September 13, 2023 • 38 mins
It's a common misconception that some students are just "made" for online learning and some just aren't. Digital classes take a different skill set, but they are obtainable for any student. The number one skill is self-discipline. UT Tyler's Associate Provost for Online and Continuing Education, Dr. Poonam Kumar, Ph. D., sits down with us to talk about online education.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Stay tuned to the Ask Dr Ross podcast.
It's created to give you infoto succeed at college.
Our hosts are highly qualified.
Dr Catherine Ross is a memberof the University of Texas
Systems Academy of DistinguishedTeachers.
She's also a popular professorof 19th century English
literature.
Her co-host and multimediaeditor, nathan Witt, provides a
(00:26):
student perspective.
Ask Dr Ross is a communityservice of the University of
Texas at Tanya.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Hi, I'm Catherine Ross, and this is a podcast for
parents, students in school whoare thinking about going to
college, college students whoare already here, adults who are
thinking of maybe going back tocollege and really anyone who
wants to know more about whatlife in colleges and
universities is like today inthe US of A.
I'm here with my friend, nathanWitt, who's a student here.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
If you'd like to ask Dr Ross a question, you can
email us atADRquestionsatgmailcom.
Today we're going to talk aboutonline learning.
It's kind of the new frontierof higher education, and so
we're going to kind of figureout what that looks like today.
Maybe some tips, tricks andadvice on how to succeed in that
.
Personally, I'm really excitedabout that, dr Ross, because I
(01:21):
traditionally have not been verysuccessful with online learning
.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
All of us have had to learn how to do it, even if we
weren't interested in it, thanksto the COVID experience.
But I think the change wascoming and we didn't realize it.
So what we have here today isDr Poonam Kumar, who has
recently been hired by theUniversity to head up our online
programs.
Tell us your title and thenwe'd like to hear you tell us a
(01:45):
little bit about how you camefrom being a regular
face-to-face professor to beingone of the Texas special people
who knows how to do this.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
We'll be happy to Thank you so much for inviting
me.
It's a pleasure to be here toshare what I have learned and
what I know about onlineeducation.
So my name is Poonam Kumar andI'm the Associate Provost for
Online and Continuing Educationat UT Tyler.
I started last year inSeptember, so it's close to a
year, not one year yet.
(02:15):
I'm very excited about theopportunities that we have here
to impact student learningthrough online education, so I'm
very excited to talk about it.
So you asked me how did I getstarted on this journey?
So, when I came here for mydoctorate in 1993 and at that
time internet wasn't asprevalent as it is now so I did
(02:38):
my doctorate in education.
I started my job as a facultymember in the College of
Education with the University ofWisconsin system in 1998.
And then in 1999, we saw onlinelearning just starting, because
there was distance educationalways, which was more like
correspondence courses and allIn 1999.
(03:01):
What happened is the firstlearning management system,
which is Blackboard, came out,and I was a new faculty member,
very, very excited to learn newthings, to try new things, and I
was part of a group that wasasked to build an online program
for teachers completely onlineprogram for teachers.
It was a university system wideeffort and I was excited about
(03:24):
the possibilities and when wecreated that program I realized
the potential and the power thistechnology has.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
So, before you go on with that, because I want to
know how you moved into thatwhat was the thinking at the
University of Wisconsin systemabout launching this team to do
this?
That was 1998, 1999.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
Yes, 1999.
It's a really good question,because we had teachers who were
in different locations, indifferent rural areas.
Not everybody could come tocampus.
They had full time jobs, theyhad families, so they were
balancing all theseresponsibilities and the only
way they could get the advancedtraining would be if we took the
(04:08):
education to them rather thanexpecting them to come to campus
.
And so I saw firsthand thepotential it has to provide
increased access to learningopportunities for teachers and
any other student who wants togain educational access.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
So were your students at that time primarily students
who were training to beteachers, or were they in every
discipline?
Speaker 4 (04:34):
They were students who were training to be teachers
and this particular project.
They were already teachers, butthey were training to get
advanced certification.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
So they were folks who already had an undergraduate
degree, knew the lay of thecollege land.
By the way, your first year wasmy same first year.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
Is it In higher education?
Speaker 2 (04:54):
1998, right, can you believe it?
Oh my god, yes, okay.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
So I ask is that the normal expectation for the
typical online student is thatthere's someone, maybe, who is
returning or maybe coming backlater in life to finish out
education?
Speaker 4 (05:12):
That is what it was initially right.
We have a lot of studentsmillions of students nationwide,
who have some college creditbut they don't have a degree.
So this kind of a modalitygives them the opportunity to
complete their degree whereverthey are in their life.
But that was in 90s, right?
So now the lot of graduateeducation is online because most
(05:35):
of our students are workingadults, so they are balancing a
career with advanced education.
But online education is alsovery popular now among
undergraduate students, and thereason is we have a lot of
students who are athletes, wehave students who are working
part-time jobs, you might havestudents who might be taking
care of their families.
(05:55):
So a little bit of flexibilitywith online gives them an
opportunity to balanceeverything.
So that's one, the flexibilityand the convenience piece.
The second piece I think is themore important piece, is, as
you have seen, after COVID, welive digital lives, right?
We cannot imagine anyexperience that is just
face-to-face.
(06:16):
So when you go to work in anyenvironment, whether it's music
industry or any industry, therewill be a digital component to
it Of course.
And by taking online classes,you are experiencing those
digital experiences and gainingdigital skills, so you're
actually preparing yourself fora very digital economy.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
After you helped, I assume you successfully launched
a program for teachers.
Yes, it was a team.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
Yes, it was very successful.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
The wiles of Wisconsin didn't, however.
You moved on to what else.
You weren't just doingfull-time.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
I was a full-time assistant professor, so this was
part of one of the projects wedid in addition to teaching,
research and other commitments.
So after that, then individualuniversities within that system
they started offering onlineprograms and so we started
offering graduate onlineprograms, fully online, and I
stayed there for four years andthen I came to Michigan to work
(07:16):
in a comprehensive regionaluniversity and at that
university their mindset wasdifferent.
They had some misperceptionsabout online and they thought if
we offer online, we are goingto lose that high-touch
experience with our students.
So for years they did not offerany online program.
But when students startedtelling them it's not possible
(07:36):
for us to come to campus andtake classes in certain
sequences, I was the first onewho created their first online
degree.
It was in e-learning.
Wow it was hugely successful,and then the provost over there
asked me to lead the initiativein a similar role that I have
here, to help faculty understandthe opportunities that online
(07:59):
education offers for us asfaculty members, for our
students.
So I did that.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
I stayed in an administrative role for 10 years
, so when you were in theMichigan School University you
were teaching face-to-face, butyou were then recruited or
volunteered to do this onlineprogram, so you've had a lot of
face-to-face teaching experienceI have had a lot of
face-to-face online, fullyonline, as well as hybrid, and
so what are the differences andhow can we help students
(08:31):
understand that before they goin?
I think a lot of my studentsthink it'll just be Dr Ross
emails, so talk a little bitabout how you were happy to move
from one to the other becauseclearly you've seen potential
and opportunities a lot of otherfaculty never saw.
Speaker 4 (08:47):
Yeah, so first to when I was teaching face-to-face
like every other faculty, themost enjoyable part of that
experience is interaction withyour students Getting to know
your students, hearing theirstories and helping them by
sharing your own experiences.
And when you're transitioned toonline as faculty, it is
challenging and it is differentbecause suddenly you don't see
(09:11):
their faces.
You don't have that physicalpresence that you have in a
face-to-face classroom.
So you have to create thoseexperiences in a virtual
environment where you don't seethem but you feel a social
connection, a social proximityto your students through
interactions.
Online education is not new.
(09:33):
Like I said, it's based onyears and years of research or
best practices and, because Icame from a background of
instructional design andcurriculum, I was able to apply
those practices and online, soit's based on the same
foundations of face-to-face.
You have to make sure that youhave ongoing, regular
interactions with your students.
