Meeting the Demands of the 21
st
Learner
Delivering Elementary Science and Math Methods Courses Online an
Auto-ethnographic Approach
Cleveland Hayes
1
, Andy K. Steck
2
and David R. Perry
3
1
Teacher Education and Advanced Studies in Education and Human Development,
University of La Verne, College of Education and Organizational Leadership, La Verne, CA, U.S.A.
2
Liberal Studies, Education and Teacher Development,
University of La Verne College of Education and Organizational Leadership, La Verne, CA, U.S.A.
3
Teacher Education, Liberal Studies Education and Teacher Development,
University of La Verne College of Education and Organizational Leadership La Verne, CA, U.S.A.
Keywords: Online Learning, Teacher Education, Hybrid Courses, Challenges in Teaching, Autoethographic Methods,
Teaching Strategies.
Abstract: In the last two decades, online enrollment in higher education has increased substantially. As more students
enroll in courses, Universities may find that the demand within the institution will grow beyond current
offerings. Within the field of teacher education, hundreds of online course offerings in teacher preparation
programs worldwide are offered. The advantages to online versus face-to-face courses are numerous.
Despite the marked increase in online course offerings and enrollment, however, some obstacles do exist in
online classes. A review of recent literature indicated a need to study the challenges faced by faculty who
teach hybrid courses and the need to better understand what constitutes quality online education. So, the
importance of this research is how do teacher preparation programs meet the demands and charges of
institutions while maintaining quality of instruction. Using autoethographic methods, two professors who
teach elementary science methods and elementary math methods chronicle how they begin to address the
challenges in online teaching and how they overcame those challenges to meet the needs of the 21
st
century
learner. The participants in this study describe how they apply constructivist concepts solely online. These
outcomes are what we call the call the good, the bad and the ugly.
1 INTRODUCTION
With the pressures of teaching online, it is important
to consider faculty’s perspectives on teaching in this
environment. One way to understand how faculty
members experience online teaching is by having
faculty members' reconstruct experiences, and
elaborating on the meaning that they assign to those
experiences. The two participants in this study
while have the same objectives, providing a quality
online course; are intentional in the assignments
given to students as a way to achieve similar but
different objectives. For example, Cleveland with a
background in social justice education his narrative
is grounded in the 8 essentials for empowered
teaching in learning. As a former public school
science teacher, he knows that science is a
gatekeeper who often keeps ethnic minority, the
poor and girls locked out of the gate and he wants
his students to be able to give their students the keys
to that gage. Conversely, Andy’s outcome is to
lower the affect of teaching math.
The purpose of this paper, using
autoethnographic methods two faculty members at a
small liberal arts college describe how they meet the
above objectives and others in a methods course
taught solely on line. These outcomes are what we
call the call the good, the bad and the ugly.
2 LITERATURE REVIEW
Online education is defined as a platform for
delivering educational content and facilitating
instructor-student interaction over a computer
network (Shelton and Saltsman, 2005). Online
130
Hayes C., K. Steck A. and R. Perry D..
Meeting the Demands of the 21st Learner - Delivering Elementary Science and Math Methods Courses Online an Auto-ethnographic Approach.
DOI: 10.5220/0004961801300134
In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU-2014), pages 130-134
ISBN: 978-989-758-022-2
Copyright
c
2014 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)
courses are available anytime and anyplace and
learning is interactive and collaborative. Students
and instructors share discoveries throughout each
step of the course. Many online courses use a
combination of delivery modes including a variety
of technologies.
Many faculty members in higher education have
been asked to teach online. While online education
has become routine with 65% of graduate programs
across the country using the Internet to deliver
classes (Norton and Hathaway, 2008), many
colleges and universities are still struggling to
discover how to provide a quality educational
experience. For students, the virtual classroom
provides unlimited access to course material,
including resources, virtual manipulatives, lecture
notes, and even video or audio recordings of lectures
(Owen, 2010). For the instructor, however many cast
a skeptical eye on the learning outcomes for online
education. Allen, Seaman, Lederman and Jaschik
(2012) reported that nearly two-thirds say they
believe that the learning outcomes for an online
course are inferior or somewhat inferior to those for
a comparable face-to-face course. Most of the
remaining faculty members report that the two have
comparable outcomes. Even among those with a
strong vested interest in online education – faculty
members who are currently teaching online courses
– considerable concern remains about the quality of
the learning outcomes.
