Bob Jensen's Threads on Assessment
Bob Jensen at Trinity University
George Carlin - Who Really Controls America ---
Click Here
"More kids pass tests if we simplify the tests --- Why education will never be
fixed."
Teaching Evaluations and RateMyProfessor
Concept Knowledge and Assessment of Deep Understanding
Onsite Versus Online Differences for Faculty
Online Versus Onsite for Students.
Onsite Versus Online Education (including controls for online examinations and assignments)
Online Education Effectiveness and Testing
Minimum Grades as a School Policy
Software for faculty and departmental performance evaluation and management
School Assessment and College Admission Testing
Assessment in General (including the debate over whether academic research itself should be assessed)
AICPA Educational Competency Assessment for Accounting Students
Assessment Issues: Measurement and No-Significant-Differences
Success Stories in Education Technology
Research Versus Teaching
"Favorite Teacher" Versus "Learned the Most"
Grade Inflation Versus Teaching Evaluations
Student Evaluations and Learning Styles
Assessment Takes Center Stage in Online Learning: The Saga of Western Governors University
Measures of Quality in Internet-Based Distance Learning
Number Watch: How to Lie With Statistics
Software for Online Examinations and Quizzes
Onsite Versus Online Education (including controls for online examinations and assignments)
The term "electroThenic portfolio," or "ePortfolio," is on everyone's lips. What does this mean?
Research Versus Teaching
"Favorite Teacher" Versus "Learned the Most"
Grade Inflation Versus Course Evaluations
Work Experience Substitutes for College Credits
Should attendance guarantee passing?
Peer Review Controversies in Academic Journals
Research Questions About the Corporate Ratings Game
Bob Jensen's threads on Cognitive Processes and Artificial Intelligence are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#CognitiveProcesses
Degrees Versus Piecemeal Distance (Online) Education
Bob Jensen's threads on memory and metacognition are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/265wp.htm
Full Disclosure to Consumers of Higher Education (including assessment
of colleges and the Spellings Commission Report) ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#FullDisclosure
Also see
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#Bok
Publish Exams Online ---
http://www.examprofessor.com/main/index.cfm
Controversies in Higher Education ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on cheating and plagiarism ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/plagiarism.htm
Effort Reporting Technology for Higher Education ---
http://www.huronconsultinggroup.com/uploadedFiles/ECRT_email.pdf
Some Thoughts on Competency-Based Training
and Education ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/competency.htm
You can download (for free) hours of MP3 audio and the PowerPoint presentation slides from several of the best education technology workshops that I ever organized. --- http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/002cpe/02start.htm
Asynchronous Learning Advantages and
Disadvantages ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm
Dark Sides of Education Technologies ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm
For threaded audio and email messages from early pioneers in distance education, go http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ideasmes.htm
Full Disclosure to Consumers of Higher Education at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#FullDisclosure
From PhD Comics: Helpers for Filling Out Teaching Evaluations --- http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=847
As David Bartholomae observes, “We make a huge
mistake if we don’t try to articulate more publicly what it is we value in
intellectual work. We do this routinely for our students — so it should not be
difficult to find the language we need to speak to parents and legislators.” If
we do not try to find that public language but argue instead that we are not
accountable to those parents and legislators, we will only confirm what our
cynical detractors say about us, that our real aim is to keep the secrets of our
intellectual club to ourselves. By asking us to spell out those secrets and
measuring our success in opening them to all, outcomes assessment helps make
democratic education a reality.
Gerald Graff, "Assessment Changes
Everything," Inside Higher Ed, February 21, 2008 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2008/02/21/graff
Gerald Graff is professor of English at the University of Illinois at Chicago
and president of the Modern Language Association. This essay is adapted from a
paper he delivered in December at the MLA annual meeting, a version of which
appears on the MLA’s Web site and is reproduced here with the association’s
permission. Among Graff’s books are Professing Literature, Beyond the
Culture Wars and Clueless in Academe: How School Obscures the Life of the Mind.
Would-be lawyers in Wisconsin who have challenged
the state’s policy of allowing graduates of state law schools to practice law
without passing the state’s bar exam will have their day in court after all, the
Associated Press reported. A federal appeals court has reinstated a lawsuit
challenging the practice, which apparently is unique in the United States.
Katherine Mangan, "Appeals Court Reinstates Lawsuit Over Wisconsin's Bar-Exam
Exemption," Chronicle of Higher Education, January 29, 2008 ---
Click Here
"How Do People Learn," Sloan-C Review, February 2004 --- http://www.aln.org/publications/view/v3n2/coverv3n2.htm
Like some of the other well known cognitive and affective taxonomies, the Kolb figure illustrates a range of interrelated learning activities and styles beneficial to novices and experts. Designed to emphasize reflection on learners’ experiences, and progressive conceptualization and active experimentation, this kind of environment is congruent with the aim of lifelong learning. Randy Garrison points out that:
From a content perspective, the key is not to inundate students with information. The first responsibility of the teacher or content expert is to identify the central idea and have students reflect upon and share their conceptions. Students need to be hooked on a big idea if learners are to be motivated to be reflective and self-directed in constructing meaning. Inundating learners with information is discouraging and is not consistent with higher order learning . . . Inappropriate assessment and excessive information will seriously undermine reflection and the effectiveness of asynchronous learning.
Reflection on a big question is amplified when it enters collaborative inquiry, as multiple styles and approaches interact to respond to the challenge and create solutions. In How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School, John Bransford and colleagues describe a legacy cycle for collaborative inquiry, depicted in a figure by Vanderbilt University researchers (see image, lower left).
Continued in the article
December 12, 2003 message from Tracey Sutherland [return@aaahq.org]
THE EDUCATIONAL COMPETENCY ASSESSMENT (ECA) WEB SITE IS LIVE! http://www.aicpa-eca.org
The AICPA provides this resource to help educators integrate the skills-based competencies needed by entry-level accounting professionals. These competencies, defined within the AICPA Core Competency Framework Project, have been derived from academic and professional competency models and have been widely endorsed within the academic community. Created by educators for educators, the evaluation and educational strategies resources on this site are offered for your use and adaptation.
The ECA site contains a LIBRARY that, in addition to the Core Competency Database and Education Strategies, provides information and guidance on Evaluating Competency Coverage and Assessing Student Performance.
To assist you as you assess student performance and evaluate competency coverage in your courses and programs, the ECA ORGANIZERS guide you through the process of gathering, compiling and analyzing evidence and data so that you may document your activities and progress in addressing the AICPA Core Competencies.
The ECA site can be accessed through the Educator's page of aicpa.org, or at the URL listed above.
The Downfall of Lecturing
My Hero at the American Accounting Association Meetings in San Antonio on August 13, 2002 --- Amy Dunbar
How to students evaluate Amy Dunbar's online tax courses?
This link is a pdf doc that I will be presenting at a CPE session with Bob Jensen, Nancy Keeshan, and Dennis Beresford at the AAA on Tuesday. I updated the paper I wrote that summarized the summer 2001 online course. You might be interested in the exhibits, particularly Exhibit II, which summarizes student responses to the learning tools over the two summers. This summer I used two new learning tools: synchronous classes (I used Placeware) and RealPresenter videos. My read of the synchronous class comments is that most students liked having synchronous classes, but not often and not long ones! 8 of the 57 responding students thought the classes were a waste of time. 19 of my students, however, didn't like the RealPresenter videos, partly due to technology problems. Those who did like them, however, really liked them and many wanted more of them. I think that as students get faster access to the Internet, the videos will be more useful.
http://www.sba.uconn.edu/users/adunbar/genesis_of_an_online_course_2002.pdf
Amy Dunbar
UConn
Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to
remember from time to time that nothing that is worth learning can be taught.
Oscar Wilde
"The Objective of Education is Learning, Not Teaching (audio version available)," University of Pennsylvania's Knowledge@Wharton, August 20, 2008 --- http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm;jsessionid=9a30b5674a8d333e4d18?articleid=2032
In their book, Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track, authors Russell L. Ackoff and Daniel Greenberg point out that today's education system is seriously flawed -- it focuses on teaching rather than learning. "Why should children -- or adults -- be asked to do something computers and related equipment can do much better than they can?" the authors ask in the following excerpt from the book. "Why doesn't education focus on what humans can do better than the machines and instruments they create?"
"Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth learning can be taught."
-- Oscar WildeTraditional education focuses on teaching, not learning. It incorrectly assumes that for every ounce of teaching there is an ounce of learning by those who are taught. However, most of what we learn before, during, and after attending schools is learned without its being taught to us. A child learns such fundamental things as how to walk, talk, eat, dress, and so on without being taught these things. Adults learn most of what they use at work or at leisure while at work or leisure. Most of what is taught in classroom settings is forgotten, and much or what is remembered is irrelevant.