(09:53):
It doesn't matter what learningmanagement system you're using.
If you're doing video lectures,you're sharing your experiences
through those video lectures.
You still have a presence.
Then you can do live sessionswith your students.
I did a lot of discussions withmy students that were like on a
video or sometimes on a video,sometimes asynchronous
(10:14):
discussion forums.
I was very activelyparticipating in that.
I was not like a professor whodid not show up in those
discussion forums.
I would divide my class intosmaller groups, because it's
difficult to have a discussionwhen there are 50 students.
I would divide the class intosmaller groups and we would have
topics that would be ofinterest.
(10:36):
The prompts are very importantin those discussion forums.
We would do debates, we wouldtake point of views, we would
share stories, we would roleplay.
I did a lot of interestingthings, even within the online
space, and I also used virtualworlds.
I used to teach a graduateclass in instructional design.
(10:56):
At that time, second Life was avery popular virtual world.
I know that one.
I used to take my class to aclass actual classroom there.
We would go there and we wouldmeet teachers from all over the
world who would come therevirtually and share with us
their experiences of teachingclasses in that culture, the
(11:20):
challenges, the new technologies.
Imagine how different it isfrom face to face, because if
you're in face-to-face, you'reonly confined by the people who
can come to your class there.
Right, I had lots of guestspeakers.
I had lots of virtual casestudies.
I had virtual field trips.
You can do a lot more with anonline class than you can do
(11:43):
with a face-to-face class.
That's the positive side.
The challenging side is thatyou need structure, especially
from a student perspective.
It's easy to go to a class onWednesdays from noon to one, but
when it is online, it's out ofsight, out of mind.
The deadline seems like theyare not real and students tend
(12:05):
to procrastinate a lot.
Online classes need to have alot more structure than your
face-to-face classes.
From a student perspective, youneed to be more driven, you
need to have better timemanagement skills and I think
you also need to be open toreaching out to your faculty A
lot of time students do hesitateright.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Yeah absolutely.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
What has your experience been taking online
classes?
Speaker 3 (12:32):
I think, especially with asynchronous online classes
, it's almost like an objectpermanence thing where if it's
not like a physical class, it'sa little easier to not give it
priority.
And so it's really easy to belike especially asynchronous
because they tell you, okay,even though they don't have a
day for you, in asynchronous youpick a day, pick a time, that
(12:55):
this is what I'm doing, thisonline class.
But it's really easy for thattime to come around and you have
something going on and you'relike, oh, I can push it back
till tomorrow or I can push itto this afternoon.
And in my experience, after thefirst time you push it back,
you lose it.
If you push it back one time,like there goes that rigid
structure that you had.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
So you need discipline, you need a lot of
discipline.
Both faculty and students.
Right as a faculty, it's easyfor me to say, oh, I'm not going
to grade these papers this week, I'll do it next week.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Yeah, I know about that, yes.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
So I had to create that structure for myself too.
So I would say, on Tuesday I'mgoing to grade these papers and
I'm going to give you feedbackby Wednesday.
And I wrote it in the syllabusbecause then I was like, if I
write it in the syllabus, I'mgoing to do it Well and is it
part of your design, then, tobuild in deadlines for students
so that they can't do that kindof procrastinating?
(13:49):
Yes, that's part of a gooddesign, where you have multiple
assessments, not just midtermand final, and you want to make
sure you have regular check-inswith your students, because you
don't see their body languageright.
You don't know if they'reconfused, they're excited.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Is it a misconception in your experience that online
classes have a heavier workload,or is that part of what comes
with the territory of onlineclasses?
Speaker 4 (14:15):
Technically, if it is the same class, it should have
the same workload regardless,because that's based on credit
hours and contact hours andworkload expectations.
But in online as an instructor,I can tell you from my own
experiences it's easy to sort ofoverwhelm students and give
them a lot more work.
(14:36):
Because we can hyperlink fivearticles, you can upload a lot
of videos.
You can't see their faces whenyou say and I want you to read
them and they look panic and yougo oh, wait a minute, Maybe
that yeah, and so unless youhave experienced it as a student
yourself, you don't realize howmuch of a workload it is for
(14:58):
students to go through that.
Make sense of it.
That's why it has to be a lotof scaffolding built in online.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
So in a sense, though and this is the one drawback
for me as faculty memberlaunching these classes is a lot
more work for a faculty member,because you don't have to just
remember your own lecture note,you have to prepare it so that
it's ready.
One of the things about theselearning management things,
Nathan, I don't know if you knowthis for faculty there's about
17 little buttons you have toclick to get one simple little
(15:29):
quiz up, and if you miss one,then there could be all sorts of
or.
if it's not a quiz, it'sanything, and so it's really
easy for faculty members like meto have to slow down, have a
little checklist all these sortsof things.
But once you get into the swingof it and you learn to do the
same thing about 15 times orwhatever, you can get a lot
(15:51):
better at it.
And I'm hoping and praying thisfall when I teach these
asynchronous classes, thatbecause I've done so much
careful work ahead of time, thatit will flow a little more
smoothly and I'll actually bemore at ease maybe even then.
I am in a regular face to faceclass where I'm always trying to
hit and miss and not hit andmiss, but always in my
(16:13):
experience is face to faceclasses.
A lot depends on how Iexperience the students taking
in what I'm doing.
Sure, absolutely.
And so there's time foradjustment and things like that.
Speaker 4 (16:23):
And you're absolutely right, online requires a lot
more planning, preparation andthinking through the structure,
because that sequence, thatlearning sequence, is so
important and that's why we havea team of instructional
designers that work with facultyand we have also created we are
calling it template, but in asensual it is like a structure
(16:44):
for a course, so faculty canjust focus on the content and
teaching.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
I'm so glad that you said this about learning the
learning science, because Iremember when I first became a
college professor, I knew myBritish literature and I knew a
lot about writing and researchand I knew how it felt to be a
student, but I didn't knowalways how it really worked
(17:13):
intellectually and I alwaysthought to myself why don't they
teach college professors whatthey teach about learning?
And in fact now one of thestandard links in my class is to
a professor of psychology's DrSteven Choo's lectures on how
learning works for students.
So the students understand whyit is if you cram, it doesn't
(17:33):
work as well as if you do thingslike that.
That's one of the things Ireally enjoyed and appreciated
about what we're doing at UTTyler is because, like I've
worked with Steve Myers andinstructional designers and
they've helped me break down thelearning task into the pieces
that as student experiences.
Now I've always prodded myselfon thinking like a student and
(17:55):
I'll tell you the story.
Why is that?
When I was a graduate studentbut older graduate student I had
to take my foreign language.
Well, as a graduate student, Iwas also an assistant instructor
teaching English literaturesurvey courses.
So I ended up in a Germanfreshman level German class
taught by another graduatestudent up here and one of them
(18:15):
treated us like it was so simplewhat's the matter with you?
And I just hated that class.
The next semester, another oneof the graduate students taught
it and she recognized ourdifficulties and just that
simple difference of being whatit's like Recognize how hard it
can be, because so many timesprofessors what we teach is just
we know it, we get it, weunderstand.
(18:37):
We don't always explain all theconnections to things because
we assume people know it and alot of times students don't.
I'm getting off on a tangenthere, but what I like about this
shift to starting to do moreand more online is that I think
it's intellectually challengingto faculty and I think it's
going to make all of us whetherwe teach all online or face to
face or both make us morethoughtful.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
Absolutely.
It's grounded in good teaching.
Like over the years I've workedwith hundreds and hundreds of
faculty so that when I workedwith them to transition them to
online teaching, it was alreadygrounded in learning science.
When one comment I got againand again was it has improved my
face to face, yes, because ithelps you see things through a
(19:21):
student's lens and it helps yousee what is important how to put
a structure where the cognitiveload for students is minimized
and students can actually focuson those connections that you're
helping them make.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
The cognitive load is minimized.
