Battling the Education Establishment, or How I Learned That Words Don't Matter

So, your humble correspondent finds himself bewitched, bothered and bewildered by a cadre of School of Education (my university doesn't have a "College" of Education) types who have insinuated themselves into certain aspects of online instruction.

Apparently, to pass muster with the paste-eaters, an online course must contain "learning activities [that] provide opportunities for interaction that support active learning." Active learning is education hoop-de-do for "anything other than the student just sitting back and taking it in," and interaction can take one of three forms: student-material, student-instructor, student-student. The course I'm developing has plenty of the first two as well as discussion boards to facilitate the third ... for students who want such.

And therein lies the rub.

Apparently, if you're one of those "experts in education," merely providing "opportunities for" something doesn't rise to the level of providing "opportunities for" that. No, unless student-student interaction has been made mandatory, no opportunity has been provided.

The amazing thing is when you argue with them. "Well, the research shows ..." they'll say. All well and good, says I, but that's not what the standard says. Yes, but if you don't make it mandatory not everyone will do it. Show me in the standard where it says everyone has to do it. Yes, but the research shows ...

I tell you, it's enough to make a man want to open a charter school.

 

What we need are laws that tell you what to teach, and how to teach it. Removes the uncertainty. Shouldn't be more than, sayyyyy, 39,000 pages of legislation.

 

Apparently, to pass muster with the paste-eaters, an online course must contain "learning activities [that] provide opportunities for interaction that support active learning." Active learning is education hoop-de-do for "anything other than the student just sitting back and taking it in,"

Tell them about this site and invite them to interact.

 

As someone who takes those online courses, those discussion posts are insipid and pointless.

 

It was required even in the campus based education courses I took in grad school. Insanely useless "discussions" and "critique" exercises (quotes employed as they were usually neither) forced people, who were often literally sitting next to each other in a classroom, to interact publicly online and generally come up with some nit to pick regardless of actual ability or experience. Tremendous waste of time and it is unfortunate that there is such a disconnect from those designing policy and those implementing it. Countless barrels of virtual ink have been spilled about wrapping the two elements together in a more iterative and holistic model ala many more successful world systems who incorporate the students and teachers into the design phase and feedback loops of policy, but they have fallen on deaf ears over here. American exceptionalism at its worst.

 

I did online MS program with Boston University.
Every course include a weekly online discussion among students. Topics were assigned. Comments were expected to researched and research cited in each post.
Discussion comprised 10-20% of grade for class, so it became mandatory because it represented a significant portion of grade.

 

FYI, if the topics were well chosen within the context and timing of the course, I found it meshed well with the research and other materials I was writing for the larger assignments.
In many ways the initial post on a Tuesday was a means to test a thesis statement for the larger assignment at the end of the week. Back on forth on my post sussed out additional research and viewpoints that contributed to my larger assignment, and I usually used my research to provide a lens through which I viewed and commented upon other's posts.

Some of the posts and comments were poor, and I worked under the assumption that those students were receiving lower scores for that portion of the course work.

 

It's my guess that a discussion on the relative merits of the standard deviation -- "It's what you're supposed to use there." "I agree." -- would be somewhat less than scintillating.