In most schools, memorization is mistaken for learning. Most of what is remembered is remembered only for a short time, but then is quickly forgotten. (How many remember how to take a square root or ever have a need to?) Furthermore, even young children are aware of the fact that most of what is expected of them in school can better be done by computers, recording machines, cameras, and so on. They are treated as poor surrogates for such machines and instruments. Why should children -- or adults, for that matter -- be asked to do something computers and related equipment can do much better than they can? Why doesn't education focus on what humans can do better than the machines and instruments they create?
When those who have taught others are asked who in the classes learned most, virtually all of them say, "The teacher." It is apparent to those who have taught that teaching is a better way to learn than being taught. Teaching enables the teacher to discover what one thinks about the subject being taught. Schools are upside down: Students should be teaching and faculty learning.
After lecturing to undergraduates at a major university, I was accosted by a student who had attended the lecture. After some complimentary remarks, he asked, "How long ago did you teach your first class?"
I responded, "In September of 1941."
"Wow!" The student said. "You mean to say you have been teaching for more than 60 years?"
"Yes."
"When did you last teach a course in a subject that existed when you were a student?"
This difficult question required some thought. After a pause, I said, "September of 1951."
"Wow! You mean to say that everything you have taught in more than 50 years was not taught to you; you had to learn on your own?"
"Right."
"You must be a pretty good learner."
I modestly agreed.
The student then said, "What a shame you're not that good a teacher."
The student had it right; what most faculty members are good at, if anything, is learning rather than teaching. Recall that in the one-room schoolhouse, students taught students. The teacher served as a guide and a resource but not as one who force-fed content into students' minds.
Ways of Learning
There are many different ways of learning; teaching is only one of them. We learn a great deal on our own, in independent study or play. We learn a great deal interacting with others informally -- sharing what we are learning with others and vice versa. We learn a great deal by doing, through trial and error. Long before there were schools as we know them, there was apprenticeship -- learning how to do something by trying it under the guidance of one who knows how. For example, one can learn more architecture by having to design and build one's own house than by taking any number of courses on the subject. When physicians are asked whether they leaned more in classes or during their internship, without exception they answer, "Internship."
In the educational process, students should be offered a wide variety of ways to learn, among which they could choose or with which they could experiment. They do not have to learn different things the same way. They should learn at a very early stage of "schooling" that learning how to learn is largely their responsibility -- with the help they seek but that is not imposed on them.
The objective of education is learning, not teaching.
There are two ways that teaching is a powerful tool of learning. Let's abandon for the moment the loaded word teaching, which is unfortunately all too closely linked to the notion of "talking at" or "lecturing," and use instead the rather awkward phrase explaining something to someone else who wants to find out about it. One aspect of explaining something is getting yourself up to snuff on whatever it is that you are trying to explain. I can't very well explain to you how Newton accounted for planetary motion if I haven't boned up on my Newtonian mechanics first. This is a problem we all face all the time, when we are expected to explain something. (Wife asks, "How do we get to Valley Forge from home?" And husband, who does not want to admit he has no idea at all, excuses himself to go to the bathroom; he quickly Googles Mapquest to find out.) This is one sense in which the one who explains learns the most, because the person to whom the explanation is made can afford to forget the explanation promptly in most cases; but the explainers will find it sticking in their minds a lot longer, because they struggled to gain an understanding in the first place in a form clear enough to explain.
The second aspect of explaining something that leaves the explainer more enriched, and with a much deeper understanding of the subject, is this: To satisfy the person being addressed, to the point where that person can nod his head and say, "Ah, yes, now I understand!" explainers must not only get the matter to fit comfortably into their own worldview, into their own personal frame of reference for understanding the world around them, they also have to figure out how to link their frame of reference to the worldview of the person receiving the explanation, so that the explanation can make sense to that person, too. This involves an intense effort on the part of the explainer to get into the other person's mind, so to speak, and that exercise is at the heart of learning in general. For, by practicing repeatedly how to create links between my mind and another's, I am reaching the very core of the art of learning from the ambient culture. Without that skill, I can only learn from direct experience; with that skill, I can learn from the experience of the whole world. Thus, whenever I struggle to explain something to someone else, and succeed in doing so, I am advancing my ability to learn from others, too.
Learning through Explanation
This aspect of learning through explanation has been overlooked by most commentators. And that is a shame, because both aspects of learning are what makes the age mixing that takes place in the world at large such a valuable educational tool. Younger kids are always seeking answers from older kids -- sometimes just slightly older kids (the seven-year old tapping the presumed life wisdom of the so-much-more-experienced nine year old), often much older kids. The older kids love it, and their abilities are exercised mightily in these interactions. They have to figure out what it is that they understand about the question being raised, and they have to figure out how to make their understanding comprehensible to the younger kids. The same process occurs over and over again in the world at large; this is why it is so important to keep communities multi-aged, and why it is so destructive to learning, and to the development of culture in general, to segregate certain ages (children, old people) from others.
Continued in article
Bob Jensen's threads on assessment, learning, and technology in education are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm
"Web Surfing in the Classroom: Sound Familiar?" by Catherine Rampell, Chronicle of Higher Education, May 15, 2008 --- http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=3004&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
Over at the New York Times’s Freakonomics blog, Yale Law School professor Ian Ayres praises the University of Chicago Law School’s decision to eliminate Internet access in some classrooms. But more importantly, he recounts an amusing sketch from the Yale’s “Law Revue” skit night, which is worth sharing in full:
One of the skits had a group of students sitting at desks, facing the audience, listening to a professor drone on.
All of the students were looking at laptops except for one, who had a deck of cards and was playing solitaire. The professor was outraged and demanded that the student explain why she was playing cards. When she answered “My laptop is broken,” I remember there was simultaneously a roar of laughter from the student body and a gasp from the professors around me. In this one moment, we learned that something new was happening in class.
Bob Jensen's threads on higher education controversies are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm
Random Thoughts (about learning from a retired professor of engineering) --- http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/Columns.html
Dr. Felder's column in Chemical Engineering Education
Focus is heavily upon active learning and group learning.
Bob Jensen's threads on learning are in the following links:
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm
March 3, 2005 message from Carolyn Kotlas [kotlas@email.unc.edu]
WHAT LEADS TO ACHIEVING SUCCESS IN DISTANCE EDUCATION?
"Achieving Success in Internet-Supported Learning in Higher Education," released February 1, 2005, reports on the study of distance education conducted by the Alliance for Higher Education Competitiveness (A-HEC). A-HEC surveyed 21 colleges and universities to "uncover best practices in achieving success with the use of the Internet in higher education." Some of the questions asked by the study included:
"Why do institutions move online? Are there particular conditions under which e-Learning will be successful?"
"What is the role of leadership and by whom? What level of investment or commitment is necessary for success?"
"How do institutions evaluate and measure success?"
"What are the most important and successful factors for student support and faculty support?"
"Where do institutions get stuck? What are the key challenges?"
The complete report is available online, at no cost, at http://www.a-hec.org/e-learning_study.html.
The "core focus" of the nonprofit Alliance for Higher Education Competitiveness (A-HEC) "is on communicating how higher education leaders are creating positive change by crystallizing their mission, offering more effective academic programs, defining their role in society, and putting in place balanced accountability measures." For more information, go to http://www.a-hec.org/ . Individual membership in A-HEC is free.
Hi Yvonne,
For what it is worth, my advice to new faculty is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/newfaculty.htm
One thing to remember is that the employers of our students (especially the public accounting firms) are very unhappy with our lecture/drill pedagogy at the introductory and intermediate levels. They believe that such pedagogy turns away top students, especially creative and conceptualizing students. Employers believe that lecture/drill pedagogy attracts savant-like memorizers who can recite their lessons book and verse but have few creative talents and poor prospects for becoming leaders. The large accounting firms believed this so strongly that they donated several million dollars to the American Accounting Association for the purpose of motivating new pedagogy experimentation. This led to the Accounting Change Commission (AECC) and the mixed-outcome experiments that followed. See http://accounting.rutgers.edu/raw/aaa/facdev/aecc.htm
The easiest pedagogy for faculty is lecturing, and it is appealing to busy faculty who do not have time for students outside the classroom. When lecturing to large classes it is even easier because you don't have to get to know the students and have a great excuse for using multiple choice examinations and graduate student teaching assistants. I always remember an economics professor at Michigan State University who said that when teaching basic economics it did not matter whether he had a live class of 300 students or a televised class of 3,000 students. His full-time teaching load was three hours per week in front of a TV camera. He was a very good lecturer and truly loved his three-hour per week job!
Lecturing appeals to faculty because it often leads to the highest teaching evaluations. Students love faculty who spoon feed and make learning seem easy. It's much easier when mom or dad spoon the pudding out of the jar than when you have to hold your own spoon and/or find your own jar.