Now, that's a phrase I want tocome back to, but as you were
saying that, I thought Nathan,tell me from the student
standpoint what I need to do tomake an online English class
manageable for you so you don'tend up getting lost.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Listen to everything she says.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
Really a lot of this stuff that you're saying.
It almost just makes me man.
I think I've said it in aprevious episode.
I've always subscribed to theschool of thought that online
learning just works for somepeople and just doesn't for some
people.
But what I'm getting andcorrect me if I'm wrong from
(20:17):
what you're saying is that a lotmore of your success is
determined by how the course isbuilt.
There's a lot can be determinedby is the course built for you
to succeed?
Speaker 4 (20:30):
And facilitated by the instructor.
So it's not like an autopilot,where just the readings are
there but the instructor is notthere to help you understand,
just like in a face-to-faceclass.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Yeah, and one of the things you mentioned about I
believe it was Michigan.
Right, you were at where theywere worried.
You called it a misconceptionthat the they were going to lose
that experience, the collegeexperience, and I think that has
been, dr Ross.
What it's been like in some ofmy online classes that I've
taken is that it feels like I'mout there on my own.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
So we faculty need to be intervening more, as you
said, facilitating and keepingmaking it.
It's not just create it, throwit out there and let them take
it on their own.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
It is about the interactions, right?
So learning happens in a socialcontext, so it's not just about
the content.
Yes, so you got to havedifferent kind of interactions
interactions that students willhave with other students,
students will have with theinstructor and students will
have with the content.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
To me, one of the biggest motivators to want to
show up to class is because I'vegot those two friends that I
sit next to or I really likethat professor.
I had Dr Cali.
Right, I had him for a nightcourse.
It was my only night course inthe week.
It's like miserable, you know.
It's like a six hour gap inbetween my last class and his
class and it was so hard to getto that class.
(21:52):
But I just really enjoyedtalking to Dr Cali.
That was like enough to tip thescale for.
Okay, I'm going to go to thisclass and I think that is
something that is easy to misswith online classes.
Is that social aspect of it,the fact that you like your
professors like I know that you,dr Ross, when people are filing
(22:13):
into your class, you're makingconversations with them.
You're, hey, how is your day?
You're building connections,you're following up on that.
You're like, hey, how is yourmom's surgery?
That kind of stuff.
I know you do a lot of that andgood teachers try to, and I
think that's something that iseasy to miss in online classes
those kind of relationships,because that a lot of times at
least in my experience incollege can tip the scale of how
(22:35):
committed I am to the class.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
So it is a learning community, right you have to
feel as if you belong to thatlearning community.
And I would like to add thatit's not just faculty doing all
the work.
I think students also have toplay a key role.
So in my classes, my firstsession was always roles and
responsibilities.
So, as a faculty, this is whatyou will expect from me and as a
(22:59):
student, to get the most out ofthis class.
These are the five things.
Sometimes students don't knowhow they can be successful in an
online environment.
Right, so they, if you sharewith them.
These are the expectations formy class.
This is how you can do it.
I think students would benefitfrom it.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
And I think about how much people build communities
out there in social media, andso our job as online teachers is
to build a social media kind ofcommunity, the connections,
yeah, and I have to admit I justbarely touch the social media
(23:38):
in general, and so that's alearning curve for me and
probably a learning curve for alot of faculty who are over
about 30, maybe over 40.
Tell me 20.
Some years ago, you startedlooking at online things.
What do you think if you and Iare still alive 20 years from
now?
How are universities going tolook with this?
Of course, we also have to getinto AI, which we're going to
talk about.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
Right, right right.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
But did you imagine first of all that we would have
changed so quickly after thepandemic?
Speaker 4 (24:05):
I did not, honestly, and I think nobody did.
But I think what COVID alsoshowed us, in my view, one it
did show us that technology cando a lot of things.
We were doing everythingvirtually right Zoom meetings
and everything was done but italso showed us that human
connection is equally importantand people crave for that.
So I think, as I look at thefuture, I see a very good
(24:29):
balance of both.
I remember when I startedteaching online at University of
Wisconsin, there used to besome people who say, oh, now,
online education is going totake over.
There won't be any face to face.
I don't think so.
We will always live in a hybridworld, and I think the key to
success would be how do youbalance the two and optimize the
two?
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Actually, I think in some ways, although the COVID
crisis caused all of us to haveto go online, I think it also
caused a bit of a backlashagainst online.
Speaker 4 (24:58):
Yes, Because we were not prepared to do it right.
A lot of faculty had to switchovernight and I would also say
the transition we did duringCOVID I would not call it online
teaching, it was remoteteaching, because a lot of
faculty were because of the timeand the constraints, they were
given the technology and saidnow do it through Zoom, but they
(25:20):
were never trained to do itwell, like online, like learning
science, how do students learnin an online environment?
What would be some pain pointsfor them?
Crisis teaching?
So it was crisis.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Yes, remote teaching, crisis teaching, and I know a
lot of people think that is theversion of online teaching,
which is not and I think that'san important thing to remember
is that, while it's acceleratednow because of what happened,
we've got some catching up to do, but we also have some great
opportunities.
Really, do so, tell me a littlebit about what you think.
(25:52):
How does AI figure into this?
I was at a conference recentlywhere the fellow from Princeton
who developed chat, gpt, wasinterviewed and then he's
followed up very quickly with aprogram called Origin so you can
check to see how much of yourstudents writing is AI generated
.
The question is how do we useAI responsibly and effectively?
(26:17):
You and I just had a wonderfulconversation about it and you
want to share with Dr Kumar someof your thoughts about AI
before we drag her into thisconversation.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
Dr Ross and I both see AI as a tool and it's going
to have some interesting ripplesin higher education and really
change a lot of things.
As you're talking about thischat GBT guy, a lot of the ways
we test and check to see if youare doing well in the class are
vulnerable now.
Speaker 4 (26:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Because AI can autonomously do a lot of the
types of work that we'reassigning to students, and so
I'm really interested what doyou think?
I feel like no area in highereducation will be affected more
by AI than online learning,because it's all on the computer
already.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
How is it affecting you all already and maybe how is
it going to affect you yeah.
Speaker 4 (27:10):
I think you can see a comment that AI is a tool.
It is a tool, right.
So how we use it it's going todetermine a lot of things,
whether it is an advantage orit's a disadvantage.
So I think AI is going totransform the way we teach and
the way we learn both.
The way we learn, yeah, the waywe learn too.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Now you don't mean literally the way our brains
learn.
Speaker 4 (27:34):
You mean the way we experience school Like as a
student.
My experience as a student.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (27:40):
And if you look at the real world, how Theresa I
say that Is that.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
one friend of mine said it's possible, it's going
to be the end of thinking no way.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
It shouldn't.
No, In fact, if anything, Ithink it is going to enhance our
thinking if it is used properly, right?
Because if you look at the realworld, our industries are being
changed by AI, so our studentsare ultimately going to go and
work there.
So we need to take a step backas faculty and say what kind of
skills will my students takingmy English class or my math
(28:10):
class or my education class whenthey go out in the real field,
what kind of things will theyneed?
So they will need differentskills, right?
Because a lot of the thingsthat AI can do would probably be
done by AI.
So it will be a human and AIinteraction.
So it will make us rethink someof our assignments, some of the
content we teach, the way weteach it.
(28:33):
As an instructor, I can see AIsuggesting content to me based
on the kind of students I have,the kind of interest they have,
the kind of industry they wantto go to.
I can also see as an instructor, AI could tell me hey, you have
20 students, six learned thisway, others learned this way.
(28:53):
This student is really so itwill allow me to personalize
that instruction withoutactually manually doing it, so
AI can bring the content that isof interest to you, Nate, if
you want to work in musicindustry, or it might bring
different examples for a studentwho wants to work in the sports
industry, without me, as aninstructor, having been able to
(29:14):
go and research those articles.
So I see that as a big benefit.
And then I will take a stepback and see okay, what kind of
jobs will my students do, sowhat kind of assignment should I
give them?
Speaker 2 (29:25):
That's going to be hard to predict those jobs,
though, is it but?
