Pre-Consulting

As part of the service offered by Paradox, there is a free, first-time consultation session. In this session, I meet with the prospective client to see what interests, ambitions, and resources clients have with regard to pursuing an online education in Williams Lake. I ask several standard questions to get a rough idea of these things, such as:

1. What is your current education level?
2. What is the area of study (discipline) you would like to pursue?
   
3. What are your ultimate reasons for continuing your education?
4. What educational goals do you have?
5. Do you know others who are interested in pursuing the same or similar goals?

As the answers to these questions are discussed, there are several other factors that may come into the discussion. These are often seen to be constraints that prevent clients from achieving their educational goals. Among these are:

• schedule (work, family, etc.),
• finances (income, debt, etc.),
• academic skills (past performance, computer literacy, etc.),
• logistics (personal study space, equipment, etc.), and
  
• personal constraints (fear of technology, lack of motivation, etc.).

In the consideration of these potential blocks, clients often become discouraged, seeing their goals receding before their very eyes, as it were! Nevertheless, these are the exact obstacles to education that Paradox was created to address. For that reason, we offer flexibility to work around logistic, schedule and financial constraints, plus individually designed education plans to address constraints posed by such things academic history, computer skills, and other factors.

While it is very helpful for clients to consider such issues prior to their free consultation with Paradox, it is crucial that they not let these deliberations discourage them from pursuing their educational goals. In the Williams Lake area, students who need to achieve academic success in online education will find an ally in Paradox Educational Services.

• Reflect on these things;
• Plan for your future;
• Contact us now--the new semester begins soon!

