Career Mantra’s Official Blog

Today, learn­ers are pro­lif­er­at­ing, but the instruc­tor pop­u­la­tion is strug­gling to match learner growth rates. Learn­ers are in every city, town and vil­lage. And, all yearn for qual­ity edu­ca­tion. But the qual­ity edu­ca­tion givers are few and far between. So how do edu­ca­tion plan­ners and imple­menters rec­on­cile with this mis­match?
Dis­tance learn­ing was thought to be the answer. Indeed, it still is. But there is a dif­fer­ence today in the deliv­er­ance because of tech­nol­ogy and Inter­net. The qual­ity gap between face-to-face learn­ing has been bridged as has the dis­tance gap been vir­tu­ally bridged.

Learner Cen­tric Edu­ca­tion

The way we learn has evolved. Users have truly become the cen­ter of the learn­ing process. Often times the learn­ers iden­tify the appro­pri­ate mate­r­ial and way they want to learn. The time avail­able for learn­ing courses has been tele­scoped for want of time. The good news is that the time period for online learn­ing is shorter and learn­ers apply the learn­ing directly to their work sit­u­a­tion to remain com­pet­i­tive. The oppor­tu­ni­ties for learn­ing are expand­ing. Tech­nol­ogy pro­vides access to new ways to learn both for­mally and infor­mally. The younger gen­er­a­tion grew up with tech­nol­ogy — and demands online access to infor­ma­tion, research, processes, and new skills. Step in e-learning.

What is dif­fer­ent about e-learning?

e-learning helps learn­ers to reach pred­i­cated lev­els of com­pe­tency faster. e-learning allows learn­ers to assim­i­late con­tent at their own speed. If they under­stand mate­r­ial, they can skim; if it’s new mate­r­ial, they can spend time on the unfa­mil­iar con­tent. Con­trast it with the class­room; instruc­tion moves at the will of the instruc­tor, who gears the class pace to meet needs of the major­ity of learn­ers, not the needs of indi­vid­ual learn­ers.
Learn­ers can engage in learn­ing any­time, any­where, and from any loca­tion. Learn­ers con­trol when and where they want to do their learn­ing. Some choose to learn from home while oth­ers take a “learn­ing break” that breaks the monot­ony of the work­day. Some even access learn­ing from their mobile devices as they travel. This free­dom to learn based on per­sonal pref­er­ence makes for hap­pier, more engaged learn­ers who find it eas­ier to stay up-to-date on their knowl­edge and skills.
Con­sis­tency of eLearn­ing deliv­ers uni­form con­tent to all learn­ers. No mat­ter where the learn­ers are located, they receive the same con­tent, elim­i­nat­ing con­tent vari­ance that is often present with instructor-led learn­ing.
Travel sav­ings are sig­nif­i­cant. e-learning elim­i­nates a sig­nif­i­cant amount of air, train and auto travel.

But what of the qual­ity of e-learning, vis-à-vis face-to-face learn­ing?

Class­room And Online Self-Study Prove Equally Effec­tive.Out­side of sub­ject areas where face-to-face inter­ac­tion is inescapable — for exam­ple, say a med­ical stu­dent is doing the rounds of the ward with her instruc­tor — recent research indi­cates that no sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ences exist in the effec­tive­ness of learn­ing through class­room, online, or self-study. This is because of the fol­low­ing:
Metic­u­lously crafted graph­ics and visu­als help explain new con­cepts. Visu­als, graph­ics, sim­ple sim­u­la­tions, and even short videos con­tribute to a more visual approach to under­stand­ing con­cepts. This, com­bined with instructor’s audio help, ensure good learn­ing. In fact, some ani­mated sequences in eLearn­ing would be dif­fi­cult to dupli­cate in the class­room.
Responses through blogs, wikis, and dis­cus­sion boards help learn­ers see other points of view. The dan­ger of iso­la­tion of online learn­ers is mit­i­gated by a plethora of inter­ac­tive tools used to rein­force the learn­ing.
Con­tent is avail­able to review mul­ti­ple times. The oppor­tu­nity to access spe­cific sec­tions of the learn­ing con­tent as many times as nec­es­sary to grasp key con­cepts pro­vides for a bet­ter over­all under­stand­ing of the topic. Also, choos­ing the best time to learn puts the learner in a bet­ter frame of mind to learn.

The end note there­fore is that while e-learning maps eas­ily with fast for­ward learn­ing, the learner has the power to press the pause but­ton at her will. Clearly, e-learning has arrived.

There is now com­pelling evi­dence that online learn­ing has pipped face-to-face learn­ing at the post. The nose is just ahead though. But this is sig­nif­i­cant since till now it was felt that the race between online learn­ing and face-to-face learn­ing was a dead heat at best.
A study con­ducted by U.S. Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion Office of Plan­ning, Eval­u­a­tion, and Pol­icy Devel­op­ment Pol­icy and Pro­gram Stud­ies Ser­vice has con­cluded that online learn­ing has surged ahead of face-to-face learn­ing. The report is now in the pub­lic domain.

