Distance Learning — What's in It for You?
An interview with Sarah Ward,
executive director of Virginia Tech's Center for the Study of Adult Learning
Bill Bruck: Why do you think it is that people are more interested in distance learning these days?
Sarah Ward: One of the big reasons is because of downsizing in the private and public sectors. One effect of downsizing is that many of the remaining jobs have been accelerated or compressed. Training departments, in particular, have been hit very severely. Yet the pressure on training departments to deliver more knowledge transfer for the people that remain is greater than ever. So the "do more with less" principle has never been more at work.
Academia faces similar pressures, as well as a changing regulatory structure. There was a Federal guideline in place (actually an antifraud statute) that said that a college could not supply more than 50% of its courses via distance learning and maintain its accreditation. That's being examined by the Clinton administration in an effort to rescind it. So educational institutions as we know them are being pressured to expand their student base by engaging in distance learning practices.
BB: Perhaps it would help to provide a concrete example. One project that I remember you talking about was needing to train a several hundred person sales force in the benefits of a new software package that the company was rolling out.
SW: Yes. In that situation, the software was a very complex mainframe package designed to fix Year 2000 problems. It was a very time-sensitive situation and literally every day counted. The challenge was to generate a training program very quickly and roll it out to hundreds of sales representatives nationwide.
BB: How did you handle it?
SW: Our training consisted of a sophisticated PowerPoint slide show, complete with narrations, that was actually very simple to create, from a technical point of view. Then students could call the manufacturer's technical representatives if they had additional questions.
BB: What were the benefits of doing it this way?
SW: First, it could never have been done any other way. There just was not time to develop an instructor-led program and fly instructors all over the country. Second, the cost of the program was less than 10% of what it would have been had we done it the traditional way. Third, these sales reps work on commission. Have you ever tried to get them into a training room for a day — or even a half day? In this case, they were able to download the training program and watch it on the plane, at home or in their hotel at night. It was practical, inexpensive and convenient.
BB: Can you say more about benefits that your clients derive from incorporating distance learning into their training programs?
SW: The chief benefit is convenience. As a former training director, I know how difficult it is for people to find time to go to a class. During the day, training interferes with work, and people want to go home to their families in the evening. Going to training can be a real hardship on people, yet the fear of losing their technical currency is profound.
So how do we make sure that they have the skills to do their job without disrupting their routines at work and home any more than we have to? Distance learning is a great answer. For instance, VPI has a C++ course, and staff can take that in very small segments of a few minutes, right at their desktop while they're waiting for a batch job to finish. During lunch, while they're munching on a sandwich, they can sit right there and work through the course a little further.
But distance learning isn't just more convenient. It often provides a higher quality learning experience as well. In fact, Ness Giles is the director of operational instruction at the University of Maryland University College. They work with about 3,000 students each semester. She is of the firm belief that the distance learning classes they set up are superior to classroom experiences that people have.
BB: Why is that?
SW: For one thing, can you imagine how sound it would be to tell an instructor that in the first five minutes of their lecture, they must clearly state all the topics and major points of that lecture? How many instructors actually do this consistently? In fact, lectures are often more anecdotal than organized. But with distance learning, the organization must be done in advance.
In fact, the University of Maryland's University College demands that every class be finished in terms of its design a full semester prior to its being offered. They have a whole team of people who construct the automatic self-assessments so that it works perfectly when it comes time for the students. So the advance planning really sharpens the focus and efficacy of the educational design.
BB: Before we go on, perhaps it would be good to share a little bit about the types of distance learning tools that are often incorporated into distance learning programs.
SW: Since you have a lot of technical expertise, perhaps you can start out.
BB: I divide distance learning tools along two dimensions: synchronous v. asynchronous, and one-way v. two-way. Synchronous tools require that the learners and instructor meet at the same time, while asynchronous ones do not.
Synchronous one-way tools include satellite TV transmissions. Synchronous two-way tools include telephone or videoconferences, chat rooms and application sharing programs like Microsoft NetMeeting.
Asynchronous one-way tools include books, other written handouts, computer-based training (although this allows for interaction with the program) or videos that you can watch at your leisure. The most powerful asynchronous two-way tool is Web conferencing, though others include email lists (e.g., listservs), newsgroups and bulletin boards.
In general, one-way tools (if they are appropriately interactive) can be excellent ways for obtaining a basic level of knowledge (policies and procedures fundamental computer skills). Two-way tools are more appropriate for more complex tasks and skills that require critical thinking.
BB: When a training manager or HR director says to you, "Well, I want to get the benefits of distance learning for my organization, but I want to do it right," what advice do you find yourself giving over and over again?
SW: Well, there are many different tips that an experienced distance learning consultant can share with clients, but for the sake of brevity, let me share three with you today.