An opposite but very effective pedagogy is the AECC (University of Virginia) BAM Pedagogy that entails live classrooms with no lectures. BAM instructors think it is more important for students to learn on their own instead of sitting through spoon-fed learning lectures. I think it takes a special kind of teacher to pull off the astoundingly successful BAM pedagogy. Interestingly, it is often some of our best lecturers who decided to stop lecturing because they experimented with the BAM and found it to be far more effective for long-term memory. The top BAM enthusiasts are Tony Catanach at Villanova University and David Croll at the University of Virginia. Note, however, that most BAM applications have been at the intermediate accounting level. I have my doubts (and I think BAM instructors will agree) that BAM will probably fail at the introductory level. You can read about the BAM pedagogy at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/265wp.htm
At the introductory level we have what I like to call the Pincus (User Approach) Pedagogy. Karen Pincus is now at the University of Arkansas, but at the time that her first learning experiments were conducted, she taught basic accounting at the University of Southern California. The Pincus Pedagogy is a little like both the BAM and the case method pedagogies. However, instead of having prepared learning cases, the Pincus Pedagogy sends students to on-site field visitations where they observe on-site operations and are then assigned tasks to creatively suggest ways of improving existing accounting, internal control, and information systems. Like the BAM, the Pincus Pedagogy avoids lecturing and classroom drill. Therein lies the controversy. Students and faculty in subsequent courses often complain that the Pincus Pedagogy students do not know the fundamental prerequisites of basic accounting needed for intermediate and advanced-level accounting courses. Two possible links of interest on the controversial Pincus Pedagogy are as follows:
Where the Pincus Pedagogy and the BAM Pedagogy differ lies in subject matter itself and stress on creativity. The BAM focuses on traditional subject matter that is found in such textbooks as intermediate accounting textbooks. The BAM Pedagogy simply requires that students learn any way they want to learn on their own since students remember best what they learned by themselves. The Pincus Pedagogy does not focus on much of the debit and credit "rules" found in most traditional textbooks. Students are required to be more creative at the expense of memorizing the "rules."
The Pincus Pedagogy is motivated by the belief that traditional lecturing/drill pedagogy at the basic accounting and tax levels discourages the best and more-creative students to pursue careers in the accountancy profession. The BAM pedagogy is motivated more by the belief that lecturing is a poor pedagogy for long-term memory of technical details. What is interesting is that the leading proponents of getting away from the lecture/drill pedagogy (i.e., Karen Pincus and Anthony Catenach) were previously two of the very best lecturers in accountancy. If you have ever heard either of them lecture, I think you would agree that you wish all your lecturers had been only half as good. I am certain that both of these exceptional teachers would agree that lecturing is easier than any other alternatives. However, they do not feel that lecturing is the best alternative for top students.
Between lecturing and the BAM Pedagogy, we have case method teaching. Case method teaching is a little like lecturing and a little like the BAM with some instructors providing answers in case wrap ups versus some instructors forcing students to provide all the answers. Master case teachers at Harvard University seldom provide answers even in case wrap ups, and often the cases do not have any known answer-book-type solutions. The best Harvard cases have alternative solutions with success being based upon discovering and defending an alternative solution. Students sometimes interactively discover solutions that the case writers never envisioned. I generally find case teaching difficult at the undergraduate level if students do not yet have the tools and maturity to contribute to case discussions. Interestingly, it may be somewhat easier to use the BAM at the undergraduate level than Harvard-type cases. The reason is that BAM instructors are often dealing with more rule-based subject matter such as intermediate accounting or tax rather than conceptual subject matter such as strategic decision making, business valuation, and financial risk analysis.
The hardest pedagogy today is probably a Socratic pedagogy online with instant messaging communications where an instructor who's on call about 60 hours per week from his or her home. The online instructor monitors the chats and team communications between students in the course at most any time of day or night. Amy Dunbar can tell you about this tedious pedagogy since she's using it for tax courses and will be providing a workshop that tells about how to do it and how not to do it. The next scheduled workshop precedes the AAA Annual Meetings on August 1, 2003 in Hawaii. You can also hear Dr. Dunbar and view her PowerPoint show from a previous workshop at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/002cpe/02start.htm#2002
In conclusion, always remember that there is no optimal pedagogy in all circumstances. All learning is circumstantial based upon such key ingredients as student maturity, student motivation, instructor talent, instructor dedication, instructor time, library resources, technology resources, and many other factors that come to bear at each moment in time. And do keep in mind that how you teach may determine what students you keep as majors and what you turn away.
I tend to agree with the accountancy firms that contend that traditional lecturing probably turns away many of the top students who might otherwise major in accountancy.
At the same time, I tend to agree with students who contend that they took accounting courses to learn accounting rather than economics, computer engineering, and behavioral science.
Bob Jensen
-----Original Message-----
From: Lou&Bonnie [mailto:gyp1@EARTHLINK.NET]
Sent: Thursday, January 16, 2003 5:03 PMI am a beginning accounting instructor (part-time) at a local community college. I am applying for a full-time faculty position, but am having trouble with a question. Methodology in accounting--what works best for a diversified group of individuals. Some students work with accounting, but on a computer and have no understanding of what the information they are entering really means to some individuals who have no accounting experience whatsoever. What is the best methodology to use, lecture, overhead, classroom participation? I am not sure and I would like your feedback. Thank you in advance for your help.
Yvonne
January 20, 2003 reply from Thomas C. Omer [omer@UIC.EDU]
Don’t forget about Project Discovery going on at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana
Thomas C. Omer Associate Professor
Department of Accounting University of Illinois At Chicago
The Art of Discovery: Finding the forest in spite of the trees.
Thanks for reminding me Tom. A good link for Project Discovery is at http://accounting.rutgers.edu/raw/aaa/facdev/aeccuind.htm
January 17, 2003 reply from David R. Fordham [fordhadr@JMU.EDU]
I'll add an endorsement to Bob's advice to new teachers. His page should be required reading for Ph.D.s.
And I'll add one more tidbit.
Most educators overlook the distinction between "lectures" and "demonstrations".
There is probably no need for any true "lecture" in the field of accounting at the college level, even though it is still the dominant paradigm at most institutions.
However, there is still a great need for "live demonstrations", **especially** at the introductory level.
Accounting is a complex process. Introductory students in ANY field learn more about complex processes from demonstrations than probably any other method.
Then, they move on and learn more from "practicing" the process, once they've learned the steps and concepts of the process. And for intermediate and advanced students, practice is the best place to "discover" the nuances and details.
While "Discovery" is probably the best learning method of all, it is frequently very difficult to "discover" a complex process correctly from its beginning, on your own. Thus, a quick demonstration can often be of immense value at the introductory level. It's an efficient way of communicating sequences, relationships, and dynamics, all of which are present in accounting processes.
Bottom line: You can (and should) probably eliminate "lectures" from your classes. You should not entirely eliminate "demonstrations" from your classes.
Unfortunately, most education-improvement reform literature does not draw the distinction: anytime the teacher is doing the talking in front of a class, using blackboard and chalk or PowerPoint, they label it "lecture" and suggest you don't do it! This is, in my view, oversimplification, and very bad advice.
Your teaching will change a whole lot (for the better!) once you realize that students only need demonstrations of processes. You will eliminate a lot of material you used to "lecture" on. This will make room for all kinds of other things that will improve your teaching over the old "lecture" method: discussions, Socratic dialogs, cases and dilemmas, even some entertainment here and there.
Plus, the "lectures" you retain will change character. Take your cue from Mr. Wizard or Bill Nye the Science Guy, who appear to "lecture" (it's about the only thing you can do in front of a camera!), but whose entire program is pretty much devoted to demonstration. Good demonstrations do more than just demonstrate, they also motivate! Most lectures don't!
Another two pennies from the verbose one...
David R. Fordham
PBGH Faculty Fellow
James Madison University
January 16, 2003 message from Peter French [pjfrench@CELESTIAL.COM.AU]
I found this source http://www.thomson.com/swcp/gita.html and also Duncan Williamson has some very good basic material on his sites http://duncanwil.co.uk/index.htm ; http://www.duncanwil.co.uk/objacc.html ;
Don't forget the world lecture hall at http://www.utexas.edu/world/lecture/ ;
This reminds me of how I learned ... the 'real learning' in the workplace...
I remember my first true life consolidation - 130 companies in 1967. We filled a wall with butchers paper and had 'callers', 'writers' and 'adders' who called out the information to others who wrote out the entries and others who did the adding. I was 25 and quite scared. The Finance Director knew this and told me [1] to stick with 'T' accounts to be sure I was making the right entry - just stick the ones you are sure in and don't even think about the other entry - it must 'balance' it out; [2] just because we are dealing with 130 companies and several hundreds of millions of dollars don't lose sight of the fact that really it is no different from the corner store. I have never forgotten the simplistic approach. He said - if the numbers scare you, decimalise them to 100,000's in your mind - it helps ... and it did. He often used to say the Dr/Cr entries out aloud
I entered teaching aged 48 after having been in industry and practice for nearly 30 years. Whether i am teaching introductory accounting, partnership formation/dissolution, consolidations, asset revaluation, tax affect accounting, I simply write up the same basic entries on the white board each session - I never use an overhead for this, I always write it up and say it out aloud, and most copy/follow me - and then recap and get on with the lesson. I always take time out to 'flow chart' what we are doing so that they never loose sight of the real picture ... this simple system works, and have never let my students down.