On the Aims of Consultation

Introduction
Students in the 21st Century have a considerable range of choices available to them in regard to completing formal education programs. University campuses are opening in more and more remote communities, and advances in technology have made distance education much more attractive than it was formerly. It is now quite possible and affordable for students to complete many programs entirely by distance education, and many residents of communities too small for a university program have chosen this route to acquire the academic degrees they desire. Not only are undergraduate university programs being offered, there are also increasing graduate programs that are available for students to complete while they stay in remote locations close to their families, their employment, and their social networks. The rise in quality and availability of distance education is very good news for those who want to pursue university education without relocating to university towns or who want to complete a university program on a personal schedule that does not allow for attendance at classes on a typical university's schedule.
An important aspect of education that may be lost in this sort of academic program done at a distance is that of individual consultation. This is the focus of this present essay. The claim to be discussed herein is that there are four aspects of individual consultation that must not be overlooked, if students are to take proper responsibility and have true ownership of their education. These involve the provision for planning of an education, adequate security for learners, some contexts that are non-competitive, and the exploration of and reflection upon one's individual learning experience.
Planning
We will look first at the planning aspect of consultation.
Education in the past and in the classroom is a series of events that is planned by an educational institution. The benefit of this planning is that it is (often) based upon well-researched, well-thought-out approaches to adult learning at an individual level. Also often (not always), the conversion of education from the classroom to online media involves the mere placing of materials (not always, but often text) on web pages where registered students can access them. Assignments are aimed at a clear objective: Students demonstrate competence in understanding, performing tasks, or expressing attitudes that are sought in the course taken. Students are only involved in the planning of education insofar as they pick from (an often very small roster of) electives in their programs. At times, courses may involve students' choosing from among various ways to demonstrate their competence at demonstrating knowledge, skills or attitudes, but such courses are still in the minority of university course offerings.
The paradox of online education from the perspective of students today is that they must somehow personalize what is provided as a "one size fits all" approach to learning. They must find how they will benefit individually from taking a particular course and completing a particular program of instruction. Thus, in an environment where students are controlled, they must find ways to take charge of their own education.
The most convenient way for students to individualize their education is with the help of a consultant, who will probe the individual's educational history, interests, and aptitudes and monitor her or his experience in courses s/he takes. This sort of consultation is often seen to be the province of university academic advisors, but these are often classroom instructors with full academic loads who have little time for personal consultation with more than a handful of students assigned as their 'advisees'. Generally, advising schedules allow only about 15 minutes of personal attention to anywhere from a dozen to a hundred potential students, depending upon the university and program. These interactions are generally held twice yearly during the fall and spring advising periods (about two weeks prior to the pre-enrolment for the following semester.
It is the claim of this present essay, that such advising falls well short of the personal attention students need from consultants to help assure them of proper individualization and ownership of their educational program. Rather, students would be better served by the availability of a consultant throughout their learning experience and by sessions of about an hour each month during their formal program to monitor their experience and to cultivate a relationship that will put students at ease at a very difficult phase of their lives.
While it is good to provide opportunity for students to be more proactive in setting their own academic course and monitoring their own progress, it is also true that proper consultation provides added security to students in their academic careers.
Security
In the classroom, security is found by attending to the materials produced by the course instructor and careful practising of activities assigned in the course. In an online setting, security is easy to lose and hard to maintain, since feedback tends to be limited to obvious lack of comprehension or flaws in performance of assigned tasks. Students find that the need to pursue good grades struggles against the obvious benefits of transparency in this regard: if they are finding the material and assignments difficult to understand and perform, the very questions they ask for clarification may cause their own marks to take a tumble. Thus, they tend to use a "hide and hope for the best" strategy in completing the course. This very strategy tends to isolate learners from each other and from instructional staff.
Regular appointments for individualized consulting allow students to voice concerns about their educational experience in a context removed from people whose task it is to provide evaluation and ultimate grades for courses taken. Such a context does not pit interaction against potential penalty as the students struggle to understand the course curriculum. Rather, it opens the way for students to articulate their own experience and to better understand themselves and the courses they are taking.
It should be obvious as we discuss the planning and security aspects of individualized consultation that such sessions also provide a non-competitive (by which we also mean a non-comparative) context for students to articulate their experiences.
Comparison
The context of classroom instruction encourages teachers and students to compare individual students' knowledge, skills, and attitudes with each other. Classrooms are not inevitably, but often competitive environments, rather than collaborative ones. This is especially true when grading comes into focus and performances are being evaluated. Little attention is paid to the unique personal history of individuals in the class, and each individual is measured according to an "objective" standard of performance. Thus, students who are showing a great deal of improvement over past attempts may be seen to be woefully lacking in comparison to others who (for whatever reason) are building upon a much superior personal history and whose present performance may even be lacklustre, compared to past performances.
Often, the very context in which there is supposed to be encouragement and companionship provides an intimidation that stifles creativity and expression that would lead to greater learning.
In individual consultation with students, an academic coach can take the attention off how the individual is performing among peers and can remind students how they are doing compared to their earlier performances. Such coaches can also remind students how their present efforts fit into their total educational plan, instead of focusing exclusively upon the objectives of a single course.
If the planning, security, and non-competitive context of consultation is evident from the discussion above, it should also be evident that such consultation is also focused upon the individual in a very encouraging and supportive way.
Personal Attention
The classroom provides an opportunity for students to have regular contact with instructors as they are exposed to the course curriculum and perform the course assignments. In an online setting, such contact is supposed to be addressed using mediated tools, such as chats, forums, email, phone, and so forth. One of the biggest differences in the sort of contact provided in classrooms as opposed to online instruction is the regularity of the contact in non-problem-oriented contexts. In the classroom, instructors meet with students without regard to problems students may be facing with the curriculum. In addition, when students express difficulties with the curriculum in the class, other students can indicate relative support for the student who comments, giving the instructors valuable feedback concerning generalized problems that the class may be facing in the course. In an online course, there is often little contact between instructors and students (tutors may provide help at student-initiated contact) and such contact is often oriented to particular problems students are having with the material. Often the student has no idea whether problems being faced are solely his/her concern or a concern to many in the class.
The paradox of online education in this regard is that while the flexibility of online course delivery makes it attractive to students who have scheduling issues that require such flexibility, the very individualized environment created by their unique schedules focuses the individual attention they have access to on their problems; they have no one to share their successes with.
The individual consulting that is done by an academic coach focuses attention back on students learning experience overall and does not exclusively attend to problems faced as the occasion for meeting. Rather than scheduling sessions when students are challenged by problems or in need of help, the sessions are regular and frequent enough to provide as much opportunity for celebration of success and achievement as it provides to address shortcomings and obstacles.
Conclusion
Clearly online education offers many students who cannot attend universities valuable learning opportunities. However, these opportunities may be largely unexplored and unrealized in the event that adequate support structures outside the actual online course are in place. Other essays in this blog have discussed aspects of these necessary support structures, in particular, those of academic coaching and collaborative learning. It has been the task of this present essay to discuss the need for individual consultation in academic programs and some crucial aspects of such consultation.