One of the most important lessons learned from folks who have led major distance learning efforts is that it's got to be a gradual shift. You don't just pull the plug on everything you know and decide you're going to reinvent learning totally. Not that you don't have to rethink how the learning transaction works, but you're not going to move your organization into a completely new mode of learning overnight. It's not going to happen. If you want it to succeed, it's going to have to happen over a continuum.
The other big lesson learned is that you have to accept the fact that as soon as you recommend a particular set of tools, they're obsolete. There's no way around it. One of my favorite stories is how at one company, part of their distance education program was to provide a centralized file library that everyone could access. They planned to use a rather primitive command-line FTP system (the best technology available at the time). Then, before they rolled out the training program, they heard about Gopher and decided to redesign their file library to utilize a Gopher server. Just as they were about to plug everything in, they heard about Lynx and thought that this Web-based interface would be much better. Of course, before they finalized the Lynx-based interface, Mosaic came along. And, of course, then Netscape came down the pike. So they were eternally behind the latest toolset, and could never get their file library off the ground.
But that's just part of the game, and you have to understand that everyone else is always one step behind no matter how current they try to be.
BB: So one thing you tell people is do it gradually. Another thing is "do it, don't wait for the perfect thing, because it will never come."
BB: What is the third hint?
SW: Develop your team: instructors, students and tech support staff. You've got to supply the right technical support, and you have to make sure you spend time developing your faculty and instructors. It's a triumvirate. You have the learners, the instructors and the technical support people.
Regarding technical support, both the faculty and the learners need to have as close to 24 hour per day, seven days per week access to technical support as you can get. Why? For example, let's say that to operate the course software, students and faculty have to download a plug-in. If you've never done that before, it can be a complex task. And if you can't get it done when you need to, it can spoil the entire experience of the course. Students have to have someone to call to help walk them through it if the instructions don't seem to be clear. And, as well-written as the instructions might be, somebody is going to prefer to hear it from someone in person.
BB: What are some of the ways that you need to prepare your students?
SW: It's very important to think about building virtual learning communities when you think about distance learning. Lisa Kimball is one of the best known and most practiced authorities on building virtual communities. The importance of reaching out and personally touching your learners can't be overemphasized. For instance, one very successful distance learning instructor I know calls every student in the class and has a conversation with them two weeks before the course. She doesn't just leave a recorded voice-mail message. She talks to them, lets them know she's interested in them and available. That makes a tremendous difference in the attrition rate, as several different studies show.
BB: And, I would also assume at a more simplistic level, you have to make sure that all the students can successfully make a connection to the Internet and navigate using a browser and whatever other tools you're going to give them.
SW: And the faculty as well.
BB: That was going to be my next question! In terms of your training faculty, obviously they have to be technically familiar. I know ZDU uses a faculty member plus a teacher's aid (a tech support person who helps the teacher). So they have to be technically capable. What else do you find the faculty needs to know?
SW: When you talk about rethinking the learning transaction, that's where educating your faculty to really think afresh about how learning's going to take place is very important. Many faculty members who aren't really familiar with the possibilities of the learning tools for distance learning think that they can simply scan in their outline notes for their lectures and that's enough.
But reading text is more laborious on a screen than it is from a book. Also, other experiments have been to simply read or narrate one's lectures, and without trying to sit and listen to an audiotape for 30 minutes — that's also not going to have the same return on the learning investment that you might want.
BB: So one thing is going to be to train them in how the different media are going to affect the way they need to structure their materials for maximum impact. I know that another is training them in how to facilitate synchronous video or audio discussions, and another is how to facilitate asynchronous discussions, if these are modes that they're using. A fourth one is seeing the possibilities so that they know when they should be using which mode of distance learning.
SW: Yes, these are all great things. A big thing is teaching instructors to make learning more interactive than they're used to. Talking heads just don't go over on the Internet. In fact, there are questions about how well they ever did, even in a traditional classroom model. Learning to vary the medium that you're using in terms of engaging a student, putting in self-assessments where you can to help students gauge their progress, and just providing a more varied approach to the learning process to catch folks with varied learning styles - interactivity is a big difference in terms of approach.
BB: I know that Bob Pike is working on how to teach interactively using videoconferencing. If you're teaching Psychology 101 via real-time video, a lot of people are concentrating on how to lecture effectively into a video camera. He's trying to talk about how to get those people at the remote sites to be interactive rather than just passive listeners.
SW: When you show a television type of presentation, students often go into a passive learning mode and shut down. Preparing them by saying "You've got to go through and take notes on this; there will be questions at the end," will change them from passive to active learners. This is the sort of thing that if you don't include this type of preparation, you won't get the results that you want.
BB: I would imagine that you could even say, "I'm going to give you six questions to answer after this film, and here they are. So look for this during the next 25 minutes."
SW: That's a great point. So, to sum up, the three hints I would give managers are (1) take it gradually, (2) don't wait for the perfect technology and (3) put a lot of effort into developing your instructors, your students and your technical support staff.