55376. Instructor Contact.

...district governing boards shall ensure that:

(a) All approved courses offered as distance education shall include regular effective contact between instructor and students, through group or individual meetings, orientation and review sessions, supplemental seminar or study sessions, field trips, library workshops, telephone contact, correspondence, voice mail, e-mail, or other activities.

(b) All distance education courses shall be delivered consistent with guidelines issued by the Chancellor pursuant to Section 409 of the Procedures and Standing Orders of the Board of Governors. Regular effective contact is an academic and professional matter pursuant to Title 5 '53200.

Notice that the main effect of the new language was to replace the requirement for "in-person" contact (commonly referred to as "face to face," although these words never appeared in regulation) with a requirement for "regular effective contact." Moreover, "regular effective contact" was defined as an academic and professional matter, which places it in the purview of the local academic senate and collegial consultation. Also, the distinction between transferable and other credit courses was removed.

Much of the background to effective technology mediated instruction has already been described in detail in the Fall 1997 Academic Senate paper Guidelines for Good Practice: Technology Mediated Instruction and the works it references.

In the many specific techniques suggested in that paper, the principal purpose is to provide the most effective learning experience for the student. This purpose, of course, should be the goal of all instruction, no matter the mode of instruction, and most good practices apply to all courses. Effective instructor-student contact is a universal requirement for instruction. However, since the determination of effective instruction is not an easy task in the planning and discussion of any course, it is important that technology mediated courses should not be held to a higher or different standard than other courses.

Two quotations from the 1993 Academic Senate position paper Distance Learning in California Community Colleges are particularly appropriate:

• innovation should always serve the best interests of students, and
• innovation should be initiated by faculty when it enhances student success.

The use of innovative technology offers an opportunity to simultaneously encourage progress for the comfortable majority of students while at the same time concentrating on the variety of individual and specific difficulties encountered by smaller groups of students. Just as one lecture style is not effective for every student, so one mode of technology is not universally effective. The goal should be to make a variety of options available for different students with different learning styles.

Traditional ideas of good teaching practices are important, regardless of methodology: they simply need to be extended to new situations. Chickering and Ehrmann in Implementing the Seven Principles: Technology as Lever (1996), point out that instructor-student contact is a key component in the teaching and learning process. Pure content can, for example, be conveyed by a lecture, a text, a computer, a video or a CD-ROM. But it is the instructor who conveys the relevance of information and sets the context. Making the information come alive takes a dynamic interaction between teacher and learner. A large lecture format is not necessarily the best way to accomplish this dynamic interaction. By using more technology for content delivery, the instructor may be made available for more meaningful interactions with the student. The course approval process for distance learning courses should seek to demonstrate these possibilities, for example by asking about the nature of individual interactions.

This distinction is particularly the case with the use of "off the shelf" courses such as the traditional television course. The college has both the opportunity and the obligation to add value to the content material rather than to simply transmit it. Most obviously, value can be added by the provision of services to students, such as the dynamic instructor-student interaction mentioned above, or library and counseling services. The course approval process should document how these services will be provided.

Another feature for consideration in course design and review is accessibility. A course designed to use technology or distance learning should make provisions to accommodate disabled students in a comparable manner to regular courses. One well known example is ensuring that websites used for courses are accessible to screen readers for the visually impaired.

EFFECTIVE CONTACT FOR DISTANCE LEARNING

The design for a distance learning course should show attention to both parts of the learning experience: the information transfer portion of the course and also the individual instructor-student contact portion.

In Guidelines for Good Practice: Technology Mediated Instruction, the following ideas are listed for possible consideration during design and implementation of the information transfer portion of the course.