There have been several movements away form rote learning in all levels of education - often with disastrous consequences. It has its place and I am very proud to rely on it. This works and when it isn't broken, I am not about to try to fix it.
Good luck - it is the greatest responsibility in the world, and gives the greatest job satisfaction. It is worth every hour and every grey hair. To realise that you have enabled someone to change their lives, made a dream come true, eclipses every successful takeover battle or tax fight that I won i have ever had.
Good luck - may it be to you what is has been to me.
Peter French
January 17, 2003 reply from Michael O'Neil, CPA Adjunct Prof. Weber [Marine8105@AOL.COM]
I am currently teaching high school students, some of whom will hopefully go on to college. Parents expect you to teach the children, which really amounts to lecturing, or going over the text material. When you do this they do not read the textbook, nor do they know how to use the textbook to answer homework questions. If you don't lecture then the parents will blame you for "not" teaching their children the material.
I agree that discovery is the best type of learning, and the most fun. I teach geometry and accounting/consumer finance. Geometry leans itself to discovery, but to do so you need certain materials. At our level (high school) we are also dealing several other issues you don't have at the college level. In my accounting classes I teach the debit/credit, etc. and then have them do a lot of work using two different accounting programs. When they make errors I have them discover the error and correct it. They probably know very little about posting, and the formatting of financial statements although we covered it. Before we used the programs we did a lot of pencil work.
Even when I taught accounting at the college and junior college level I found students were reluctant to, and not well prepared to, use their textbooks. Nor were they inclined to DO their homework.
I am sure that many of you have noticed a drop off in quality of students in the last years. I wish I could tell you that I see that it will change, but I do not see any effort in that direction. Education reminds me of a hot air balloon being piloted by people who lease the balloon and have no idea how to land it. They are just flying around enjoying the view. If we think in terms of bankruptcy education is ready for Chapter 11.
Mike ONeil
January 17, 2003 reply from Chuck Pier [texcap@HOTMAIL.COM]
Concept Knowledge and Assessment of Deep UnderstandingWhile not in accounting, I would like to share some information on my wife's experience with online education. She has a background (10 years) as a public school teacher and decided to get her graduate degree in library science. Since I was about to finish my doctoral studies and we knew we would be moving she wanted to find a program that would allow her to move away and not lose too many hours in the transfer process. What she found was the online program at the University of North Texas (UNT) in Denton. Through this program she will be able to complete a 36 hour American Library Association accredited Master's degree in Library Science and only spend a total of 9 days on campus. The 9 days are split into a one day session and 2 four day sessions, which can be combined into 1 five and 1 four day session. Other than these 9 days the entire course is conducted over the internet. The vast majority is asynchronous, but there are some parts conducted in a synchronous manner.
She has completed about 3/4 of the program and is currently in Denton for her last on campus session. While I often worry about the quality of online programs, after seeing how much work and time she is required to put in, I don't think I should worry as much. I can honestly say that I feel she is getting a better, more thorough education than most traditional programs. I know at a minimum she has covered a lot more material.
All in all her experience has been positive and this program fit her needs. I think the MLS program at UNT has been very successful to date and appears to be growing quite rapidly. It may serve as a role model for programs in other areas.
Chuck Pier
Charles A. Pier
Assistant Professor Department of Accounting
Walker College of Business
Appalachian State University
Boone, NC 28608 email: pierca@appstate.edu 828-262-6189
What questions might classroom teachers ask of their students,
the answers to which would allow a strong inference that the students
"understood"?
"The Assessment of “Understanding,” by Lloyd Bond, Carnegie Foundation for Advancement in Teaching --- Click Here
Study to remember and you will forget.
Study to understand and you will remember.
—AnonymousI once sat on the dissertation committee of a graduate student in mathematics education who had examined whether advanced graduate students in math and science education could explain the logic underlying a popular procedure for extracting square roots by hand. Few could explain why the procedure worked. Intrigued by the results, she decided to investigate whether they could explain the logic underlying long division. To her surprise, most in her sample could not. All of the students were adept at division, but few understood why the procedure worked.
In a series of studies at Johns Hopkins University, researchers found that first year physics students could unerringly solve fairly sophisticated problems in classical physics involving moving bodies, but many did not understand the implications of their answers for the behavior of objects in the real world. For example, many could not draw the proper trajectories of objects cut from a swinging pendulum that their equations implied.
What then does it mean to “understand” something—a concept, a scientific principle, an extended rhetorical argument, a procedure or algorithm? What questions might classroom teachers ask of their students, the answers to which would allow a strong inference that the students “understood”? Every educator from kindergarten through graduate and professional school must grapple almost daily with this fundamental question. Do my students really “get it”? Do they genuinely understand the principle I was trying to get across at a level deeper than mere regurgitation? Rather than confront the problem head on, some teachers, perhaps in frustration, sidestep it. Rather then assign projects or construct examinations that probe students’ deep understanding, they require only that students apply the learned procedures to problems highly similar to those discussed in class. Other teachers with the inclination, time and wherewithal often resort to essay tests that invite their students to probe more deeply, but as often as not their students decline the invitation and stay on the surface.
I have thought about issues surrounding the measurement of understanding on and off for years, but have not systematically followed the literature on the topic. On a lark, I conducted three separate Google searches and obtained the following results:
- “nature of understanding” 41,600 hits
- “measurement of understanding” 66,000 hits
- “assessment of understanding” 34,000 hits
Even with the addition of “classroom” to the search, the number of hits exceeded 9,000 for each search. The listings covered the spectrum—from suggestions to elementary school teachers on how to detect “bugs” in children’s understanding of addition and subtraction, to discussions of laboratory studies of brain activity during problem solving, to abstruse philosophical discussions in hermeneutics and epistemology. Clearly, this approach was taking me everywhere, which is to say, nowhere.
Fully aware that I am ignoring much that has been learned, I decided instead to draw upon personal experience—some 30 years in the classroom—to come up with a list of criteria that classroom teachers might use to assess understanding. The list is undoubtedly incomplete, but it is my hope that it will encourage teachers to not only think more carefully about how understanding might be assessed, but also—and perhaps more importantly—encourage them to think more creatively about the kinds of activities they assign their classes. These activities should stimulate students to study for understanding, rather than for mere regurgitation at test time.
The student who understands a principle, rule, procedure or concept should be able to do the following tasks (these are presented in no particular order and their actual difficulties are an empirical question):
Construct problems that illustrate the concept, principle, rule or procedure in question.
As the two anecdotes above illustrate, students may know how to use a procedure or solve specific textbook problems in a domain, but may still not fully understand the principle involved. A more stringent test of understanding would be that they can construct problems themselves that illustrate the principle. In addition to revealing much to instructors about the nature of students’ understanding, problem construction by students can be a powerful learning experience in its own right, for it requires the student to think carefully about such things as problem constraints and data sufficiency.Identify and, if possible, correct a flawed application of a principle or procedure.
This is basically a check on conceptual and procedural knowledge. If a student truly understands a concept, principle or procedure, she should be able to recognize when it is faithfully and properly applied and when it is not. In the latter case, she should be able to explain and correct the misapplication.Distinguish between instances and non-instances of a principle; or stated somewhat differently, recognize and explain “problem isomorphs,” that is, problems that differ in their context or surface features, but are illustrations of the same underlying principle.
In a famous and highly cited study by Michelene Chi and her colleagues at the Learning Research and Development Center, novice physics students and professors of physics were each presented with problems typically found in college physics texts and asked to sort or categorized them into groups that “go together” in some sense. They were then asked to explain the basis for their categorization. The basic finding (since replicated in many different disciplines) was that the novice physics students tended to sort problems on the basis of their surface features (e.g., pulley problems, work problems), whereas the experts tended to sort problems on the basis of their “deep structure,” the underlying physical laws that they illustrated (e.g., Newton’s third law of motion, the second law of thermodynamics). This profoundly revealing finding is usually discussed in the context of expert-novice comparisons and in studies of how proficiency develops, but it is also a powerful illustration of deep understanding.Explain a principle or concept to a naïve audience.
One of the most difficult questions on an examination I took in graduate school was the following: “How would you explain factor analysis to your mother?” That I remember this question over 30 years later is strong testimony to the effect it had on me. I struggled mightily with it. But the question forced me to think about the underlying meaning of factor analysis in ways that had not occurred to me before.Mathematics educator and researcher, Liping Ma, in her classic exposition Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics (Lawrence Erlbaum, 1999), describes the difficulty some fifth and sixth grade teachers in the United States encounter in explaining fundamental mathematical concepts to their charges. Many of the teachers in her sample, for example, confused division by 1/2 with division by two. The teachers could see on a verbal level that the two were different but they could neither explain the difference nor the numerical implications of that difference. It follows that they could not devise simple story problems and other exercises for fifth and sixth graders that would demonstrate the difference.