Attractions of a Blended Teaching Environment

I want to expand on a quotation from the last post in this blog, wherein a student is quoted as preferring a "blended teaching environment." I would like to explain the notion of such blending, what the student implies as the benefit, and what I have observed as other benefits of blended teaching from the standpoint of an instructor.

The notion of blending in instruction involves both classroom and online components to the course curriculum. A "blended" course will have face-to-face meetings, but will also have requirements for online activities and assignments. The exact mix of "blend" is quite flexible, with some courses more devoted to face-to-face activities and assignments while others are more focused on online work.

Blended courses are given different names by different institutions and instructors. For example, once I had been engaged as a designer of some online philosophy courses, I began to introduce online elements into my "regular" (face-to-face) philosophy curriculum. In these regular courses, I carefully explained the elements of the course, both those experienced in class and those online. However, there was no change in the overall course name or description to indicate that my philosophy course would be "blended." A growing number of university professors around the world are implementing Internet media, activities, and assignments in their "regular" courses. In other cases, such blended courses are called "mixed-modal," indicating that some of the course is in the mode of face-to-face, while some is "mediated" by the Internet. In cases where the blended course is uniquely represented in the course number and description, there may be a specific drop in the expectations regarding how often and how long the class meetings will be. For example at most institutions where I have taught, a "3-hour-credit" university course is understood to meet for three "hours" each week during the semester (the "hours" are shortened to provide time for students to get to and from other classes). In a blended system, classes may meet for as little as an hour a week to provide the essential elements in class.

In the quotation from the student mentioning blended teaching, Aaron Anderson notes a benefit of the blended teaching is that the instructor is available whenever he as a student reaches a "critical teachable moment." On the surface, this sort of comment is disquieting to those who teach, since it can imply that instructors are "chained" to their courses and available to answer student questions at all possible hours of the day (and night!). However, I don't believe Mr. Anderson really has this expectation. Rather, I think his insight is this, when instructors are "available" online (meaning that there is a forum or similar mechanism for interaction) students can post questions and other comments on the course at a time convenient to their own learning activities, rather than having to wait until the instructor is next encountered in a face-to-face setting. I have found that many students benefit (especially during the long period over the weekend between a Thursday class and the next meeting on the following Tuesday) from questions about assignments posted on a course forum along with the answers I may supply on a Saturday morning or late Sunday afternoon (according to when I find it convenient to browse the forum between classes). Such an online forum is particularly more convenient than, say, email or the phone, since all students can see both questions and answers posted, rather than: 1) each student emailing or phoning the question, and 2) my having to take the time to answer each of the students individually.

There are additional benefits to the incorporation of Internet interaction in courses, as well. For example, some of my students (either because of personal shyness or lack of fluency in English) find it quite hard to pose questions in class. Such students may also feel reluctant to try to talk during "office hours," either because their own class schedules prevent this or (in some cases) because cultural practises do not allow them to take instructors' time in such ways. No matter what the impediment to interaction is, students often benefit enormously from the distance inherent in Internet forums. Students do not feel rushed to explain their questions and can take time to carefully think about the questions they pose and the comments they make, when they are writing and posting messages to a course forum.