Dziuban et al. (2005) found that faculty
perceptions regarding student learning in a hybrid
courses were very satisfying and that student
learning and performance is equal to or better than
traditional face-to-face course settings.
3 THEORITICAL FRAMEWORK
As a framework for designing constructivist learning
environments, Jonassen and Rohrer-Murphy (1999)
postulate that conscious learning emerges from
activity (performance), not as a precursor to it.
Engestrom (in Jonassen and Rohrer-Murphy 1999,
72–77) lists six steps when designing learning
experiences. These are: 1) clarify the purpose of the
activity system (what are students’ goals, motives
and expectations?); 2) analyze the activity system
(for example the student as subject, the community
in which the subject works, the outcomes that need
to be achieved); 3) analyze the activity (such as
problem-solving actions); 4) analyze tools and
mediators (such as methods, language, forms of
work organization); 5) analyze the context (the real-
life, non-instructional contexts within which
activities occur); and 6) analyze activity system
dynamics (this requires a final assessment of how all
the components affect one another).
Bruner’s (1990) Constructivist theory has been
adopted and utilized for many different instructional
situations. The online classrooms can incorporate
Bruner’s theory of Constructivism in a number of
ways. Discovery Learning is one way that Science
teachers can make use of the theory since the theory
itself is somewhat close to scientific inquiry.
Similarly, Pais (1997) noted that the constructivist
framework for mathematics education makes
prominent the notion that each learner must actively
construct her/his own mathematical concepts and
that, ultimately, mathematical knowledge consists in
the learner's individual ability to do mathematics in a
given context, by purposefully re-constructing useful
mathematical concepts and tools appropriate to the
given context. Teachers have to communicate how
to do mathematical operations to students so that
they understand. The Constructivist approach
requires that each learner actively construct their
own internal concepts into their mathematical
schema.
4 METHODS
Reed-Danahay (1997) describes autoethnography as
enlisting a rewriting of the social self. For the
purpose of this research we are asking the questions,
“What are triumphs and challenges of moving a
course historically designed to be taught face-to-face
to solely on line? A second research question would
be how are we meeting the demands/needs of the
21
st
Century learner/student and the 21
st
Century
student these pre-service teacher will eventually
teach?
Quicke (2010) argues that autoethnographic
work often involves, as is the case of this project,
looking back and analyzing personal memoirs and is
often focused on the self as participant in the social
process. Autoethnographic accounts of experiences,
by virtue of being self-reflective, are deeply personal
and researchers using this still must produce a highly
personalized revealing text in with an author tells
stories about his or her own lived experiences.
Autoethnographic methods according to Douglas
and Carless (2013) are centered on the various
aspects of our lives. While these narratives can
serve as models for others to reflect on their practice
as described in the narratives. It is important that
these narratives are individual and does not speak
MeetingtheDemandsofthe21stLearner-DeliveringElementaryScienceandMathMethodsCoursesOnlinean
Auto-ethnographicApproach
131
for other professor who teach methods course on
line. But as well all stories we as a community of
academics we can all learn for each other’s stories
and lived experiences (Douglas and Carless, 2013;
du Perez, 2008; Leonardo, 2009).
Cleveland Hayes and Andy Steck are faculty
members at a small private college in the American
West. Several years ago the Dean of the College
answered the Universities call to move as many of
the College’s program to totally on-line and /or
hybrid were the course are taught as in the case of
this department 70% face to face and 30% on line.
Two of the authors of this paper were also tasked to
provide our science and math methods courses
totally on-line. Initially, we were both skeptical
about teaching a methods course totally on line. The
first question we asked ourselves was how are we
going to create a constructivist classroom online.
