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Making the Link to College

By Bracken Reed

Ken Miller, chair of the Department of Educational Theory & Practice at Montana State University-Billings, believes there needs to be a cultural change in higher education to embrace online teaching and learning.

"Right now that's not a standard for teacher education," Miller acknowledges, "but it's something that we believe is up and coming. Within the next five years, a lot of teachers may be required to teach online. We already see that secondary students, obviously, are taking online courses, and that high school teachers are usually providing those. If that's already occurring, then as a teacher education institution we need to start providing online pedagogical strategies and skills."

What MSU-Billings does have in place is a teacher certification program that students take almost entirely online. Called Teaching as a Second Career, it's the fastest growing degree program at the university. The two-year program has both an undergraduate and a graduate track and results in an elementary education certification. Students also have the option of earning secondary level certification if they already have the content area credits that are required.

The program was created to address Montana's need for new teachers, especially in rural areas. According to Miller, "One of the problems that we have in Montana is that a lot of the teachers that go to rural areas only stay for a year or two. If you can prepare teachers who are already living in that area, then there's a better chance that they'll stay in the community. We needed a better outreach model that could bring in people who want to teach, but who can't leave their hometown or their job."

Montana State University-Billings began the program with the help of a federal Technology Innovation Challenge grant from the U.S. Department of Education. The grant was for three years, plus a one-year extension, and also included upgrades in the College of Education's technology resources. As a result, the regular elementary education certification program can also be taken almost entirely online.

As part of the grant, the department conducted a matched-pair study that compared the success of students taking the program online with another group of campus-based students. The students were similar in age, gender, coursework, and plans of study. According to Miller, "the students showed no significant statistical difference in their performance."

There were some kinks to work out, however. "We originally had the program entirely online," says Miller, "and we learned that students really needed to be on campus at least for a summer session." Certain situations, they found, required the immediate feedback of the faculty. For example, a reading clinic in which a student teacher is working with a child one-on-one. "The interaction between the faculty member, the student teacher, and the child needs to occur spontaneously and almost immediately in that situation," says Miller.

In most situations, however, the university has found online study to be just as effective as classroom study. "We've found that any particular skill or teaching strategy, whether it be direct instruction or inquiry-based, we can do it online. It really just depends on how you set up the course."

The biggest obstacle, according to Miller, was a cultural shift, a change in thinking that needed to happen. "There's a certain fear of change," says Miller, acknowledging that professors were at first resistant to teaching courses online. "It's difficult for faculty to make the pedagogical shift. There's a certain amount of belief, for a lot of teachers, that you have to project your personality into teaching, and that by being in the classroom you're modeling what you want students to do. A lot of faculty start out thinking that you can't do that online, but after they've tried it, they see it differently."

With a clear instructional plan and a system of supports in place, says Miller, "Online learning can actually allow for deeper learning. There's more time for reflection, and there's the fact that you can't just verbally blurt out an answer or a response. You have to write it out, which requires a lot more thought, and also a lot more time. The kind of learning that goes on is not nearly as hit-and-miss as in the classroom."

The challenges of online learning can be formidable, but for those teachers and students willing to make the cultural shift, the rewards can be well worth the effort. "There's a certain independence and self-discipline that are needed for online learning," says Miller. "The people who do well with it seem to be lifelong learners; they seem to have an intrinsic motivation to learn new things. They have to," he adds with a laugh, "because sometimes they might be getting online at 2 or 3 in the morning, because of their schedules."