Distance Learning

By Christopher G. Mendla

August 2005

Colleges and universities around the world have been moving toward online classes for the past few years. The implementation of distance education varies greatly.

If you are planning to take online classes, how can you identify a good school and program?

1. Research – Try looking on Google and Google groups to see if the students are saying anything about the program

2. Ask about class size. I worked for one institution where the VP wanted to put over 40 people in an introductory management class the first time the teacher was teaching the class online.

3. Ask about the learning model. Many institutions try to teach their online classes the same way they teach their face to face classes. In most cases, that is an instructor led model. There is a great deal of evidence that shows facilitated learning as a better model.

4. Ask about the class schedule. – Many distance ed classes are taught on an accelerated schedule instead of the traditional 15 weeks for 3 credits. See below for the implications of this.

Accelerated learning

I have found that the biggest cause of student failure in online classes is when the student underestimates the time required per week in an accelerated environment. If we look at a traditional 15 week 3 credit face to face class, we have about 45 hours of class time. Conventional wisdom is that students should spend from 1 to 2 hours of homework for every hour of class. That amounts to 90 to 180 hours total.

If we take a 6 week 3 credit online class, we are trying to do the same amount of work in just 6 weeks. Simple math indicates that a student should be spending about 15 to 30 hours per week on the class. I believe that students fail when they attempt to get through the class while spending less than 10 hours per week.

Support

Support will vary widely. Every institution will have it’s own billing and book sales. There will be some variation among faculty. If you are taking online classes make sure that you allow plenty of time to receive your texts and other materials.

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