For some, graduate school flows
naturally from their undergraduate experience.
I’ve completed the “pre-med” slate of courses, so I will go straight to
medical school. I’m sure I want to
practice law, so I’ll head for law school.
For others, myself included, the path is less obvious. Having attended private school my entire
life, I convinced myself I needed schooling from the “real world” beyond the
peaceable kingdoms of my formal education before picking an area for deeper
study.
That decision proved to be
correct. I took a journalism job with
NPR and learned about inequity in schools and neighborhoods, the ins and outs
of land use and zoning, tradeoffs in transportation, and the impact of the rise
and fall of bedrock industries. I also
encountered one particular story out of the ordinary: the re-emergence of
conversations about a shooting involving the Ku Klux Klan and anti-Klan labor
organizers on the streets of Greensboro, North Carolina in 1979. I had never heard of the incident before
living in the Greensboro area, and no wonder—it occupied the front page of
newspapers for one day, followed immediately thereafter by the Iran hostage
crisis. More importantly, the five
shooting deaths captured by television cameras embarrassed Greensboro, many of
whose residents dismissed it as the work of outsiders using their community as
a battlefield.
But it was more than the historical
aspect of the shooting and its aftermath that interested me; it was the
decision of a local grassroots committee to create America’s first “truth and
reconciliation commission (TRC).” Patterned
after similar commissions in South Africa and elsewhere, Greensboro’s TRC
engaged seven volunteers (rather than judges or jurors) to hear voluntarily provided
testimony in private and public and deliver a report documenting their findings
and recommendations. I covered the story
for NPR and focused less on the shooting and more on the divided opinion over
the notion of a truth and reconciliation commission. Why dredge this up again? argued some,
including the then-Mayor. We can’t
afford not to, argued others.
The eventual formation of the
Greensboro TRC and the completion of its work over the next two years remained
a fascination for me. Eventually, after
a job change, I realized I had a broader fascination with resolving conflict,
and that led me to explore graduate schooling in that field—one I hadn’t known
existed when I graduated from college. I
later discovered that while the number of conflict resolution degree programs today
is substantial, there were fewer such programs ten years ago. I also was newly married and settled into a
home, with hopes (later realized) of starting a family, so the notion of relocating
to a new city for study felt impractical and unwise.
Those considerations drew me to Nova Southeastern University’s online
master’s (and eventually PhD) in conflict analysis and resolution.
As it turned out, NSU was a pioneer in distance learning and had one of
the first degree programs in conflict resolution. Its main campus also happened to be around the
corner from my in-laws’ home. But the
notion that I could participate in classes from anywhere and, in some cases, at
any time of the week or semester was very appealing. I also met and befriended students from all
corners of the world—from Saudi Arabia to Sudan—who may never have been able to
enroll in a program that required a visa.
Our twice yearly “residential institutes” gave us unique opportunities
to interact and practice our skills in person, and I was fortunate to receive
some tuition reimbursement and paid time off (without sacrificing vacation
days) to attend.
All of that said, online education as
I experienced it as a student came with challenges and limitations. Some professors chose to have no “live”
sessions or provide any significant course content beyond the assignment of
readings, online discussion board posts, and a final paper. Other professors would post written lectures
but not interact with students except for a short session at the residential
institute. Still others used their
“live” sessions online to review the contents of our assigned reading or to
deliver a lecture with limited or no student interaction. Some of this may have had to do with the
particular online platform we were using and its limitations, or it could have
related to the difficulty of creating a more interactive class session in the
face of all the other responsibilities facing a full-time professor with other,
face-to-face classes to prepare for and teach.
As someone who has designed an online
graduate school course and delivered or hosted numerous webinars, I now believe
that online education holds tremendous promise and power, along with challenges
that educators and students must work to overcome. I believe that just as in
face-to-face educational opportunities, interaction in an online setting is
key—whether through poll questions, a chat window, or the solicitation of
comments from students who can be seen and heard (or a combination of
these). I also believe that most
learners in any setting benefit greatly from small group discussion. Despite the potential for an online classroom
to accommodate even larger crowds than a physical lecture hall, it is critical
to make use of online “breakout rooms” to allow for deeper and more meaningful
interaction than is ever possible in a bigger group.
It is worth considering the blend of
live and asynchronous content as well.
Most professors who lecture, which in my view remains a valuable
teaching tool, do so without interruption for questions or discussion. This content could easily be recorded and
viewed whenever convenient for the student, with perhaps a quiz included to
check comprehension. That said, students
learn from each other differently than they learn from a professor; in fact,
the best professor helps stimulate and facilitate that form of peer-to-peer
learning. As such, any live/real-time
gathering of students online should include opportunities for them to learn
from one another.
I also think that the traditional
notion of “office hours” common on college campuses should endure online—perhaps
in the form of an online “room” that one can enter (log in) at a designated
weekly time to meet with the professor, perhaps in the company of
classmates. This form of informal
learning can be deeply valuable, even in ways not possible in the formal class
session, and online technology should accommodate it.
I also want to make mention of the
technical aspects of the online education experience. While many of us, including you reading this
blog, have easy access to the Internet, many around the world do not. Some may also only have access to the
Internet via a mobile phone or a public space like an Internet café or public
library. This demands of those of us in
online education to consider how a web-based application might work on a mobile
(whether there is a mobile app, for example, or at least a mobile friendly
website). But we also have to consider
the possibility that someone may only be able to login briefly each day or each
week, so our content should be easy to print or download for review at another
time. Furthermore, we have to consider
that some of those students whom we want to reach simply cannot access the
Internet. Most of them, however, will
have access to text messaging or telephone calls, and they can interact with
their classmates and professors via group texts, conference calls, and perhaps
materials sent by mail. As archaic as
this may sound to some, it remains an important consideration if this form of
education is to live up to its promise of broadening access to education.
We must also consider the amount of
time often wasted (in my view) on technical difficulties encountered by
teachers/presenters and students alike in an online setting. While I have encountered these myself and
occasionally technical difficulties cannot be avoided or predicted, they nearly
always can, and it is incumbent upon anyone hosting such a session to make time
for students and presenters to test their technology. We also must ensure that the technology
required to participate is either limited to that which comes with most
computers or mobile phones, or is made widely available to the students whom we
want to reach.
I am pleased to have taken advantage
of the opportunity to study in an online program with a face-to-face component
and to have the opportunity to teach online.
All of us who have either learned, taught, or experienced online
learning can easily see its potential to help more of us learn. We must only ensure that access to the
education we provide online remains widespread, and that we maintain a
commitment to student-to-teacher and student-to-student interaction.
About Blog Author Dr. Larry Schooler:
After
an award-winning career as a journalist across the globe, Larry Schooler became
a mediator, facilitator, public engagement consultant, and educator. He works
with agencies around the world to resolve disputes, build consensus, and
involve the public and stakeholders in decisions that will affect them. He also
specializes in land use mediation, strategic planning, and visioning. Dr.
Schooler holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Yale and a doctoral degree
in conflict resolution from Nova Southeastern University. He is the
author of a manual entitled “Keys to an Effective Public Meeting” and a
forthcoming book on truth and reconciliation commissions. Larry is
married to award-winning businesswoman Jolie Schooler and father to Sammy &
Robby.
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