To be sure, students may well understand a principle, procedure or concept without being able to do all of the above. But a student who can do none of the above almost certainly does not understand, and students who can perform all of the above tasks flawlessly almost certainly do understand.
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
This is a huge problem in accounting education, because so many of us teach "how
to" procedures, often very complex procedures, without really knowing whether
our students truly understand the implications of what they are doing for
decision makers who use accounting information, for fraud detection, for fraud
prevention, etc. For example, when teaching rules for asset capitalization
versus expensing, it might help students better understand if they
simultaneously learned about how and why Worldcom understated earnings by over a
billion dollars by capitalizing expenditures that should have been expensed ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudEnron.htm#WorldCom
Also see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/265wp.htm
Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to
remember from time to time that nothing that is worth learning can be taught.
Oscar Wilde
"The Objective of Education is Learning, Not Teaching (audio version available)," University of Pennsylvania's Knowledge@Wharton, August 20, 2008 --- http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm;jsessionid=9a30b5674a8d333e4d18?articleid=2032
In their book, Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track, authors Russell L. Ackoff and Daniel Greenberg point out that today's education system is seriously flawed -- it focuses on teaching rather than learning. "Why should children -- or adults -- be asked to do something computers and related equipment can do much better than they can?" the authors ask in the following excerpt from the book. "Why doesn't education focus on what humans can do better than the machines and instruments they create?"
"Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth learning can be taught."
-- Oscar WildeTraditional education focuses on teaching, not learning. It incorrectly assumes that for every ounce of teaching there is an ounce of learning by those who are taught. However, most of what we learn before, during, and after attending schools is learned without its being taught to us. A child learns such fundamental things as how to walk, talk, eat, dress, and so on without being taught these things. Adults learn most of what they use at work or at leisure while at work or leisure. Most of what is taught in classroom settings is forgotten, and much or what is remembered is irrelevant.
In most schools, memorization is mistaken for learning. Most of what is remembered is remembered only for a short time, but then is quickly forgotten. (How many remember how to take a square root or ever have a need to?) Furthermore, even young children are aware of the fact that most of what is expected of them in school can better be done by computers, recording machines, cameras, and so on. They are treated as poor surrogates for such machines and instruments. Why should children -- or adults, for that matter -- be asked to do something computers and related equipment can do much better than they can? Why doesn't education focus on what humans can do better than the machines and instruments they create?
When those who have taught others are asked who in the classes learned most, virtually all of them say, "The teacher." It is apparent to those who have taught that teaching is a better way to learn than being taught. Teaching enables the teacher to discover what one thinks about the subject being taught. Schools are upside down: Students should be teaching and faculty learning.
After lecturing to undergraduates at a major university, I was accosted by a student who had attended the lecture. After some complimentary remarks, he asked, "How long ago did you teach your first class?"
I responded, "In September of 1941."
"Wow!" The student said. "You mean to say you have been teaching for more than 60 years?"
"Yes."
"When did you last teach a course in a subject that existed when you were a student?"
This difficult question required some thought. After a pause, I said, "September of 1951."
"Wow! You mean to say that everything you have taught in more than 50 years was not taught to you; you had to learn on your own?"
"Right."
"You must be a pretty good learner."
I modestly agreed.
The student then said, "What a shame you're not that good a teacher."
The student had it right; what most faculty members are good at, if anything, is learning rather than teaching. Recall that in the one-room schoolhouse, students taught students. The teacher served as a guide and a resource but not as one who force-fed content into students' minds.
Ways of Learning
There are many different ways of learning; teaching is only one of them. We learn a great deal on our own, in independent study or play. We learn a great deal interacting with others informally -- sharing what we are learning with others and vice versa. We learn a great deal by doing, through trial and error. Long before there were schools as we know them, there was apprenticeship -- learning how to do something by trying it under the guidance of one who knows how. For example, one can learn more architecture by having to design and build one's own house than by taking any number of courses on the subject. When physicians are asked whether they leaned more in classes or during their internship, without exception they answer, "Internship."
In the educational process, students should be offered a wide variety of ways to learn, among which they could choose or with which they could experiment. They do not have to learn different things the same way. They should learn at a very early stage of "schooling" that learning how to learn is largely their responsibility -- with the help they seek but that is not imposed on them.
The objective of education is learning, not teaching.
There are two ways that teaching is a powerful tool of learning. Let's abandon for the moment the loaded word teaching, which is unfortunately all too closely linked to the notion of "talking at" or "lecturing," and use instead the rather awkward phrase explaining something to someone else who wants to find out about it. One aspect of explaining something is getting yourself up to snuff on whatever it is that you are trying to explain. I can't very well explain to you how Newton accounted for planetary motion if I haven't boned up on my Newtonian mechanics first. This is a problem we all face all the time, when we are expected to explain something. (Wife asks, "How do we get to Valley Forge from home?" And husband, who does not want to admit he has no idea at all, excuses himself to go to the bathroom; he quickly Googles Mapquest to find out.) This is one sense in which the one who explains learns the most, because the person to whom the explanation is made can afford to forget the explanation promptly in most cases; but the explainers will find it sticking in their minds a lot longer, because they struggled to gain an understanding in the first place in a form clear enough to explain.
The second aspect of explaining something that leaves the explainer more enriched, and with a much deeper understanding of the subject, is this: To satisfy the person being addressed, to the point where that person can nod his head and say, "Ah, yes, now I understand!" explainers must not only get the matter to fit comfortably into their own worldview, into their own personal frame of reference for understanding the world around them, they also have to figure out how to link their frame of reference to the worldview of the person receiving the explanation, so that the explanation can make sense to that person, too. This involves an intense effort on the part of the explainer to get into the other person's mind, so to speak, and that exercise is at the heart of learning in general. For, by practicing repeatedly how to create links between my mind and another's, I am reaching the very core of the art of learning from the ambient culture. Without that skill, I can only learn from direct experience; with that skill, I can learn from the experience of the whole world. Thus, whenever I struggle to explain something to someone else, and succeed in doing so, I am advancing my ability to learn from others, too.
Learning through Explanation
This aspect of learning through explanation has been overlooked by most commentators. And that is a shame, because both aspects of learning are what makes the age mixing that takes place in the world at large such a valuable educational tool. Younger kids are always seeking answers from older kids -- sometimes just slightly older kids (the seven-year old tapping the presumed life wisdom of the so-much-more-experienced nine year old), often much older kids. The older kids love it, and their abilities are exercised mightily in these interactions. They have to figure out what it is that they understand about the question being raised, and they have to figure out how to make their understanding comprehensible to the younger kids. The same process occurs over and over again in the world at large; this is why it is so important to keep communities multi-aged, and why it is so destructive to learning, and to the development of culture in general, to segregate certain ages (children, old people) from others.
Continued in article
Bob Jensen's threads on assessment, learning, and technology in education are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm
In particular note the document on assessment --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm
June 18, 2006 message from Bob Kennelly [bob_kennelly@YAHOO.COM]
I am a data analyst with the Federal Government, recently assigned a project to integrate our accounting codes with XBRL accounting codes, primarily for the quarterly reporting of banking financial information.For the past few weeks, i've been searching the WEB looking for educational materials that will help us map, rollup and orr olldown the data that we recieve from the banks that we regulate, to the more generic XBRL accounting codes.Basically, i'm hoping to provide my team members with the tools to help them make more informed decisions on how to classify accounting codes and capture their findings for further review and discussion.To my suprise there isn't the wealth of accounting information that i thought there would be on the WEB, but i am very relieved to have found Bob Jensen's site and in particular an article which refers to the kind of information gatheringapproaches that i'm hoping to discover!Here is the brief on that article:
"Using Hypertext in Instructional Material: Helping Students Link Accounting Concept Knowledge to Case Applications," by Dickie Crandall and Fred Phillips, Issues in Accounting Education, May 2002, pp. 163-184 ---We studied whether instructional material that connects accounting concept discussions with sample case applications through hypertext links would enable students to better understand how concepts are to be applied to practical case situations.Results from a laboratory experiment indicated that students who learned from such hypertext-enriched instructional material were better able to apply concepts to new accounting cases than those who learned from instructional material that contained identical content but lacked the concept-case application hyperlinks.Results also indicated that the learning benefits of concept-case application hyperlinks in instructional material were greater when the hyperlinks were self-generated by the students rather than inherited from instructors, but only when students had generated appropriate links.Could anyone be so kind as to please suggest other references, articles or tools that will help us better understand and classify the broad range of accounting terminologies and methodologies please?For more information on XBRL, here is the XBRL link: http://xbrl.orgThanks very much!