Speaker 4 (29:27):
at least we can think about it right.
That's why.
So they probably won't bewriting papers, I don't know.
Hopefully they're writingpapers, but different types of
papers.
From a student perspective, Ican see AI can actually serve as
a coach, a virtual coach, sonudging you, telling you if you
need more practice here are somemore problems like this.
(29:49):
You missed steps here can coachyou.
Artificial intelligence,tutoring is used in many other
companies and institutions.
I think that is very powerful.
It can also personalize yourpath as a student.
If you learn a certain way orif you have skills that are
different than others, then youwill see a different kind of
content and we already have thatkind of adaptive learning in
(30:12):
some of the software.
I think that's a lot ofpotential and I heard a
wonderful story this was severalyears ago that I have to tell
about AI.
We went to a conference and theprofessor was there from one of
the big research universities.
He did an experiment, so he hadtwo TAs One was an AI TA, one
was the actual human TA, but hedid not tell his students.
(30:34):
So at the end of the course hesaid can you rate these two TAs?
And the students rated the AITA better and then he told the
students actually this is not aperson.
And the students were upset.
They say you had a virtual TAand all this time you were
asking questions to a non-human.
That was like six, seven yearsago.
(30:54):
But I think that also shows thepotential, because it's machine
learning the more questions youask, the better AI knows what
you're going to ask.
They can predict it.
So I think, going into thefuture, a lot of the stuff that
we do AI can do, but then itwill leave time for us to do
(31:17):
high-level thinking, both ourstudents and us.
So I think it's the interactionand the collaboration with AI.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
I can't help it.
It's scary here and all thatstuff.
I don't know, maybe I've seentoo many shows where the end
times are like we're so relianton technology to almost bottle
feed us all of our entire life,so it's scary to think about
that, where your class is taughtby AI, not fully taught.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
I'm saying a balance.
The human interaction is stillthe core and should be the core.
I think AI should supplement it.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
It's interesting that you said that the TA, the AI TA
, was better than the human TA.
Speaker 4 (32:02):
And the professor had a name for her and everybody
was, oh, we really like this.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
I want to know how to do that because I'm not getting
a TA this semester, if I canget an AI.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
I want to do it for me.
Chat GVT.
There you go.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Also, what struck me as you were talking about all
these different ways it can beused is learning how to get
those, either finding thoseapplications or loading.
I was trying to load originsthis morning and I couldn't get
it to work.
I thought oh, how brilliant amI, Brilliant am I?
Nathan, can you come to myhouse and figure?
Speaker 3 (32:32):
out how to do this.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
It's a no, but it's a no.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
No, I said it's a.
I was gonna say it's a, no,it's a like.
It's a whole new field ofspecialization.
Speaker 4 (32:41):
Yeah, and it's evolving.
It's a new job, right?
Yeah, they're evolving.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
A friend of mine always says we can't even
predict.
Everyone says you've got toprepare students for jobs and we
don't even know what jobs aregonna be out there in five years
, oh yeah, or what versions ofthe jobs we think we're
preparing you for.
One of the greatest things weall have to learn is flexibility
, huh, an adaptability.
So there you go.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
What advice?
You've had a career of onlinedistance learning, remote
learning, all the differentareas.
It's been my experience andmany students that I've talked
to that if you get in there andit's not, it doesn't immediately
click.
It's very hard for you to getthrough that class.
What advice do you have forbrand new students who are
coming into online learning?
(33:21):
How do you set them up forsuccess?
What do they need to know?
What do they need to focus on?
What do they need to thinkabout?
Speaker 4 (33:26):
Absolutely, and I think that is so critical
because at times, and even nowwhen you look at any survey,
students assign a for onlinebecause of flexibility and then
they don't think about thechallenges.
But being successful in onlineclass will require a lot more
from the student side than itrequires from a faculty side,
(33:47):
because you need to bedisciplined, you need to know
the technology very well and youneed to understand the
expectations the faculty has foryou in that particular class,
and it could vary from class toclass.
So if I was a new studentsigned up for an online course,
the first thing I would do isreach out to the orientation
(34:08):
people and say I want to learnCanvas.
Where are the resources?
I want to make sure technology.
I am proficient in it.
You can use, probably, facebook, but Canvas is a different
educational tool and has so manyfeatures.
So the technology is, I wouldsay, the required foundation.
The second is I would reach outto the instructor and say I'm so
(34:30):
excited to take this class.
These are the reasons why I'mtaking it online.
You could be working two jobswho knows right, so you're
trying to balance it.
Could you please let me knowwhat would it take to be
successful in your class andthat's, I think, a very good
question, even for a faculty.
So the faculty would love thatconversation with the student,
and once you have a goodunderstanding of the expectation
(34:52):
and the course layout, then youneed to create a structure for
yourself and be disciplined.
I would also reach out to otherstudents in that class.
You could create study groupson your own you don't know, it
doesn't have to be somethingthat the instructor creates and
make yourself familiar with allthe support resources we have,
like tutoring, like careersuccess coaches.
(35:15):
We have all the supportservices available, even in
online, but not everybody takesadvantage of it, right?
Speaker 3 (35:22):
Yeah, I think that's important to note is that maybe
you forget when you're in onlineclass like all these resources,
they're still yours.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Yes, absolutely, and the template that you all set up
for us has links to all ofthose on the very first page, so
it's possible to find them.
But I do think that there's atendency to get passive among
any student that do it theeasiest way, and so, remembering
that an online class is not theeasiest way, no, it's not easy.
Speaker 4 (35:50):
It will require a lot more than students.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
It will be convenient , it will be flexible, but you
can blow it if you're notlearning all those new skills.
And what you're just making merealize, though, is that such a
course, when well-crafted andwhen taken seriously by a
student, can be enormouslyvaluable, because always,
finally, we're trying to get youall ready to get out there in
that world where you have to beproactive, where you have to
(36:14):
have self-discipline, where youhave to be your own best
champion.
Speaker 4 (36:19):
Yes, and UT Tyler.
We offer the same supportservices for online students, so
there's no difference at all.
They get access to everything,and our classes are taught by
our own faculty, so it's notthat you're going to get a
different kind of experience.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
And what advice would you give to a student who says
I want to take online classes.
I have no self-discipline.
Speaker 4 (36:43):
Then I would say it's not a good fit for them Cool.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
Yeah, Work on the self-discipline.
Then come back to onlineclasses.
Speaker 4 (36:49):
Because it's going to be very difficult for any
student to be very successful ifthey don't have self-discipline
, because you don't have a classto go to on Wednesdays or
Tuesdays and if you don't havethat, you're going to choose
probably a game or somethingelse, because that's something
you see right andself-discipline is a skill so
you can develop it.
So maybe you're not ready forit yet.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
But you feel like that's not a skill you develop
as you go.
That's something.
Speaker 4 (37:16):
Intentionally.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
Have that skill developed before you walk in the
door.
Don't try to be like I'm goingto develop self-discipline as I
go through my online classes bytaking it online class.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
Uh-oh.
Speaker 4 (37:25):
Or reach out.
We have a study strategiescourse, I think, on campus.
Reach out to advisors and saywe have advisors for every
student.
Hey, I'm taking this onlineclass, but this is what I am
hesitant about.
Can you direct me to someresources?
So if a student is motivated todo that, you can do it?
You can just block out timeevery day for a certain period
(37:49):
of time.
You can meet in person withsome of your other peers in the
class and get that supportsystem.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
Great.
Speaker 4 (37:56):
Great.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
Cool, that's all I have.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
That's all I have too , and what more would you want?
So thank you so much Thank youso much.
Speaker 4 (38:04):
It was so much fun.
Thank you for what you do.
Speaker 3 (38:07):
Yeah, thank you for what you do.
I might have to reconsider anonline class down the road now.
I'm going to work on thatself-discipline, though.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Yeah, you're getting there, I'm getting there.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
All right, I'll close this out.
This has been the Ask Dr Rosspodcast.
Thanks everybody for listening.