The video, multimedia, or web-based instruction can:

• relate the new material to previous student knowledge,
• place new material properly in relationship to the rest of the course content,
• create logical sequences for each element presented,
• integrate introductory statements, detailed content, examples and illustrations, colorful asides designed to spur interest, and summative statements into a well-paced, attention-holding package,
• intersperse instructional methodologies using different learning styles such as:
  • logical/deductive style with text-based material,
  • verbal-visual style with well-explained pictures and diagrams,
• visual-kinesthetic style with interactive exercises, and
• anticipate areas of questions, and supply appropriate and timely replies.

This paper is mainly interested in the instructor-student interaction portion of the course. Students need timely help with understanding course material and with skills that are relevant to their goals; they need timely access to college support services; they need timely access to faculty; and they need to be engaged. Creatively used technology can significantly enhance the individual experience for the student, and can improve the services provided by the college and the instructor. For example, students who correspond with the instructor once a week, or more, by e-mail may in fact receive considerably more useful personal attention than those who sit quietly in the back of a lecture all semester. A student who participates electronically in a guided, threaded online discussion will almost certainly experience a richer interaction than that provided by a single question and answer in a traditional classroom.

Guidelines for Good Practice: Technology Mediated Instruction also lists the following possible examples of individual instructor-student interactions:

• Technology can foster contact, providing additional vehicles for instructor-student interactions and for placing the information in an appropriate context.
• Technology has given us additional tools to foster interaction in a student-driven manner adapted to the technology used, for example:
  • Web based: frequently-asked-questions that can be kept current ("FAQs"),
  • Interactive: question-and-answer ("Q&A") areas or chat rooms,
  • Phone based: phone-in office hours or voice mail,
  • Video based: video conferencing with "smart" cameras which can focus on students asking questions,
  • Internet based: e-mail distribution lists, chatrooms or bulletin boards where threaded conversations or guided discussions could be held, and
  • FAX and e-mail based: exchange of ideas and comments or communication of documents over distance.

In order for effective instructor-student contact to occur in technology mediated courses, faculty development must include adequate training for both full-time and part-time instructors. Furthermore, ongoing responsive technical support must be provided to both faculty and students. If course delivery depends on technology, then all aspects of that technology must function properly whenever faculty and students require them. Colleges that offer distance learning courses must plan, prepare, budget and implement ongoing faculty development and technical support in a timely, systematic manner.

In the words of the 1995 Academic Senate position paper Curriculum Committee Review of Distance Learning Courses and Sections:

Curriculum committees must make a judgment as to the quality of the course based on a review of the appropriateness of the methods of presentation, assignments, evaluation of student performance, and instructional materials. Are these components adequate to achieve the stated objectives of the course?@

This statement, of course, applies to curriculum committee evaluation of any course. More particularly, the purpose of curriculum committee review of distance education course proposals should be to assure that both information transfer and instructor-student interaction are well planned. The review process should be designed to document this assurance.

The information transfer portion would normally be covered in traditional sections of the course outline on Student Objectives and Course Content. For example, this might well specify the number of hours spent studying material from a CD-ROM and should show the correct relationship to the Carnegie Units of credit for the class. (See for example, Appendix 1 and Appendix 4.) Title 5 defines the Carnegie Unit as follows:

55002 Units.

The course grants units of credit based upon a relationship specified by the governing board between the number of units assigned to the course and the number of lecture and/or laboratory hours or performance criteria specified in the course outline. The course requires a minimum of three hours of student work per week, per unit, including class time and/or demonstrated competency, for each unit of credit, prorated for short-term, laboratory, and activity courses.

For a more complete discussion of Carnegie Units, see the Spring 1998 Academic Senate position paper Good Practices for Course Approval Processes.

The instructor-student interaction portion of the curriculum review should be presented not as a challenge or an obstacle to the course originator. Rather it should provide an opportunity to show what interactions will be used and why they should be effective. This description should occur in the Methods of Instruction Section of the course outline where "types and examples" illustrate the appropriate classroom-based or distance education part. There is no need to demonstrate that distance education interactions are more effective than a traditional course format, but there should be an opportunity to include this data if the course originator desires. While "in-person" contact is no longer required by regulation, there are still situations where it remains effective and appropriate as an option. Checkbox lists of interaction methods may be used by the curriculum committee to organize responses, but are discouraged as a means of collecting information from the course originator. (See for example, Appendix 2 and Appendix 3). In particular, this information should clarify both the nature of "effective" and of "regular" for the instructor-student contact in the proposed course. Information is best collected from the course originator using more open-ended questions such as the following (See for example Appendix 1).

