March 1, 2013

Gerry Philipsen: Focusing on the text, not the commute

Dr. Philipsen, professor of Communication at UW Seattle, has taught at the University of Washington for more than 30 years and now teaches two online courses — “Introduction to Communication II” (COM 202) and “Cultural Codes in Communication” (COM 484). He sees pros and cons to both the online and face-to-face class formats, but has carefully developed his online courses to cultivate student engagement and learner success.

Benefits for students: “The self-paced format (at least of my courses) provides an alternative pacing that some students find to be helpful. Student time is devoted exclusively to learning rather than transportation to and from campus. I do not see any negatives for students, which is not to say that online courses are equivalent in every way to other formats, only that for some courses this is a perfectly suitable way to learn the material.”

Benefits for the instructor: “Opportunities to earn extra income; to reach students you would not otherwise reach; and to develop courses in a format that is quite focused, in terms of setting out readings, materials, and experiences, without having to adapt to a physical classroom and the presence of people interacting in that space. I am a great fan of meeting face-to-face, but face-to-face also has its downsides, and my online classes eliminate those downsides.”

Is online equivalent to face-to-face? “It depends on the given student and the course material.”

Advice: “I specifically developed my courses so that they would intensify student engagement with the required readings, and this was extremely successful. I did not pay attention to getting students to interact with each other, but rather zeroed in on getting students engaged with the text, and in a very powerful way. However, in each of my two courses, there is one assignment in which the students must interact with other people as part of the course assignment. I would advise faculty initiating online courses to try to develop the ways that facilitate the intensive engagement with text (broadly defined) and not to feel they must use newish technologies, some of which distract from serious engagement with text. I am, of course, a bit of a throwback, but this has worked very well for me — and for my students! At the same time, I do use, to very good effect, some videos, that the students can view at their leisure and, as necessary, re-view.”

Links: Dr. Philipsen’s faculty web site

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Read the full Provost report on how UW faculty are enhancing teaching with technology.