Daily News Article #1 - 8-16-10 - Dana Bartholomew
http://www.dailynews.com/education/ci_15777450
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More colleges and students embrace online classes
By Dana Bartholomew, Staff Writer
Posted: 08/14/2010 08:11:02 PM PDT
Alissa Dimock studies from her home in Eagle Rock. Dimock is studying law at Mission College online. She has never seen her teacher or fellow classmates. ( Photo by David Crane/Staff)
Related stories
First in a two-part series.
Coming in Monday's Los Angeles Daily News: an in-depth look at online education at Mission, Pierce and Valley colleges
Alissa Dimock gazes into her laptop and studies a litigation lesson from Los Angeles Mission College – all in the comfort of her South Pasadena bedroom.
Dimock has never met her professor. She's also never sat in his class or set eyes on her fellow paralegal students.
Instead, her studies rely on a virtual pedagogic exchange, tapped out every day on a keyboard 25 miles from the Sylmar campus.
"It's terrific," said Dimock, 44, seated next to a stack of law books. "I never have to go to school. It's great."
Her class, Law 11-Civil Litigation, is among the steadily growing number of online courses being taught at community colleges throughout Los Angeles and California. In fact, community colleges are leading the way in online education, with annual online enrollments growing about 20 percent nationally over the past few years.
The two-year colleges are following the successes of private universities like the University of Phoenix and National University that have conferred online degrees for years. They're also setting an example for four-year universities that are now kicking their online studies programs into high gear.
The growth in online learning is a response to the demands of a busy public, desperate to acquire new skills in a fast-changing jobs market that will make most Americans take on multiple careers throughout their lifetimes. And in Los Angeles, it's a reaction to traffic gridlock.
Ironically, the push for online learning comes as Los Angeles community colleges complete a $6 billion campus construction makeover. The expansion of brick-and-mortar classrooms is in full swing as the nine campuses position themselves to offer all transferable classes on the Internet.
In the past decade, students enrolled in online courses across the Los Angeles Community College District have risen from a handful to nearly 11 percent of the student body, according to the district.
Mission, Valley and Pierce
At Los Angeles Mission College in Sylmar, 12 percent of students now study online. At L.A. Valley College in Village Glen, 7 percent log on to class sections at their convenience, while 3 percent at Pierce College in Woodland Hills participate in so-called distance learning.
And at West Los Angeles College in Culver City, the city's distance learning pioneer, a whopping 38 percent of students study online.
"You can see the trend – steep," said Gary Columbo, vice chancellor of institutional effectiveness for the nation's largest community college district. "It's all changed. Harvard and MIT (now) offer courses online."
"It's a whole new world."
In the past five years, more and more Los Angeles community colleges have ramped up their computer course work while declaring substantive changes related to their college degree programs.
At Mission College, an online leader among San Fernando Valley schools, law, business and sociology classes are available online, in addition to library, counseling and support programs.
At Valley College, administrators notified state college accreditors this spring that more than half its transferable courses to four-year colleges would ultimately be available via remote computers.
At Pierce College, a stalwart of traditional classroom instruction, officials plan to make a similar online curricula proposal to accreditors this year.
Across the state, a growing number of the 112 community colleges have notified accreditors that more than half their lower division courses could be taught online.
A report by community colleges Chancellor Jack Scott last year reported nearly 18 percent growth in distance education enrollment in 2008, to nearly 500,000 students.
Proponents of online instruction tout many benefits, including more overall class participation and singular attention by professors.
Distance learning also grants greater access to nontraditional students, they say, allowing more flexibility to hit the books instead of fighting heavy L.A. traffic en route to campus. It also presents a digital medium familiar to younger students, while adding a powerful multimedia tool to traditional face-to-face classes.
More common are hybrid courses of traditional and online learning, as well as a growing number of hybrid students who take both online and traditional classes.
"It's service to students," said then-Interim Chancellor Tyree Wieder, during an interview at her office. "Our students need the opportunity to be able to enroll in online classes, so it's fulfilling our mission of providing those classes. It's a need."
Drawbacks
While virtual instruction can potentially save the community college district in classroom costs, administrators say it costs upwards of $500,000 a year in licenses to use online learning software.
Another downside, some say, is that computer classes require too much discipline from students, especially those prone to procrastinate or drop courses when they study online. Distance learning also requires special training for instructors who must spend more preparation and class time in front of a video screen.
Then there is the general criticism that computer course work simply cannot recreate the unique dynamic of a traditional classroom or campus life. Some online students have complained they feel isolated and virtually on their own.
