Enhanced Learning Through Technological Support
by Dick Walters, Computer ScienceThese days, much attention is given to teaching and learning on this campus and around the state. This attention stems from two causes: greater emphasis on teaching as a factor in merit and promotion at the university level, and greater demand for delivery of instruction under increasingly stringent conditions.
Difficult Challenges
California faces a number of crises: Population expansion is creating new pressures on higher education to provide more spaces for qualified students, and changes in the job market are creating major demands for retraining, with emphasis on the ability to use technology as a requisite job skill. Life-long learning is a reality for all of us, placing a heavier burden on an already overloaded higher education system.These are some of our most pressing challenges. It is not possible for us to meet these needs, let alone the continuing needs of our current student population, by building more classrooms and hiring more faculty. Funding is not available on the scale required (the tenth UC campus would scarcely make a dent in the overall demands cited above). Furthermore, our student population is already changing from an 18-24 year-old cohort of full-time students residing on one of the higher education campuses to a broader assortment of people of various ages, many working part- or full-time, with very tight restrictions on the time they can devote to learning.
These two sets of conditions -- greater demand and the requirement for new alternatives in learning modalities -- are forcing higher education institutions to take a new look at post-secondary education, including life-long learning and retraining. What are we learning from this examination? Several important points, in my opinion. The following conclusions set the framework for innovative solutions to our teaching and learning needs in the next few years.
Lectures are ineffective forms of transmitting information.
The UC Davis campus has a great many effective lecturers and professors who inspire their students, present complex facts clearly, and draw on their own vast experiences to bring these facts to life. We are learning new ways to make lectures even more entertaining and motivational. However, many studies have shown that what is actually learned by "seat time" learners bears a discouragingly low correlation to what was presented to them. This discrepancy stems from multiple factors, including different learning styles; the influence of external factors on learner receptiveness; learners' tendencies to focus and reflect on a single statement, missing large segments of the ensuing lecture; and, above all, the lack of active learning in a lecture setting. Interaction between students and between professor and students is virtually absent in the lecture hall, yet that interaction is what is most needed to support an active learning process.
Distance learning (as usually defined) is not the answer.
Ask twenty people how they define distance learning, and fifteen will respond that it is television-mediated instruction. The remaining five will perhaps include courses on the Internet, without distinction as to how this material is organized and presented or how student progress is evaluated.
Interaction is the missing element in most forms of learning today.
As we have seen, lectures lack interaction. Broadcast or taped video courses are not even as good as lectures in providing interaction, a sorry standard for comparison. Internet courses may in some cases provide for some interaction, but in many cases they represent merely a repackaging of existing materials in a form that can be delivered electronically, with no attention to student-driven activities and associated interaction.
What can we do?
Let's start with the initial premise that the ideal way to learn is through student-centered, activity-driven learning supported by a live human tutor. This is an expensive model, but the best in many ways.Let's add another premise: that learning should be student-driven in terms of schedule. If time, travel, external pressures, and receptiveness are impediments to a learning exercise, it is likely to fall short of expectations.
Let's throw away the idea that all learning must take place in one format. People learn in different ways; let's encourage that process by providing different options.
The resulting learning paradigm is one that is student-centered, provides for flexible scheduling, and offers opportunities for both synchronous and asynchronous interaction, either live or technology-mediated.
RTA: A tool to enhance all forms of learning
In the Department of Computer Science, we have been working for the last three years on a tool which we call Remote Technical Assistance, "Remote TA," or just "RTA." This tool was designed in response to the pedagogical considerations outlined above. The question we asked was, "How can learning be enhanced?" instead of the more common question, "How can we use the computer to ...?" RTA is only a tool, waiting for valid pedagogic applications, but it has proven highly flexible in addressing those pedagogic concerns.
RTA is real, alive, and running on IT systems today, thanks to the efforts of Tim Leamy, IT's Computer Lab Manager. It has been used experimentally in language learning and computer science, and, thanks to a grant from FIPSE (the Fund for Improvement of Post-Secondary Education), it will be used in intermediate Spanish and Japanese courses starting this Spring Quarter.
We, the developers of RTA, are anxious to help the UC Davis community take advantage of this tool. I am spending my 1998 sabbatical year promoting the concept of interactive learning mediated through technology. Part of our FIPSE grant will fund distribution of RTA on this campus and elsewhere. My sabbatical gives me an opportunity to work with members of the Davis community to achieve that goal. RTA has to be seen to be appreciated. I plan to put on several RTA demo sessions at the Arbor over the next few months. If you are interested in learning more about this tool and how it might help your learning and teaching goals, please contact me at walters@cs.ucdavis.edu.
Dick Walters is Professor of Computer Science and the developer of Remote Technical Assistance.
Resources:
- RTA Web site:
- http://escher.cs.ucdavis.edu:1024
- Arbor: AOB IV; 754-2115
- Email: arbor@ucdavis.edu
- Web site: http://arbor.ucdavis.edu