Bob Kennelly
OFHEO
June 19, 2006 reply from Bob Jensen
Hi Bob,
You may find the following documents of related interest:
"Internet Financial Reporting: The Effects of Hyperlinks and Irrelevant Information on Investor Judgments," by Andrea S. Kelton (Ph.D. Dissertation at the University of Tennessee) --- http://www.mgt.ncsu.edu/pdfs/accounting/kelton_dissertation_1-19-06.pdfExtendible Adaptive Hypermedia Courseware: Integrating Different Courses and Web Material
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Publisher: Springer Berlin / Heidelberg ISSN: 0302-9743 Subject: Computer Science Volume 1892 / 2000 Title: Adaptive Hypermedia and Adaptive Web-Based Systems: International Conference, AH 2000, Trento, Italy, August 2000. Proceedings Editors: P. Brusilovsky, O. Stock, C. Strapparava (Eds.) --- Click Here"Concept, Knowledge, and Thought," G. C. Oden, Annual Review of Psychology Vol. 38: 203-227 (Volume publication date January 1987) --- Click Here
"A Framework for Organization and Representation of Concept Knowledge in Autonomous Agents," by Paul Davidsson, Department of Computer Science, University of Lund, Box 118, S–221 00 Lund, Sweden email: Paul.Davidsson@dna.lth.se
"Active concept learning for image retrieval in dynamic databases," by Dong, A. Bhanu, B. Center for Res. in Intelligent Syst., California Univ., Riverside, CA, USA; This paper appears in: Computer Vision, 2003. Proceedings. Ninth IEEE International Conference on Publication Date: 13-16 Oct. 2003 On page(s): 90- 95 vol.1 ISSN: ISBN: 0-7695-1950-4 --- Click Here
"Types and qualities of knowledge," by Ton de Jong, Monica G.M. Ferguson-Hessler, Educational Psychologist 1996, Vol. 31, No. 2, Pages 105-113 --- Click Here
Also note http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#DownfallOfLecturing
Hope this helps
Bob Jensen
Assessing-to-Learn Physics: Project Website --- http://a2l.physics.umass.edu/
Bob Jensen's threads on science and medicine tutorials are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Science
Onsite Versus Online Differences for Faculty
Soaring Popularity of E-Learning Among Students But Not Faculty
How many U.S. students took at least on online course from a legitimate college
in Fall 2005?
More students are taking online college courses than
ever before, yet the majority of faculty still aren’t warming up to the concept
of e-learning, according to a national survey from the country’s largest
association of organizations and institutions focused on online education . . .
‘We didn’t become faculty to sit in front of a computer screen,’
Elia Powers, "Growing Popularity of E-Learning, Inside Higher Ed,
November 10, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/11/10/online
More students are taking online college courses than ever before, yet the majority of faculty still aren’t warming up to the concept of e-learning, according to a national survey from the country’s largest association of organizations and institutions focused on online education.
Roughly 3.2 million students took at least one online course from a degree-granting institution during the fall 2005 term, the Sloan Consortium said. That’s double the number who reported doing so in 2002, the first year the group collected data, and more than 800,000 above the 2004 total. While the number of online course participants has increased each year, the rate of growth slowed from 2003 to 2004.
The report, a joint partnership between the group and the College Board, defines online courses as those in which 80 percent of the content is delivered via the Internet.
The Sloan Survey of Online Learning, “Making the Grade: Online Education in the United States, 2006,” shows that 62 percent of chief academic officers say that the learning outcomes in online education are now “as good as or superior to face-to-face instruction,” and nearly 6 in 10 agree that e-learning is “critical to the long-term strategy of their institution.” Both numbers are up from a year ago.
Researchers at the Sloan Consortium, which is administered through Babson College and Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, received responses from officials at more than 2,200 colleges and universities across the country. (The report makes few references to for-profit colleges, a force in the online market, in part because of a lack of survey responses from those institutions.)
Much of the report is hardly surprising. The bulk of online students are adult or “nontraditional” learners, and more than 70 percent of those surveyed said online education reaches students not served by face-to-face programs.
What stands out is the number of faculty who still don’t see e-learning as a valuable tool. Only about one in four academic leaders said that their faculty members “accept the value and legitimacy of online education,” the survey shows. That number has remained steady throughout the four surveys. Private nonprofit colleges were the least accepting — about one in five faculty members reported seeing value in the programs.
Elaine Allen, co-author of the report and a Babson associate professor of statistics and entrepreneurship, said those numbers are striking.
“As a faculty member, I read that response as, ‘We didn’t become faculty to sit in front of a computer screen,’ ” Allen said. “It’s a very hard adjustment. We sat in lectures for an hour when we were students, but there’s a paradigm shift in how people learn.”
Barbara Macaulay, chief academic officer at UMass Online, which offers programs through the University of Massachusetts, said nearly all faculty members teaching the online classes there also teach face-to-face courses, enabling them to see where an online class could fill in the gap (for instance, serving a student who is hesitant to speak up in class).
She said she isn’t surprised to see data illustrating the growing popularity of online courses with students, because her program has seen rapid growth in the last year. Roughly 24,000 students are enrolled in online degree and certificate courses through the university this fall — a 23 percent increase from a year ago, she said.
“Undergraduates see it as a way to complete their degrees — it gives them more flexibility,” Macaulay said.
The Sloan report shows that about 80 percent of students taking online courses are at the undergraduate level. About half are taking online courses through community colleges and 13 percent through doctoral and research universities, according to the survey.
Nearly all institutions with total enrollments exceeding 15,000 students have some online offerings, and about two-thirds of them have fully online programs, compared with about one in six at the smallest institutions (those with 1,500 students or fewer), the report notes. Allen said private nonprofit colleges are often set in enrollment totals and not looking to expand into the online market.
The report indicates that two-year colleges are particularly willing to be involved in online learning.“Our institutions tend to embrace changes a little more readily and try different pedagogical styles,” said Kent Phillippe, a senior research associate at the American Association of Community Colleges. The report cites a few barriers to what it calls the “widespread adoption of online learning,” chief among them the concern among college officials that some of their students lack the discipline to succeed in an online setting. Nearly two-thirds of survey respondents defined that as a barrier.
Allen, the report’s co-author, said she thinks that issue arises mostly in classes in which work can be turned in at any time and lectures can be accessed at all hours. “If you are holding class in real time, there tends to be less attrition,” she said. The report doesn’t differentiate between the live and non-live online courses, but Allen said she plans to include that in next year’s edition.
Few survey respondents said acceptance of online degrees by potential employers was a critical barrier — although liberal arts college officials were more apt to see it as an issue.
November 10, 2006 reply from John Brozovsky [jbrozovs@vt.edu]
Hi Bob:
One reason why might be what I have seen. The in residence accounting students that I talk with take online classes here because they are EASY and do not take much work. This would be very popular with students but not generally so with faculty.
John
November 10, 2006 reply from Bob Jensen
Hi John,
Then there is a quality control problem whereever this is a fact. It would be a travesty if any respected college had two or more categories of academic standards or faculty assignments.
Variations in academic standards have long been a problem between part-time versus full-time faculty, although grade inflation can be higher or lower among part-time faculty. In one instance, it’s the tenure-track faculty who give higher grades because they're often more worried about student evaluations. At the opposite extreme it is part-time faculty who give higher grades for many reasons that we can think of if we think about it.
One thing that I'm dead certain about is that highly motivated students tend to do better in online courses ceteris paribus. Reasons are mainly that time is used more efficiently in getting to class (no wasted time driving or walking to class), less wasted time getting teammates together on team projects, and fewer reasons for missing class.
Also online alternatives offer some key advantages for certain types of handicapped students --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm
My opinions on learning advantages of E-Learning were heavily influenced by the most extensive and respected study of online versus onsite learning experiments in the SCALE experiments using full-time resident students at the University of Illinois --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm#Illinois
In the SCALE experiments cutting across 30 disciplines, it was generally found that motivated students learned better online then their onsite counterparts having the same instructors. However, there was no significant impact on students who got low grades in online versus onsite treatment groups.
I think the main problem with faculty is that online teaching tends to burn out instructors more frequently than onsite instructors. This was also evident in the SCALE experiments. When done correctly, online courses are more communication intent between instructors and faculty. Also, online learning takes more preparation time if it is done correctly.
My hero for online learning is still Amy Dunbar who maintains high standards for everything:
Bob Jensen
November 10, 2006 reply from John Brozovsky [jbrozovs@vt.edu]
Hi Bob:
Also why many times it is not done 'right'. Not done right they do not get the same education. Students generally do not complain about getting 'less for their money'. Since we do not do online classes in department the ones the students are taking are the university required general education and our students in particular are not unhappy with being shortchanged in that area as they frequently would have preferred none anyway.