Add to that a strong resistance by many professors to embrace online education. One national survey found that only one in three college professors believe in the value of computer-based classes.
"People who don't like teaching, who don't like to be in the classroom, who don't enjoy interacting with students, they like distance learning," said Pierce College geology professor Craig Meyer. "All of my colleagues, who I would evaluate as excellent teachers, don't have any truck with it.
"I don't think it's teaching. I don't think you can teach by distance."
Online students, on average, also don't do as well as their face-to-face classroom counterparts, according to the LACCD. An average 58 percent of purely online distance learners earned a C or better last year, compared to 68 percent of regular class students. The dually enrolled students did slightly worse. In addition, up to 10 percent more students who study online fail to complete their classes.
But for increasing numbers of students, like Alissa Dimock, now in her second term at Mission, computer studies are ideal.
A college graduate with a masters in fine arts who has studied in New York and London, she has produced film and TV shows and owned her own pub. She's also a single mom of a teenage son.
She chose Mission for its highly regarded online paralegal program and plans to attend law school to become an entertainment industry lawyer.
She also chose Mission because it was all online. She didn't need campus life. She didn't need to network between classes.
At first, she said, she thought online studies might be like the nighttime TV infomercials she had seen advertising some questionable school. Now she's thrilled with the rigor - and flexibility - of the program.
She can log on any time, anywhere - either decked in her pajamas or geared up for her boat at sea.
"I couldn't be happier," said Dimock, a native of Minnesota. "Online, you do the research yourself. It's sink or swim. You also have to work harder. ... Taking these classes, you know every area of the law. If and when I go to law school, I can fast track."
The for-profit colleges like Arizona-based University of Phoenix and the La Jolla-based National University had busy working adults like Dimock in mind when they opened in the 1970s. The schools helped pioneer online education and now have extensive online offerings.
Following the lead of these schools and the community colleges, the University of California has also jumped on the online bandwagon. Last month, its regents agreed to develop an Internet-based undergraduate degree program that will save money and expand access to tuition-paying students.
Expanding boundaries
Online studies have helped rapidly expand the pool of students who attend community colleges.
A Valley College student was able to continue studying even after taking part in a witness relocation program, thanks to online studies. And an Army reservist was able to finish a class after being sent to Iraq.
Less startling but no less important, students like Dimock no longer have to drive long distances to enroll in a specific program offered only at one school. Unconstrained by geography, the colleges could draw students from out of state – along with hefty out-of-state tuition.
The growth of online programs is seemingly endless, but Los Angeles administrators say each school has caps on the number of students funded by the state. So while online enrollments soared from nearly 2,7000 in 2000 to 55,000 last year, administrators predict a plateau in online growth.
"We don't get paid extra money for online classes," Columbo said, though every class in the district will likely have some online component within the next five years.
The online drill
Veterans of distance learning say that once you get the hang of it, the online drill is simple.
Students can complete assignments, take tests, upload papers and engage in class text discussions solely on their computers. This frees them up to work at home, in the office, at a coffee shop or anywhere there is an Internet connection. It also means they can work at 3 a.m. or noon or 11 p.m. on any day of the week.
In addition, students have access to online textbooks, research papers, videos and other educational aids that give them more control over their learning.
For David Jordan, Dimock's law professor who spearheaded the Mission College online program, the rapid growth of technology in recent years and the popularity of laptops and handheld gadgets has accelerated the acceptance of online learning.
"It used to be, I had to train students to use their own email," Jordan said. "Now I train them on how to use the course management systems."
Nothing tells the story of how popular the courses have become better than the numbers. More than 4.6 million students across the U.S. studied online in the fall of 2008, a 17 percent jump over the previous year, according to a Sloan Survey of Online Learning.
That means one in four college students now take an online class, according to the survey of 2,500 colleges published earlier this year. And three out of four public universities see online growth as critical to their long-term strategy.
Despite staff resistance, e-learning at community colleges has grown by 20 percent each year, said study co-author Elaine Allen, a professor of statistics and analytics at Babson College, a business school in Massachusetts.
"Growth of the community college level is gangbusters," Allen said. "That's where we've seen the biggest growth, and we've seen it year to year."
"Last year ... it was because people had lost their jobs and were coming back to finish school or certification programs."
Dimock, however, acknowledges it's not for anyone.
"Would I recommend my son take an online program? Absolutely not," she said. "I want him to meet friends, play sports, live in the dorm, have the typical college experience.
"But as an older student, it's perfect. I'm not going to meet friends."
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