our lives for the better.
So what do the results mean we should do differently? You're free to make your own choices about that, but for me? I'm going to make sure I show my students why I care so much about teaching them. I'm going to tell them why I turned down more lucrative job opportunities so I could share what I know. And I'm going to keep making it a priority to know them on a personal level.
Epilogue
Did you learn something from this? Tell me! Leave a comment on the blog, or email me at hollis easter at g mail dot com. Have some ideas for the next thing to study? Let's hear 'em! I would love to see whether the same results hold true for a larger data set. If you're interested too, let's see if we can find funding to make it happen. It won't take a lot of money.
I think these results are pretty interesting, and I hope you do too! Pass the link on to a teacher you know, or post it to your Facebook page. Let's talk.
There was one really neat side effect of this project. A lot of respondents wrote in afterward and told me that the survey gave them the push they needed to go thank those teachers who meant so much to them. There's a challenge there for us all: to give thanks for the gifts others offered us. I'm going to work on doing it more; will you join me?
Finally, I triple-dog-dare someone to cite this research in an academic paper.
Thanks for reading.
Hollis
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