John
Bob Jensen's threads on open sharing and education technology are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on online training and education alternatives are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/crossborder.htm
Motivations for Distance Learning --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#Motivations
Bob Jensen's threads on the dark side of online learning and teaching are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm
Question
Why should teaching a course online take twice as much time as teaching it
onsite?
Answer
Introduction to Economics: Experiences of teaching this course online
versus onsite
With a growing number of courses offered online and
degrees offered through the Internet, there is a considerable interest in online
education, particularly as it relates to the quality of online instruction. The
major concerns are centering on the following questions: What will be the new
role for instructors in online education? How will students' learning outcomes
be assured and improved in online learning environment? How will effective
communication and interaction be established with students in the absence of
face-to-face instruction? How will instructors motivate students to learn in the
online learning environment? This paper will examine new challenges and barriers
for online instructors, highlight major themes prevalent in the literature
related to “quality control or assurance” in online education, and provide
practical strategies for instructors to design and deliver effective online
instruction. Recommendations will be made on how to prepare instructors for
quality online instruction.
Yi Yang and Linda F. Cornelious, "Preparing Instructors for Quality
Online Instruction, Working Paper ---
http://www.westga.edu/%7Edistance/ojdla/spring81/yang81.htm
Jensen Comment: The bottom line is that teaching the course online took twice as much time because "largely from increased student contact and individualized instruction and not from the use of technology per se."
Online teaching is more likely to result in instructor burnout. These and other issues are discussed in my "dark side" paper at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm
April 1, 2005 message from Carolyn Kotlas [kotlas@email.unc.edu]
COMPUTERS IN THE CLASSROOM AND OPEN BOOK EXAMS
In "PCs in the Classroom & Open Book Exams" (UBIQUITY, vol. 6, issue 9, March 15-22, 2005), Evan Golub asks and supplies some answers to questions regarding open-book/open-note exams. When classroom computer use is allowed and encouraged, how can instructors secure the open-book exam environment? How can cheating be minimized when students are allowed Internet access during open-book exams? Golub's suggested solutions are available online at http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/views/v6i9_golub.htmlUbiquity is a free, Web-based publication of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), "dedicated to fostering critical analysis and in-depth commentary on issues relating to the nature, constitution, structure, science, engineering, technology, practices, and paradigms of the IT profession." For more information, contact: Ubiquity, email: ubiquity@acm.org ; Web: http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/
For more information on the ACM, contact: ACM, One Astor Plaza, 1515 Broadway, New York, NY 10036, USA; tel: 800-342-6626 or 212-626-0500; Web: http://www.acm.org/
NEW EDUCAUSE E-BOOK ON THE NET GENERATION
EDUCATING THE NET GENERATION, a new EDUCAUSE e-book of essays edited by Diana G. Oblinger and James L. Oblinger, "explores the Net Gen and the implications for institutions in areas such as teaching, service, learning space design, faculty development, and curriculum." Essays include: "Technology and Learning Expectations of the Net Generation;" "Using Technology as a Learning Tool, Not Just the Cool New Thing;" "Curricula Designed to Meet 21st-Century Expectations;" "Faculty Development for the Net Generation;" and "Net Generation Students and Libraries." The entire book is available online at no cost at http://www.educause.edu/educatingthenetgen/ .
EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology. For more information, contact: Educause, 4772 Walnut Street, Suite 206, Boulder, CO 80301-2538 USA; tel: 303-449-4430; fax: 303-440-0461; email: info@educause.edu; Web: http://www.educause.edu/
See also:
GROWING UP DIGITAL: THE RISE OF THE NET GENERATION by Don Tapscott McGraw-Hill, 1999; ISBN: 0-07-063361-4 http://www.growingupdigital.com/
EFFECTIVE E-LEARNING DESIGN
"The unpredictability of the student context and the mediated relationship with the student require careful attention by the educational designer to details which might otherwise be managed by the teacher at the time of instruction." In "Elements of Effective e-Learning Design" (INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF RESEARCH IN OPEN AND DISTANCE LEARNING, March 2005) Andrew R. Brown and Bradley D. Voltz cover six elements of effective design that can help create effective e-learning delivery. Drawing upon examples from The Le@rning Federation, an initiative of state and federal governments of Australia and New Zealand, they discuss lesson planning, instructional design, creative writing, and software specification. The paper is available online at http://www.irrodl.org/content/v6.1/brown_voltz.html
International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning (IRRODL) [ISSN 1492-3831] is a free, refereed ejournal published by Athabasca University - Canada's Open University. For more information, contact Paula Smith, IRRODL Managing Editor; tel: 780-675-6810; fax: 780-675-672; email: irrodl@athabascau.ca ; Web: http://www.irrodl.org/
The Le@rning Federation (TLF) is an "initiative designed to create online curriculum materials and the necessary infrastructure to ensure that teachers and students in Australia and New Zealand can use these materials to widen and enhance their learning experiences in the classroom." For more information, see http://www.thelearningfederation.edu.au/
RECOMMENDED READING
"Recommended Reading" lists items that have been recommended to me or that Infobits readers have found particularly interesting and/or useful, including books, articles, and websites published by Infobits subscribers. Send your recommendations to carolyn_kotlas@unc.ed u for possible inclusion in this column.
Author Clark Aldrich recommends his new book:
LEARNING BY DOING: A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO SIMULATIONS, COMPUTER GAMES, AND PEDAGOGY IN E-LEARNING AND OTHER EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCES Wiley, April 2005 ISBN: 0-7879-7735-7 hardcover $60.00 (US)
Description from Wiley website:
"Designed for learning professionals and drawing on both game creators and instructional designers, Learning by Doing explains how to select, research, build, sell, deploy, and measure the right type of educational simulation for the right situation. It covers simple approaches that use basic or no technology through projects on the scale of computer games and flight simulators. The book role models content as well, written accessibly with humor, precision, interactivity, and lots of pictures. Many will also find it a useful tool to improve communication between themselves and their customers, employees, sponsors, and colleagues."
The table of contents and some excerpts are available at http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0787977357.html
Aldrich is also author of SIMULATIONS AND THE FUTURE OF LEARNING: AN INNOVATIVE (AND PERHAPS REVOLUTIONARY) APPROACH TO E-LEARNING. See http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0787969621.html for more information or to request an evaluation copy of this title.
Also see
Looking at Learning….Again, Part 2 ---
http://www.learner.org/resources/series114.html
Bob Jensen's documents on education technology are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm
More on this topic appears in the module below.
"Nationally Recognized Assessment and Higher Education Study Center Findings as Resources for Assessment Projects," by Tracey Sutherland, Accounting Education News, 2007 Winter Issue, pp. 5-7
While nearly all accounting programs are wrestling with various kinds of assessment initiatives to meet local assessment plans and/or accreditation needs, most colleges and universities participate in larger assessment projects whose results may not be shared at the College/School level. There may be information available on your campus through campus-level assessment and institutional research that generate data that could be useful for your accounting program/school assessment initiatives. Below are examples of three such research projects, and some of their recent findings about college students.
- The Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) The American Freshman: National Norms for 2006
- The 2006 Report of the National Survey of Student Engagement
- From the National Freshman Attitudes Report 2007
Some things in the The 2006 Report of the National Survey of Student Engagement especially caught my eye:
Promising Findings from the National Surveyof Student Engagement
• Student engagement is positively related to first-year and senior student grades and to persistence between the first and second year of college.
• Student engagement has compensatory effects on grades andpersistence of students from historically underserved backgrounds.
• Compared with campus-basedstudents, distance education learners reported higher levels ofacademic challenge, engaged more often in deep learning activities, and reported greater developmental gains from college.
• Part-time working students reported grades comparable to other students and also perceived the campus to be as supportive of their academic and social needs as theirnon-working peers.
• Four out of five beginning college students expected that reflective learning activities would be an important part of their first-year experience.
Disappointing Findings from the National
Survey of Student Engagement
• Students spend on average only about 13–14 hours a week preparingfor class, far below what faculty members say is necessary to do well in their classes.
• Students study less during the first year of college than they expected to at the start of the academic year.
• Women are less likely than men to interact with faculty members outside of class including doing research with a faculty member.
• Distance education students are less involved in active and collaborative learning.
• Adult learners were much lesslikely to have participated in such enriching educational activities as community service, foreign language study, a culminating senior experience, research with faculty,and co-curricular activities.
• Compared with other students, part-time students who are working had less contact with facultyand participated less in active and collaborative learning activities and enriching educational experiences.
Some additional 2006 NSSE findings
• Distance education studentsreported higher levels of academic challenge, and reported engaging more often in deep learning activities such as the reflective learning activities. They also reported participating less in collaborative learning experiences and worked more hours off campus.
• Women students are more likely to be engaged in foreign language coursework.
• Male students spent more time engaged in working with classmates on projects outside of class.
• Almost half (46%) of adult students were working more than 30 hours per week and about three-fourths were caring for dependents. In contrast, only 3% of traditional age students worked more than 30 hours per week, and about four fifths spend no time caring for dependents.