If you have any questions thatyou want to ask Dr Ross, you can
email us atadrquestionsatgmailcom.
That's it for us.
Thanks so much.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
Bye-bye, bye.
Stay tuned to the Ask Dr Ross podcast.
It's created to give you infoto succeed at college.
Our hosts are highly qualified.
Dr Catherine Ross is a memberof the University of Texas
Systems Academy of DistinguishedTeachers.
She's also a popular professorof 19th century English
literature.
Her co-host and multimediaeditor, nathan Witt, provides a
(00:26):
student perspective.
Ask Dr Ross is a communityservice of the University of
Texas at Tanya.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Hi, I'm Catherine Ross, and this is a podcast for
parents, students in school whoare thinking about going to
college, college students whoare already here, adults who are
thinking of maybe going back tocollege and really anyone who
wants to know more about whatlife in colleges and
universities is like today inthe US of A.
I'm here with my friend, nathanWitt, who's a student here.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
If you'd like to ask Dr Ross a question, you can
email us atADRquestionsatgmailcom.
Today we're going to talk aboutonline learning.
It's kind of the new frontierof higher education, and so
we're going to kind of figureout what that looks like today.
Maybe some tips, tricks andadvice on how to succeed in that
.
Personally, I'm really excitedabout that, dr Ross, because I
(01:21):
traditionally have not been verysuccessful with online learning
.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
All of us have had to learn how to do it, even if we
weren't interested in it, thanksto the COVID experience.
But I think the change wascoming and we didn't realize it.
So what we have here today isDr Poonam Kumar, who has
recently been hired by theUniversity to head up our online
programs.
Tell us your title and thenwe'd like to hear you tell us a
(01:45):
little bit about how you camefrom being a regular
face-to-face professor to beingone of the Texas special people
who knows how to do this.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
We'll be happy to Thank you so much for inviting
me.
It's a pleasure to be here toshare what I have learned and
what I know about onlineeducation.
So my name is Poonam Kumar andI'm the Associate Provost for
Online and Continuing Educationat UT Tyler.
I started last year inSeptember, so it's close to a
year, not one year yet.
(02:15):
I'm very excited about theopportunities that we have here
to impact student learningthrough online education, so I'm
very excited to talk about it.
So you asked me how did I getstarted on this journey?
So, when I came here for mydoctorate in 1993 and at that
time internet wasn't asprevalent as it is now so I did
(02:38):
my doctorate in education.
I started my job as a facultymember in the College of
Education with the University ofWisconsin system in 1998.
And then in 1999, we saw onlinelearning just starting, because
there was distance educationalways, which was more like
correspondence courses and allIn 1999.
(03:01):
What happened is the firstlearning management system,
which is Blackboard, came out,and I was a new faculty member,
very, very excited to learn newthings, to try new things, and I
was part of a group that wasasked to build an online program
for teachers completely onlineprogram for teachers.
It was a university system wideeffort and I was excited about
(03:24):
the possibilities and when wecreated that program I realized
the potential and the power thistechnology has.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
So, before you go on with that, because I want to
know how you moved into thatwhat was the thinking at the
University of Wisconsin systemabout launching this team to do
this?
That was 1998, 1999.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
Yes, 1999.
It's a really good question,because we had teachers who were
in different locations, indifferent rural areas.
Not everybody could come tocampus.
They had full time jobs, theyhad families, so they were
balancing all theseresponsibilities and the only
way they could get the advancedtraining would be if we took the
(04:08):
education to them rather thanexpecting them to come to campus
.
And so I saw firsthand thepotential it has to provide
increased access to learningopportunities for teachers and
any other student who wants togain educational access.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
So were your students at that time primarily students
who were training to beteachers, or were they in every
discipline?
Speaker 4 (04:34):
They were students who were training to be teachers
and this particular project.
They were already teachers, butthey were training to get
advanced certification.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
So they were folks who already had an undergraduate
degree, knew the lay of thecollege land.
By the way, your first year wasmy same first year.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
Is it In higher education?
Speaker 2 (04:54):
1998, right, can you believe it?
Oh my god, yes, okay.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
So I ask is that the normal expectation for the
typical online student is thatthere's someone, maybe, who is
returning or maybe coming backlater in life to finish out
education?
Speaker 4 (05:12):
That is what it was initially right.
We have a lot of studentsmillions of students nationwide,
who have some college creditbut they don't have a degree.
So this kind of a modalitygives them the opportunity to
complete their degree whereverthey are in their life.
But that was in 90s, right?
So now the lot of graduateeducation is online because most
(05:35):
of our students are workingadults, so they are balancing a
career with advanced education.
But online education is alsovery popular now among
undergraduate students, and thereason is we have a lot of
students who are athletes, wehave students who are working
part-time jobs, you might havestudents who might be taking
care of their families.
(05:55):
So a little bit of flexibilitywith online gives them an
opportunity to balanceeverything.
So that's one, the flexibilityand the convenience piece.
The second piece I think is themore important piece, is, as
you have seen, after COVID, welive digital lives, right?
We cannot imagine anyexperience that is just
face-to-face.
(06:16):
So when you go to work in anyenvironment, whether it's music
industry or any industry, therewill be a digital component to
it Of course.
And by taking online classes,you are experiencing those
digital experiences and gainingdigital skills, so you're
actually preparing yourself fora very digital economy.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
After you helped, I assume you successfully launched
a program for teachers.
Yes, it was a team.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
Yes, it was very successful.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
The wiles of Wisconsin didn't, however.
You moved on to what else.
You weren't just doingfull-time.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
I was a full-time assistant professor, so this was
part of one of the projects wedid in addition to teaching,
research and other commitments.
So after that, then individualuniversities within that system
they started offering onlineprograms and so we started
offering graduate onlineprograms, fully online, and I
stayed there for four years andthen I came to Michigan to work
(07:16):
in a comprehensive regionaluniversity and at that
university their mindset wasdifferent.
They had some misperceptionsabout online and they thought if
we offer online, we are goingto lose that high-touch
experience with our students.
So for years they did not offerany online program.
But when students startedtelling them it's not possible
(07:36):
for us to come to campus andtake classes in certain
sequences, I was the first onewho created their first online
degree.
It was in e-learning.
Wow it was hugely successful,and then the provost over there
asked me to lead the initiativein a similar role that I have
here, to help faculty understandthe opportunities that online
(07:59):
education offers for us asfaculty members, for our
students.
So I did that.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
I stayed in an administrative role for 10 years
, so when you were in theMichigan School University you
were teaching face-to-face, butyou were then recruited or
volunteered to do this onlineprogram, so you've had a lot of
face-to-face teaching experienceI have had a lot of
face-to-face online, fullyonline, as well as hybrid, and
so what are the differences andhow can we help students
(08:31):
understand that before they goin?
I think a lot of my studentsthink it'll just be Dr Ross
emails, so talk a little bitabout how you were happy to move
from one to the other becauseclearly you've seen potential
and opportunities a lot of otherfaculty never saw.
Speaker 4 (08:47):
Yeah, so first to when I was teaching face-to-face
like every other faculty, themost enjoyable part of that
experience is interaction withyour students Getting to know
your students, hearing theirstories and helping them by
sharing your own experiences.
And when you're transitioned toonline as faculty, it is
challenging and it is differentbecause suddenly you don't see
(09:11):
their faces.
You don't have that physicalpresence that you have in a
face-to-face classroom.
So you have to create thoseexperiences in a virtual
environment where you don't seethem but you feel a social
connection, a social proximityto your students through
interactions.
Online education is not new.
(09:33):
Like I said, it's based onyears and years of research or
best practices and, because Icame from a background of
instructional design andcurriculum, I was able to apply
those practices and online, soit's based on the same
foundations of face-to-face.
You have to make sure that youhave ongoing, regular
interactions with your students.
(09:53):
It doesn't matter what learningmanagement system you're using.
If you're doing video lectures,you're sharing your experiences
through those video lectures.
You still have a presence.
Then you can do live sessionswith your students.