Describe how the course content is delivered:

• describe the distance education methods (teaching modalities) used to deliver the course content and provide an approximate schedule of the time allocated to each modality.

Describe the nature and frequency of instructor-student interactions:

• provide examples of synchronous and asynchronous components of the course taught using distance education technology. List the criteria that will be used to substantiate student learning, and describe the methods of evaluating student achievement,
• describe the number and frequency of different types of instructor-student interaction for students making satisfactory progress, and
• describe the nature and methods of instructor-student communications designed to intervene when students are at-risk of dropping the course due to poor participation or low test performance.

For each type of interaction listed above describe why you believe it will be effective:

• describe how the interactions will facilitate and affect student learning and how students will benefit from the distance education modalities selected.

Describe how the course design will accommodate students with disabilities:

• describe the availability of appropriate devices such as screen readers and the design of web or e-mail material to ensure access, and
• describe the availability of support services for students with disabilities.

Describe the availability of adequate technology and support to carry out the course design:

• describe the adequacy of available technology to carry out effective distance education courses,
• describe the adequacy of support personnel to maintain hardware, software, media resources and to ensure uninterrupted access to the delivery system, and
• describe the availability of technical support for faculty and students.

Describe the support services that ensure student success:

• describe how students will access services such as tutoring, counseling, financial aid, etc., and
• describe how students will have access to course materials, library materials, learning resource materials, etc.

Describe the use of assignments and methods of evaluation to ensure effective instructor-student contact:

• describe an ongoing series of small interactions to ensure participation, such as regular e-mail or phone contact, and
• describe an ongoing series of evaluations that ensure verification of student learning and permit timely instructor intervention.
  Notice once again that almost all of these questions, and the information they seek to elicit, are appropriate for the review of all courses - not just for distance education.

Several issues around the successful design and review of distance education courses involve collective bargaining concerns and the provision of support services.

For example, the class size is a crucial component. As in a classroom-based course, class size has implications for both educational effectiveness and faculty working conditions. Title 5 '55352, acknowledges that class size in distance education sections "shall be determined by and be consistent with other district procedures related to faculty assignment" and specifically mentions that such procedures "may include a review by the curriculum committee."

Despite the hopes of some that budget savings will occur from the use of large classes in a distance education mode, there is little evidence that this has happened. In How Many Students are 'Just Right' in a Web Course? (1998), Judith Boettcher cites examples of distance education courses that have been accepted as effective and where the maximum class sizes are in the 15 to 20 student range. She also cites the growing evidence that faculty spend more time when they interact via e-mail or the web than in a traditional course.

Issues of compensation for course development and intellectual property rights of faculty are also a concern. Details of compensation may be included in a bargaining contract or may be negotiated individually. The Academic Senate is currently working with faculty on a position paper that includes bargaining implications.

The Academic Senate for the California Community Colleges recommends to local academic senates that they:

1) ensure that the local Curriculum Committee performs a separate review of courses offered by distance education, as required by Title 5 '55378,

2) ensure that this separate review considers both the information transfer and the instructor-student contact aspects of the course,

3) ensure that this separate review of instructor-student contact addresses the methods to be used, their effectiveness, and their frequency,

4) ensure that this separate review considers the availability of technical support for faculty and students,

5) ensure that this separate review considers issues of access for students with disabilities,

6) ensure that adequate support services are provided to distance education students, by consulting with counseling and library faculty, and

7) consult with local bargaining agents on distance education issues that involve working conditions.