Also, because the forum is available to all students taking the class, it acts as a sort of FAQ page to keep students from being block in the completion of their work. In such a way, a forum can make the instructors (when they actually participate, of course!) seem to be present for longer periods than just the class sessions for the course.

So far, we have been considering the benefits of blended teaching from the standpoint of the face-to-face class that incorporates online elements. Now, I would like to turn to courses that focus their materials and activities online. In such cases, face-to-face activities can considerably enhance the learning experience.

Students who take online courses report considerably isolation as they attempt their work. They also find it easier to put off completion of the course when they have busy work schedules or activities with their families or friends that compete with their course work. Often, they find the curriculum hard to understand and instructions hard to complete. Introducing face-to-face support for students taking online courses addresses each of these needs.

First of all, support such as is offered by Paradox is intended to bring individual students together with others who are taking the same online courses, so that they do not experience the isolation of online learning. They can work together with others to understand the course curriculum and complete assignments. They also provide a positive peer-group pressure to complete the course when individual motivation might fail.

Also, at the end of a long day or when people students care about place demands upon the students that conflict with completing their course work, having a scheduled group collaboration meeting helps to set off special learning time, so that it does not get put aside so often. Many students find that having a particular time and place in which they will complete assignments for a course actually frees up other time during their week to focus on work, family, personal, and social demands.

Finally, many online courses are not actually designed to make full use of Internet media and interactive tools but merely take the print lecture notes, the text, and assignments and place them online where students can access them. In such courses, discussion may not be clear or apparent to the learner, there may be limited contact with instructors, and phone contact with support staff may not always appeal to students. In these cases, Paradox supports online learners, making sure course materials are available and clear to students and providing students with the guidance necessary to remove confusion from the learning experience.

A growing number of instructors appear to recognize the need to incorporate Internet activities into their classroom-based courses, and such blended teaching appears to have several advantages over more traditional forms of teaching. In many settings where universities are far away, and for students whose work, family, and lifestyle prevent them from attending courses at their local campuses, the blend of services Paradox provides for those taking online courses at universities far from their residences brings these same benefits.

Challenges for Online Education

Yesterday I was reading about a new initiative in the U.S. to fund open learning university programs online. A comment written in response to the article caught my attention:

I find my IN classroom experiences are always better. Personal interaction and engaging the energy of the instructor is irreplaceable still for me. (comment #1)

Paradox exists to provide students in the Williams Lake area who are taking online courses with essential features of classroom instruction mentioned here, namely personal interaction and instructional energy. This same respondent goes on to mention:

As a student, when I cannot reach an instructor in a virtual environment when I do not understand a concept, I get 'trapped' in my own frustrations of wrapping my head around something I do not understand and bear the learning curve until I get an email response (comment #3)

Note that frustration is a big element in the experience of some online learners, especially when it is identified as frustration that would not be experience in a classroom setting. This student concludes by proposing hybrid course delivery:

I personally find it best to have a blended teaching environment so when I am studying on my own I can reach my instructor for that critical teachable moment. (comment #3)

Now it is quite true classrooms bring students into real-time contact with instructors, particularly in courses with relatively low student-per-class ratios. Nevertheless, such contact does not necessarily promise immediate accessibility of instructors when students are studying on their own. Clearly, though there is a real experience component of classroom education that at least some students find essential to the formation of their own education. Thus, it may not be possible for such students to experience an online learning community in the full way they expect their classroom learning communities to function.

I don't want to be too quick to jettison the notion of a real and vibrant online learning community experience, and I remain open to that as a possibility, but I am also aware that the sort of face-to-face experience Paradox offers students may continue to be a significant need for students who want to get an education in Williams Lake and whose schedules require them to take courses online to do so. So, while I continue to learn online tools for creating and sustaining learning communities, I also anticipate that students will require real-time gathering places in the Williams Lake area. Both aspects of learning communities will continue to be developed at Paradox.