I did a lot of discussions withmy students that were like on a
video or sometimes on a video,sometimes asynchronous
(10:14):
discussion forums.
I was very activelyparticipating in that.
I was not like a professor whodid not show up in those
discussion forums.
I would divide my class intosmaller groups, because it's
difficult to have a discussionwhen there are 50 students.
I would divide the class intosmaller groups and we would have
topics that would be ofinterest.
(10:36):
The prompts are very importantin those discussion forums.
We would do debates, we wouldtake point of views, we would
share stories, we would roleplay.
I did a lot of interestingthings, even within the online
space, and I also used virtualworlds.
I used to teach a graduateclass in instructional design.
(10:56):
At that time, second Life was avery popular virtual world.
I know that one.
I used to take my class to aclass actual classroom there.
We would go there and we wouldmeet teachers from all over the
world who would come therevirtually and share with us
their experiences of teachingclasses in that culture, the
(11:20):
challenges, the new technologies.
Imagine how different it isfrom face to face, because if
you're in face-to-face, you'reonly confined by the people who
can come to your class there.
Right, I had lots of guestspeakers.
I had lots of virtual casestudies.
I had virtual field trips.
You can do a lot more with anonline class than you can do
(11:43):
with a face-to-face class.
That's the positive side.
The challenging side is thatyou need structure, especially
from a student perspective.
It's easy to go to a class onWednesdays from noon to one, but
when it is online, it's out ofsight, out of mind.
The deadline seems like theyare not real and students tend
(12:05):
to procrastinate a lot.
Online classes need to have alot more structure than your
face-to-face classes.
From a student perspective, youneed to be more driven, you
need to have better timemanagement skills and I think
you also need to be open toreaching out to your faculty A
lot of time students do hesitateright.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Yeah absolutely.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
What has your experience been taking online
classes?
Speaker 3 (12:32):
I think, especially with asynchronous online classes
, it's almost like an objectpermanence thing where if it's
not like a physical class, it'sa little easier to not give it
priority.
And so it's really easy to belike especially asynchronous
because they tell you, okay,even though they don't have a
day for you, in asynchronous youpick a day, pick a time, that
(12:55):
this is what I'm doing, thisonline class.
But it's really easy for thattime to come around and you have
something going on and you'relike, oh, I can push it back
till tomorrow or I can push itto this afternoon.
And in my experience, after thefirst time you push it back,
you lose it.
If you push it back one time,like there goes that rigid
structure that you had.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
So you need discipline, you need a lot of
discipline.
Both faculty and students.
Right as a faculty, it's easyfor me to say, oh, I'm not going
to grade these papers this week, I'll do it next week.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Yeah, I know about that, yes.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
So I had to create that structure for myself too.
So I would say, on Tuesday I'mgoing to grade these papers and
I'm going to give you feedbackby Wednesday.
And I wrote it in the syllabusbecause then I was like, if I
write it in the syllabus, I'mgoing to do it Well and is it
part of your design, then, tobuild in deadlines for students
so that they can't do that kindof procrastinating?
(13:49):
Yes, that's part of a gooddesign, where you have multiple
assessments, not just midtermand final, and you want to make
sure you have regular check-inswith your students, because you
don't see their body languageright.
You don't know if they'reconfused, they're excited.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Is it a misconception in your experience that online
classes have a heavier workload,or is that part of what comes
with the territory of onlineclasses?
Speaker 4 (14:15):
Technically, if it is the same class, it should have
the same workload regardless,because that's based on credit
hours and contact hours andworkload expectations.
But in online as an instructor,I can tell you from my own
experiences it's easy to sort ofoverwhelm students and give
them a lot more work.
(14:36):
Because we can hyperlink fivearticles, you can upload a lot
of videos.
You can't see their faces whenyou say and I want you to read
them and they look panic and yougo oh, wait a minute, Maybe
that yeah, and so unless youhave experienced it as a student
yourself, you don't realize howmuch of a workload it is for
(14:58):
students to go through that.
Make sense of it.
That's why it has to be a lotof scaffolding built in online.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
So in a sense, though and this is the one drawback
for me as faculty memberlaunching these classes is a lot
more work for a faculty member,because you don't have to just
remember your own lecture note,you have to prepare it so that
it's ready.
One of the things about theselearning management things,
Nathan, I don't know if you knowthis for faculty there's about
17 little buttons you have toclick to get one simple little
(15:29):
quiz up, and if you miss one,then there could be all sorts of
or.
if it's not a quiz, it'sanything, and so it's really
easy for faculty members like meto have to slow down, have a
little checklist all these sortsof things.
But once you get into the swingof it and you learn to do the
same thing about 15 times orwhatever, you can get a lot
(15:51):
better at it.
And I'm hoping and praying thisfall when I teach these
asynchronous classes, thatbecause I've done so much
careful work ahead of time, thatit will flow a little more
smoothly and I'll actually bemore at ease maybe even then.
I am in a regular face to faceclass where I'm always trying to
hit and miss and not hit andmiss, but always in my
(16:13):
experience is face to faceclasses.
A lot depends on how Iexperience the students taking
in what I'm doing.
Sure, absolutely.
And so there's time foradjustment and things like that.
Speaker 4 (16:23):
And you're absolutely right, online requires a lot
more planning, preparation andthinking through the structure,
because that sequence, thatlearning sequence, is so
important and that's why we havea team of instructional
designers that work with facultyand we have also created we are
calling it template, but in asensual it is like a structure
(16:44):
for a course, so faculty canjust focus on the content and
teaching.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
I'm so glad that you said this about learning the
learning science, because Iremember when I first became a
college professor, I knew myBritish literature and I knew a
lot about writing and researchand I knew how it felt to be a
student, but I didn't knowalways how it really worked
(17:13):
intellectually and I alwaysthought to myself why don't they
teach college professors whatthey teach about learning?
And in fact now one of thestandard links in my class is to
a professor of psychology's DrSteven Choo's lectures on how
learning works for students.
So the students understand whyit is if you cram, it doesn't
(17:33):
work as well as if you do thingslike that.
That's one of the things Ireally enjoyed and appreciated
about what we're doing at UTTyler is because, like I've
worked with Steve Myers andinstructional designers and
they've helped me break down thelearning task into the pieces
that as student experiences.
Now I've always prodded myselfon thinking like a student and
(17:55):
I'll tell you the story.
Why is that?
When I was a graduate studentbut older graduate student I had
to take my foreign language.
Well, as a graduate student, Iwas also an assistant instructor
teaching English literaturesurvey courses.
So I ended up in a Germanfreshman level German class
taught by another graduatestudent up here and one of them
(18:15):
treated us like it was so simplewhat's the matter with you?
And I just hated that class.
The next semester, another oneof the graduate students taught
it and she recognized ourdifficulties and just that
simple difference of being whatit's like Recognize how hard it
can be, because so many timesprofessors what we teach is just
we know it, we get it, weunderstand.
(18:37):
We don't always explain all theconnections to things because
we assume people know it and alot of times students don't.
I'm getting off on a tangenthere, but what I like about this
shift to starting to do moreand more online is that I think
it's intellectually challengingto faculty and I think it's
going to make all of us whetherwe teach all online or face to
face or both make us morethoughtful.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
Absolutely.
It's grounded in good teaching.
Like over the years I've workedwith hundreds and hundreds of
faculty so that when I workedwith them to transition them to
online teaching, it was alreadygrounded in learning science.
When one comment I got againand again was it has improved my
face to face, yes, because ithelps you see things through a
(19:21):
student's lens and it helps yousee what is important how to put
a structure where the cognitiveload for students is minimized
and students can actually focuson those connections that you're
helping them make.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
The cognitive load is minimized.
Now, that's a phrase I want tocome back to, but as you were
saying that, I thought Nathan,tell me from the student
standpoint what I need to do tomake an online English class
manageable for you so you don'tend up getting lost.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Listen to everything she says.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
Really a lot of this stuff that you're saying.
It almost just makes me man.