Bob Jensen's threads on higher education controversies are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm
Online Versus Onsite for Students
"Students prefer online courses: Classes popular with on-campus students," CNN, January 13, 2006 --- http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/01/13/oncampus.online.ap/index.html
At least 2.3 million people took some kind of online course in 2004, according to a recent survey by The Sloan Consortium, an online education group, and two-thirds of colleges offering "face-to-face" courses also offer online ones. But what were once two distinct types of classes are looking more and more alike -- and often dipping into the same pool of students.
At some schools, online courses -- originally intended for nontraditional students living far from campus -- have proved surprisingly popular with on-campus students. A recent study by South Dakota's Board of Regents found 42 percent of the students enrolled in its distance-education courses weren't so distant: they were located on campus at the university that was hosting the online course.
Numbers vary depending on the policies of particular colleges, but other schools also have students mixing and matching online and "face-to-face" credits. Motives range from lifestyle to accommodating a job schedule to getting into high-demand courses.
Classes pose challenges Washington State University had about 325 on-campus undergraduates taking one or more distance courses last year. As many as 9,000 students took both distance and in-person classes at Arizona State Univesity last year.
"Business is really about providing options to their customers, and that's really what we want to do," said Sheila Aaker, extended services coordinator at Black Hills State.
Still, the trend poses something of a dilemma for universities.
They are reluctant to fill slots intended for distance students with on-campus ones who are just too lazy to get up for class. On the other hand, if they insist the online courses are just as good, it's hard to tell students they can't take them. And with the student population rising and pressing many colleges for space, they may have little choice.
In practice, the policy is often shaded. Florida State University tightened on-campus access to online courses several years ago when it discovered some on-campus students hacking into the system to register for them. Now it requires students to get an adviser's permission to take an online class.
Online, in-person classes blending Many schools, like Washington State and Arizona State, let individual departments and academic units decide who can take an online course. They say students with legitimate academic needs -- a conflict with another class, a course they need to graduate that is full -- often get permission, though they still must take some key classes in person.
In fact, the distinction between online and face-to-face courses is blurring rapidly. Many if not most traditional classes now use online components -- message boards, chat rooms, electronic filing of papers. Students can increasingly "attend" lectures by downloading a video or a podcast.
At Arizona State, 11,000 students take fully online courses and 40,000 use the online course management system, which is used by many "traditional" classes. Administrators say the distinction between online and traditional is now so meaningless it may not even be reflected in next fall's course catalogue.
Arizone State's director of distance learning, Marc Van Horne, says students are increasingly demanding both high-tech delivery of education, and more control over their schedules. The university should do what it can to help them graduate on time, he says.
"Is that a worthwhile goal for us to pursue? I'd say 'absolutely,"' Van Horne said. "Is it strictly speaking the mission of a distance learning unit? Not really."
Then there's the question of whether students are well served by taking a course online instead of in-person. Some teachers are wary, saying showing up to class teaches discipline, and that lectures and class discussions are an important part of learning.
But online classes aren't necessarily easier. Two-thirds of schools responding to a recent survey by The Sloan Consortium agreed that it takes more discipline for students to succeed in an online course than in a face-to-face one.
"It's a little harder to get motivated," said Washington State senior Joel Gragg, who took two classes online last year (including "the psychology of motivation"). But, he said, lectures can be overrated -- he was still able to meet with the professor in person when he had questions -- and class discussions are actually better online than in a college classroom, with a diverse group exchanging thoughtful postings.
"There's young people, there's old people, there's moms, professional people," he said. "You really learn a lot more."
Bob Jensen's threads on distance education and training alternatives are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/crossborder.htm
The 2006 National Survey of Student Engagement, released November 13, 2006, for the first time offers a close look at distance education, offering provocative new data suggesting that e-learners report higher levels of engagement, satisfaction and academic challenge than their on-campus peers --- http://nsse.iub.edu/NSSE_2006_Annual_Report/index.cfm
"The Engaged E-Learner," by Elizabeth Redden, Inside Higher Ed, November 13, 2006 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/11/13/nsse
The 2006 National Survey of Student Engagement, released today, for the first time offers a close look at distance education, offering provocative new data suggesting that e-learners report higher levels of engagement, satisfaction and academic challenge than their on-campus peers.
Beyond the numbers, however, what institutions choose to do with the data promises to attract extra attention to this year’s report.
NSSE is one of the few standardized measures of academic outcomes that most officials across a wide range of higher education institutions agree offers something of value.Yet NSSE does not release institution-specific data, leaving it to colleges to choose whether to publicize their numbers.
Colleges are under mounting pressure, however, to show in concrete, measurable ways that they are successfully educating students, fueled in part by the recent release of the report from the Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education, which emphasizes the need for the development of comparable measures of student learning. In the commission’s report and in college-led efforts to heed the commission’s call, NSSE has been embraced as one way to do that. In this climate, will a greater number of colleges embrace transparency and release their results?
Anywhere between one-quarter and one-third of the institutions participating in NSSE choose to release some data, said George Kuh, NSSE’s director and a professor of higher education at Indiana University at Bloomington. But that number includes not only those institutions that release all of the data, but also those that pick and choose the statistics they’d like to share.
In the “Looking Ahead” section that concluded the 2006 report, the authors note that NSSE can “contribute to the higher education improvement and accountability agenda,” teaming with institutions to experiment with appropriate ways to publicize their NSSE data and developing common templates for colleges to use. The report cautions that the data released for accountability purposes should be accompanied by other indicators of student success, including persistence and graduation rates, degree/certificate completion rates and measurements of post-college endeavors.
“Has this become a kind of a watershed moment when everybody’s reporting? No. But I think what will happen as a result of the Commission on the Future of Higher Ed, Secretary (Margaret) Spelling’s workgroup, is that there is now more interest in figuring out how to do this,” Kuh said.
Charles Miller, chairman of the Spellings commission, said he understands that NSSE’s pledge not to release institutional data has encouraged colleges to participate — helping the survey, first introduced in 1999, get off the ground and gain wide acceptance. But Miller said he thinks that at this point, any college that chooses to participate in NSSE should make its data public.
“Ultimately, the duty of the colleges that take public funds is to make that kind of data public. It’s not a secret that the people in the academy ought to have. What’s the purpose of it if it’s just for the academy? What about the people who want to get the most for their money?”
Participating public colleges are already obliged to provide the data upon request, but Miller said private institutions, which also rely heavily on public financial aid funds, should share that obligation.
Kuh said that some colleges’ reluctance to publicize the data stems from a number of factors, the primary reason being that they are not satisfied with the results and feel they might reflect poorly on the institution.
In addition, some college officials fear that the information, if publicized, may be misused, even conflated to create a rankings system. Furthermore, sharing the data would represent a shift in the cultural paradigm at some institutions used to keeping sensitive data to themselves, Kuh said.
“The great thing about NSSE and other measures like it is that it comes so close to the core of what colleges and universities are about — teaching and learning. This is some of the most sensitive information that we have about colleges and universities,” Kuh said.
But Miller said the fact that the data get right to the heart of the matter is precisely why it should be publicized. “It measures what students get while they’re at school, right? If it does that, what’s the fear of publishing it?” Miller asked. “If someone would say, ‘It’s too hard to interpret,’ then that’s an insult to the public.” And if colleges are afraid of what their numbers would suggest, they shouldn’t participate in NSSE at all, Miller said.
However, Douglas Bennett, president of Earlham College in Indiana and chair of NSSE’s National Advisory Board, affirmed NSSE’s commitment to opening survey participation to all institutions without imposing any pressure that they should make their institutional results public. “As chair of the NSSE board, we believe strongly that institutions own their own data and what they do with it is up to them. There are a variety of considerations institutions are going to take into account as to whether or not they share their NSSE data,” Bennett said.
However, as president of Earlham, which releases all of its NSSE data and even releases its accreditation reports, Bennett said he thinks colleges, even private institutions, have a professional and moral obligation to demonstrate their effectiveness in response to accountability demands — through NSSE or another means a college might deem appropriate.
This Year’s Survey
The 2006 NSSE survey, which is based on data from 260,000 randomly-selected first-year and senior students at 523 four-year institutions(NSSE’s companion survey, the Community College Survey of Student Engagement, focuses on two-year colleges) looks much more deeply than previous iterations of the survey did into the performance of online students.
Distance learning students outperform or perform on par with on-campus students on measures including level of academic challenge; student-faculty interaction; enriching educational experiences; and higher-order, integrative and reflective learning; and gains in practical competence, personal and social development, and general education. They demonstrate lower levels of engagement when it comes to active and collaborative learning.
Karen Miller, a professor of education at the University of Louisville who studies online learning, said the results showing higher or equal levels of engagement among distance learning students make sense: “If you imagine yourself as an undergraduate in a fairly large class, you can sit in that class and feign engagement. You can nod and make eye contact; your mind ca