As a first-year student at Queen’s University in 2015, Alison Carney enrolled in introductory psychology, expecting the popular course would be delivered by a professor at the front of a 400-plus seat lecture hall—just like so many others on campus. She got that, and much more.
A new national survey, on which he served as a researcher, bears out his assessment. More than three-quarters of Canadian post-secondary institutions integrated online with classroom teaching in 2016-17, reported the Canadian Digital Learning Research Association in January. But only one in five institutions has a significant number of blended courses.
“He is definitely right that we need to take some bold steps,” says David Porter, chief executive officer of eCampusOntario, a government-funded non-profit agency that promotes digital experimentation in post-secondary education. It provided financial support for the national survey. “It’s not as if [higher education] is not doing it; we are just doing it at a pace behind the U.S.,” he says.
At Queen’s—where distance education efforts began 130 years ago, in 1889—vice-provost of teaching and learning Jill Scott concedes that “mainstream universities were not quick off the mark in the digital space.” Kevin Tanner was technical director of the Bader Centre when he signed up for the new degree. With eight years of experience in various arts organizations in eastern Ontario, he was not about to quit his day job for full-time studies. “I had no interest in leaving a career that is very difficult to get into,” he says.
Atkinson also designed a new course to train upper-year psychology students—who previously led lecture-style tutorials—as facilitators for the first-year labs. In her teaching role as a lab facilitator, she now spends most of her time asking questions of first-year students to guide their understanding of course content.
Of necessity, she says, online courses require careful design, an understanding of pedagogical research and technical support for professors using online learning management systems.
because profs don’t want to lose their jobs? 😉
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