I think I've said it in aprevious episode.
I've always subscribed to theschool of thought that online
learning just works for somepeople and just doesn't for some
people.
But what I'm getting andcorrect me if I'm wrong from
(20:17):
what you're saying is that a lotmore of your success is
determined by how the course isbuilt.
There's a lot can be determinedby is the course built for you
to succeed?
Speaker 4 (20:30):
And facilitated by the instructor.
So it's not like an autopilot,where just the readings are
there but the instructor is notthere to help you understand,
just like in a face-to-faceclass.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Yeah, and one of the things you mentioned about I
believe it was Michigan.
Right, you were at where theywere worried.
You called it a misconceptionthat the they were going to lose
that experience, the collegeexperience, and I think that has
been, dr Ross.
What it's been like in some ofmy online classes that I've
taken is that it feels like I'mout there on my own.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
So we faculty need to be intervening more, as you
said, facilitating and keepingmaking it.
It's not just create it, throwit out there and let them take
it on their own.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
It is about the interactions, right?
So learning happens in a socialcontext, so it's not just about
the content.
Yes, so you got to havedifferent kind of interactions
interactions that students willhave with other students,
students will have with theinstructor and students will
have with the content.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
To me, one of the biggest motivators to want to
show up to class is because I'vegot those two friends that I
sit next to or I really likethat professor.
I had Dr Cali.
Right, I had him for a nightcourse.
It was my only night course inthe week.
It's like miserable, you know.
It's like a six hour gap inbetween my last class and his
class and it was so hard to getto that class.
(21:52):
But I just really enjoyedtalking to Dr Cali.
That was like enough to tip thescale for.
Okay, I'm going to go to thisclass and I think that is
something that is easy to misswith online classes.
Is that social aspect of it,the fact that you like your
professors like I know that you,dr Ross, when people are filing
(22:13):
into your class, you're makingconversations with them.
You're, hey, how is your day?
You're building connections,you're following up on that.
You're like, hey, how is yourmom's surgery?
That kind of stuff.
I know you do a lot of that andgood teachers try to, and I
think that's something that iseasy to miss in online classes
those kind of relationships,because that a lot of times at
least in my experience incollege can tip the scale of how
(22:35):
committed I am to the class.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
So it is a learning community, right you have to
feel as if you belong to thatlearning community.
And I would like to add thatit's not just faculty doing all
the work.
I think students also have toplay a key role.
So in my classes, my firstsession was always roles and
responsibilities.
So, as a faculty, this is whatyou will expect from me and as a
(22:59):
student, to get the most out ofthis class.
These are the five things.
Sometimes students don't knowhow they can be successful in an
online environment.
Right, so they, if you sharewith them.
These are the expectations formy class.
This is how you can do it.
I think students would benefitfrom it.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
And I think about how much people build communities
out there in social media, andso our job as online teachers is
to build a social media kind ofcommunity, the connections,
yeah, and I have to admit I justbarely touch the social media
(23:38):
in general, and so that's alearning curve for me and
probably a learning curve for alot of faculty who are over
about 30, maybe over 40.
Tell me 20.
Some years ago, you startedlooking at online things.
What do you think if you and Iare still alive 20 years from
now?
How are universities going tolook with this?
Of course, we also have to getinto AI, which we're going to
talk about.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
Right, right right.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
But did you imagine first of all that we would have
changed so quickly after thepandemic?
Speaker 4 (24:05):
I did not, honestly, and I think nobody did.
But I think what COVID alsoshowed us, in my view, one it
did show us that technology cando a lot of things.
We were doing everythingvirtually right Zoom meetings
and everything was done but italso showed us that human
connection is equally importantand people crave for that.
So I think, as I look at thefuture, I see a very good
(24:29):
balance of both.
I remember when I startedteaching online at University of
Wisconsin, there used to besome people who say, oh, now,
online education is going totake over.
There won't be any face to face.
I don't think so.
We will always live in a hybridworld, and I think the key to
success would be how do youbalance the two and optimize the
two?
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Actually, I think in some ways, although the COVID
crisis caused all of us to haveto go online, I think it also
caused a bit of a backlashagainst online.
Speaker 4 (24:58):
Yes, Because we were not prepared to do it right.
A lot of faculty had to switchovernight and I would also say
the transition we did duringCOVID I would not call it online
teaching, it was remoteteaching, because a lot of
faculty were because of the timeand the constraints, they were
given the technology and saidnow do it through Zoom, but they
(25:20):
were never trained to do itwell, like online, like learning
science, how do students learnin an online environment?
What would be some pain pointsfor them?
Crisis teaching?
So it was crisis.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Yes, remote teaching, crisis teaching, and I know a
lot of people think that is theversion of online teaching,
which is not and I think that'san important thing to remember
is that, while it's acceleratednow because of what happened,
we've got some catching up to do, but we also have some great
opportunities.
Really, do so, tell me a littlebit about what you think.
(25:52):
How does AI figure into this?
I was at a conference recentlywhere the fellow from Princeton
who developed chat, gpt, wasinterviewed and then he's
followed up very quickly with aprogram called Origin so you can
check to see how much of yourstudents writing is AI generated
.
The question is how do we useAI responsibly and effectively?
(26:17):
You and I just had a wonderfulconversation about it and you
want to share with Dr Kumar someof your thoughts about AI
before we drag her into thisconversation.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
Dr Ross and I both see AI as a tool and it's going
to have some interesting ripplesin higher education and really
change a lot of things.
As you're talking about thischat GBT guy, a lot of the ways
we test and check to see if youare doing well in the class are
vulnerable now.
Speaker 4 (26:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Because AI can autonomously do a lot of the
types of work that we'reassigning to students, and so
I'm really interested what doyou think?
I feel like no area in highereducation will be affected more
by AI than online learning,because it's all on the computer
already.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
How is it affecting you all already and maybe how is
it going to affect you yeah.
Speaker 4 (27:10):
I think you can see a comment that AI is a tool.
It is a tool, right.
So how we use it it's going todetermine a lot of things,
whether it is an advantage orit's a disadvantage.
So I think AI is going totransform the way we teach and
the way we learn both.
The way we learn, yeah, the waywe learn too.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Now you don't mean literally the way our brains
learn.
Speaker 4 (27:34):
You mean the way we experience school Like as a
student.
My experience as a student.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (27:40):
And if you look at the real world, how Theresa I
say that Is that.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
one friend of mine said it's possible, it's going
to be the end of thinking no way.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
It shouldn't.
No, In fact, if anything, Ithink it is going to enhance our
thinking if it is used properly, right?
Because if you look at the realworld, our industries are being
changed by AI, so our studentsare ultimately going to go and
work there.
So we need to take a step backas faculty and say what kind of
skills will my students takingmy English class or my math
(28:10):
class or my education class whenthey go out in the real field,
what kind of things will theyneed?
So they will need differentskills, right?
Because a lot of the thingsthat AI can do would probably be
done by AI.
So it will be a human and AIinteraction.
So it will make us rethink someof our assignments, some of the
content we teach, the way weteach it.
(28:33):
As an instructor, I can see AIsuggesting content to me based
on the kind of students I have,the kind of interest they have,
the kind of industry they wantto go to.
I can also see as an instructor, AI could tell me hey, you have
20 students, six learned thisway, others learned this way.
(28:53):
This student is really so itwill allow me to personalize
that instruction withoutactually manually doing it, so
AI can bring the content that isof interest to you, Nate, if
you want to work in musicindustry, or it might bring
different examples for a studentwho wants to work in the sports
industry, without me, as aninstructor, having been able to
(29:14):
go and research those articles.
So I see that as a big benefit.
And then I will take a stepback and see okay, what kind of
jobs will my students do, sowhat kind of assignment should I
give them?
Speaker 2 (29:25):
That's going to be hard to predict those jobs,
though, is it but?
Speaker 4 (29:27):
at least we can think about it right.
That's why.
So they probably won't bewriting papers, I don't know.
Hopefully they're writingpapers, but different types of
papers.