This translates to how do we provide pre-service
teachers a constructivist experience on-line and in
the case of one of the researchers how was he going
to incorporate social justice curriculum into an
online environment, because so much of social
justice education depends on relationships between
students, between students and the professor and
between the content. This researcher sees teaching
as a how to think process and less how to process
and how too (Hayes et al., 2011). This was a
challenge for Cleveland. Bottom line we have two
different approaches to teaching methods course in
general let alone in an online setting.
5 AUTO-ETHNOGRAPHIC
APPROACH TO TEACHING
ON-LINE
5.1 Cleveland
There are several themes that come out of my
narrative. The more pressing theme is lowering the
students’ affect towards the science content as well
as teaching science. As a former high school science
teacher, I know that science is a gatekeeper. It is a
gatekeeper because while it may open many
opportunities not knowing the content is also a gate
closer. As a gatekeeper it keeps students, especially
those in poverty, from career opportunities that may
get them out of poverty: careers in health care,
science and engineering courses.
A second theme from my narrative is that by
taking a class on line forces pre-service teachers to
use the latest technology and Web 2.0 tools not only
for their engagement in the curriculum but also as a
means to engage their future students in the
curricular. Because if as educators we are going to
move students out of poverty, closing the digital
divide through teaching a methods course online,
provides opportunities for students to use the latest
technology tools as a way to show their
understanding of the science concepts. The way the
students have to engage the material forces them to
learn ways to close the digital divide as we know
being educated is one way of getting students out of
poverty and technology is one of those ways to help
students out of poverty (Hayes et al., 2011).
5.2 Andy
Several themes emerge teaching a math methods
class online. The first theme is the affect of teaching
math. Another theme is changing the mindset of
students to teaching math effectively versus the
approach they learned from in their own
experiences.
How do I as the instructor reduce math anxiety
my students exhibit and endorse when they share
their “stars and wishes” of their strengths and
weaknesses in math as an initial assignment. I learn
quickly the anxieties they share about teaching math.
In the face-to-face class, learning to use a variety of
manipulatives to understand math concepts prior to
learning the procedural concepts greatly reduces the
amount of anxiety. Students comment, “if only we
used these when I was in elementary school my
math skills would be stronger. The online challenge
to use manipulatives is met through virtual
manipulatives found on many websites, but this
challenge is also met as students demonstrate their
understanding and use of manipulatives through
technology using Voice Thread, You Tube videos or
Jings.
Changing the mindsets of students is a
challenging feat in itself when an instructor meets
face-to-face with students to initiate discussion, set
with examples of how effective instruction can
occur. To meet this challenge online, videos of
classrooms must be analyzed, as are articles through
the use of blogs and wiki discussions in class. To
show an understanding of how effective instruction
is internalized, one assignment is to have students in
the course create word problems online, solicit
responses from students at the appropriate grade
level and analyze the various approaches used to
complete the word problems. A reflective piece is
written as a response to the analysis. Students must
begin to understand there are a variety of procedural
CSEDU2014-6thInternationalConferenceonComputerSupportedEducation
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skills, which can be developed and used to solve
problems, versus the one procedure they learned
themselves.
6 CONCLUSIONS
Through the use of autoethnographic methods, this
paper responds to 1) the challenges faced by faculty
who teach hybrid courses and 2) the need to better
understand what constitutes quality online
education. This research with two professors who
teach elementary science and math methods and how
they begin to address the challenges and how they
overcame those challenges to meet the needs of the
21
st
century learner. In our classes we have both
traditional undergraduate student and adult learners
from our universities program geared towards
working adults and the unique set of challenges they
bring. Through our narratives we are self-reflective
on how we struggled and in many cases overcame
the challenges finding ways to deliver quality
distance education.
There is a growing body of literature that
addresses what students identify as challenges in
distance education (Hughes, 2007; Hilgenberg and
Tolone, 2000; Chen et al., 2007; O'Malley and
McCraw, 1999). However, there is not the same
level of research about what instructors believe and
their perceptions, concerns and challenges teaching
in the online classroom. Interest in online learning
will continue to grow as more and more students
experience online courses (Brown and Corkill,
2007). As more students enroll in courses,
Universities may find that the demand within the
institution will grow beyond current offerings. So,
the importance of this research is how do teacher
preparation programs meet the demands and charges
of institutions while maintaining quality of
instruction.
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