The moti­va­tion of this study was: Online learn­ing — for stu­dents and for teach­ers — is one of the fastest grow­ing trends in edu­ca­tional uses of tech­nol­ogy. The National Cen­ter for Edu­ca­tion Sta­tis­tics (2008) esti­mated that the num­ber of K-12 pub­lic school stu­dents enrolling in a technology-based dis­tance edu­ca­tion course grew by 65 per­cent in the two years from 2002 – 03 to 2004 – 05. On the basis of a more recent dis­trict sur­vey, Pic­ciano and Sea­man (2009) esti­mated that more than a mil­lion K – 12 stu­dents took online courses in school year 2007 – 08. (Page 12)

The gen­e­sis of online learn­ing is dis­tance learn­ing. Dis­tance learn­ing has been around for over a cen­tury now. But the advan­tage of the World Wide Web has caused the online learn­ing to explode.

The study focuses on the two main pur­poses of online learn­ing:

(a) Learn­ing con­ducted totally online as a sub­sti­tute or alter­na­tive to face-to-face learn­ing
(b) Online learn­ing com­po­nents that are com­bined or blended (some­times called “hybrid”)
with face-to-face instruc­tion to pro­vide learn­ing enhance­ment

Find­ings:
The over­all find­ing of the meta-analysis is that classes with online learn­ing (whether taught com­pletely online or blended) on aver­age pro­duce stronger stu­dent learn­ing out­comes than do classes with solely face-to-face instruc­tion. (Page 38)

This is a sig­nif­i­cant tilt towards online learn­ing. Ear­lier stud­ies had con­cluded that online learn­ing is only as effec­tive as face-to-face learn­ing. The sec­ond area of study also gave thumbs up to online learn­ing. It said:

Blends of online and face-to-face instruc­tion, on aver­age, had stronger learn­ing out­comes than did face-to-face instruc­tion alone (Page 39)

Clearly, it makes sense for com­pa­nies to move over to online learn­ing and elearn­ing, where pos­si­ble. Not only will it cut costs but will also be a sub­stan­tially bet­ter expe­ri­ence both for learn­ers and teach­ers.

In the June09 issue of Har­vard Busi­ness Review, Mr Robert I. Sut­ton writes about How to Be a Good Boss in a Bad Econ­omy. His reme­dies for the Boss were pre­dictabil­ity, under­stand­ing, con­trol and com­pas­sion. He gives exam­ples to fur­ther his argu­ment about his reme­dies. While his expla­na­tion fol­lowed his rem­edy — it was pre­dictable – his exam­ple on com­pas­sion had me bris­tled.

First, a lit­tle digres­sion on com­pas­sion. These days we are bandy­ing around com­pas­sion as a skill. As if it were some­thing that one learns at the blacksmith’s or at the carpenter’s. It is our very innate nature, for God’s sake. It has noth­ing to do with man­agers or employ­ees or with roy­alty; it is mine because of being a human being. It is our sev­enth sense. Don’t ever call it a soft skill. Com­pas­sion is not a good thing to have. It is the right thing to have.

Now, for that exam­ple on com­pas­sion. Let me quote Mr Sut­ton:

Quote

Jer­ald Green­berg, a man­age­ment pro­fes­sor at The Ohio State Uni­ver­sity, pro­vides com­pelling evi­dence that com­pas­sion affects the bot­tom line in tough times. Green­berg stud­ied three nearly iden­ti­cal man­u­fac­tur­ing plants in the Mid­west that were all part of the same com­pany; two of them (which man­age­ment chose at ran­dom) insti­tuted a tem­po­rary 10-week pay cut of 15% after the firm had lost a major con­tract. At one of the two, the exec­u­tive who con­veyed the news did so curtly, announc­ing, “I’ll answer one or two ques­tions, but then I have to catch a plane for another meet­ing.” At the other one, the exec­u­tive who broke the news gave a detailed and com­pas­sion­ate expla­na­tion, along with apolo­gies and mul­ti­ple expres­sions of remorse. He also spent a full hour answer­ing ques­tions about why the cost cut­ting was nec­es­sary, who would be affected, and what steps work­ers could take to help them­selves and the plant. Green­berg found fas­ci­nat­ing effects on employee theft rates. At the plant where the curt expla­na­tion was given, the rate rose to more than 9%. But at the plant where management’s expla­na­tion was detailed and com­pas­sion­ate, it rose only to 6%. (At the third plant, where no pay cuts were made, the rate held steady at about 4% dur­ing the 10-week period.)

Unquote

It is unfor­tu­nate that he gives thiev­ing of employ­ees as an exam­ple to but­tress his idea about com­pas­sion for employ­ees. It would appear that researchers such as Mr Green­berg — as quoted by Mr Sut­ton - think that employ­ees by nature are prone to thiev­ing. Why else would one do such a gra­tu­itous research?
I would imag­ine that Mr Greenberg’s research hypoth­e­sis read:
This research estab­lishes a cor­re­la­tion between increase of theft by employ­ees and the abrupt­ness of lan­guage used by CEOs con­vey­ing salary reduc­tion news.
And from this research Mr Sut­ton got com­pelling evi­dence that com­pas­sion begets less thiev­ing!
I think this is absolutely unfair to employ­ees.