From a student perspective, Ican see AI can actually serve as
a coach, a virtual coach, sonudging you, telling you if you
need more practice here are somemore problems like this.
(29:49):
You missed steps here can coachyou.
Artificial intelligence,tutoring is used in many other
companies and institutions.
I think that is very powerful.
It can also personalize yourpath as a student.
If you learn a certain way orif you have skills that are
different than others, then youwill see a different kind of
content and we already have thatkind of adaptive learning in
(30:12):
some of the software.
I think that's a lot ofpotential and I heard a
wonderful story this was severalyears ago that I have to tell
about AI.
We went to a conference and theprofessor was there from one of
the big research universities.
He did an experiment, so he hadtwo TAs One was an AI TA, one
was the actual human TA, but hedid not tell his students.
(30:34):
So at the end of the course hesaid can you rate these two TAs?
And the students rated the AITA better and then he told the
students actually this is not aperson.
And the students were upset.
They say you had a virtual TAand all this time you were
asking questions to a non-human.
That was like six, seven yearsago.
(30:54):
But I think that also shows thepotential, because it's machine
learning the more questions youask, the better AI knows what
you're going to ask.
They can predict it.
So I think, going into thefuture, a lot of the stuff that
we do AI can do, but then itwill leave time for us to do
(31:17):
high-level thinking, both ourstudents and us.
So I think it's the interactionand the collaboration with AI.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
I can't help it.
It's scary here and all thatstuff.
I don't know, maybe I've seentoo many shows where the end
times are like we're so relianton technology to almost bottle
feed us all of our entire life,so it's scary to think about
that, where your class is taughtby AI, not fully taught.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
I'm saying a balance.
The human interaction is stillthe core and should be the core.
I think AI should supplement it.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
It's interesting that you said that the TA, the AI TA
, was better than the human TA.
Speaker 4 (32:02):
And the professor had a name for her and everybody
was, oh, we really like this.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
I want to know how to do that because I'm not getting
a TA this semester, if I canget an AI.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
I want to do it for me.
Chat GVT.
There you go.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Also, what struck me as you were talking about all
these different ways it can beused is learning how to get
those, either finding thoseapplications or loading.
I was trying to load originsthis morning and I couldn't get
it to work.
I thought oh, how brilliant amI, Brilliant am I?
Nathan, can you come to myhouse and figure?
Speaker 3 (32:32):
out how to do this.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
It's a no, but it's a no.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
No, I said it's a.
I was gonna say it's a, no,it's a like.
It's a whole new field ofspecialization.
Speaker 4 (32:41):
Yeah, and it's evolving.
It's a new job, right?
Yeah, they're evolving.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
A friend of mine always says we can't even
predict.
Everyone says you've got toprepare students for jobs and we
don't even know what jobs aregonna be out there in five years
, oh yeah, or what versions ofthe jobs we think we're
preparing you for.
One of the greatest things weall have to learn is flexibility
, huh, an adaptability.
So there you go.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
What advice?
You've had a career of onlinedistance learning, remote
learning, all the differentareas.
It's been my experience andmany students that I've talked
to that if you get in there andit's not, it doesn't immediately
click.
It's very hard for you to getthrough that class.
What advice do you have forbrand new students who are
coming into online learning?
(33:21):
How do you set them up forsuccess?
What do they need to know?
What do they need to focus on?
What do they need to thinkabout?
Speaker 4 (33:26):
Absolutely, and I think that is so critical
because at times, and even nowwhen you look at any survey,
students assign a for onlinebecause of flexibility and then
they don't think about thechallenges.
But being successful in onlineclass will require a lot more
from the student side than itrequires from a faculty side,
(33:47):
because you need to bedisciplined, you need to know
the technology very well and youneed to understand the
expectations the faculty has foryou in that particular class,
and it could vary from class toclass.
So if I was a new studentsigned up for an online course,
the first thing I would do isreach out to the orientation
(34:08):
people and say I want to learnCanvas.
Where are the resources?
I want to make sure technology.
I am proficient in it.
You can use, probably, facebook, but Canvas is a different
educational tool and has so manyfeatures.
So the technology is, I wouldsay, the required foundation.
The second is I would reach outto the instructor and say I'm so
(34:30):
excited to take this class.
These are the reasons why I'mtaking it online.
You could be working two jobswho knows right, so you're
trying to balance it.
Could you please let me knowwhat would it take to be
successful in your class andthat's, I think, a very good
question, even for a faculty.
So the faculty would love thatconversation with the student,
and once you have a goodunderstanding of the expectation
(34:52):
and the course layout, then youneed to create a structure for
yourself and be disciplined.
I would also reach out to otherstudents in that class.
You could create study groupson your own you don't know, it
doesn't have to be somethingthat the instructor creates and
make yourself familiar with allthe support resources we have,
like tutoring, like careersuccess coaches.
(35:15):
We have all the supportservices available, even in
online, but not everybody takesadvantage of it, right?
Speaker 3 (35:22):
Yeah, I think that's important to note is that maybe
you forget when you're in onlineclass like all these resources,
they're still yours.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Yes, absolutely, and the template that you all set up
for us has links to all ofthose on the very first page, so
it's possible to find them.
But I do think that there's atendency to get passive among
any student that do it theeasiest way, and so, remembering
that an online class is not theeasiest way, no, it's not easy.
Speaker 4 (35:50):
It will require a lot more than students.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
It will be convenient , it will be flexible, but you
can blow it if you're notlearning all those new skills.
And what you're just making merealize, though, is that such a
course, when well-crafted andwhen taken seriously by a
student, can be enormouslyvaluable, because always,
finally, we're trying to get youall ready to get out there in
that world where you have to beproactive, where you have to
(36:14):
have self-discipline, where youhave to be your own best
champion.
Speaker 4 (36:19):
Yes, and UT Tyler.
We offer the same supportservices for online students, so
there's no difference at all.
They get access to everything,and our classes are taught by
our own faculty, so it's notthat you're going to get a
different kind of experience.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
And what advice would you give to a student who says
I want to take online classes.
I have no self-discipline.
Speaker 4 (36:43):
Then I would say it's not a good fit for them Cool.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
Yeah, Work on the self-discipline.
Then come back to onlineclasses.
Speaker 4 (36:49):
Because it's going to be very difficult for any
student to be very successful ifthey don't have self-discipline
, because you don't have a classto go to on Wednesdays or
Tuesdays and if you don't havethat, you're going to choose
probably a game or somethingelse, because that's something
you see right andself-discipline is a skill so
you can develop it.
So maybe you're not ready forit yet.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
But you feel like that's not a skill you develop
as you go.
That's something.
Speaker 4 (37:16):
Intentionally.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
Have that skill developed before you walk in the
door.
Don't try to be like I'm goingto develop self-discipline as I
go through my online classes bytaking it online class.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
Uh-oh.
Speaker 4 (37:25):
Or reach out.
We have a study strategiescourse, I think, on campus.
Reach out to advisors and saywe have advisors for every
student.
Hey, I'm taking this onlineclass, but this is what I am
hesitant about.
Can you direct me to someresources?
So if a student is motivated todo that, you can do it?
You can just block out timeevery day for a certain period
(37:49):
of time.
You can meet in person withsome of your other peers in the
class and get that supportsystem.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
Great.
Speaker 4 (37:56):
Great.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
Cool, that's all I have.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
That's all I have too , and what more would you want?
So thank you so much Thank youso much.
Speaker 4 (38:04):
It was so much fun.
Thank you for what you do.
Speaker 3 (38:07):
Yeah, thank you for what you do.
I might have to reconsider anonline class down the road now.
I'm going to work on thatself-discipline, though.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Yeah, you're getting there, I'm getting there.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
All right, I'll close this out.
This has been the Ask Dr Rosspodcast.
Thanks everybody for listening.
If you have any questions thatyou want to ask Dr Ross, you can
email us atadrquestionsatgmailcom.
That's it for us.
Thanks so much.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
Bye-bye, bye.
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