Description of Online Speech Courses

Traditional Learning

Everyone has a general idea of what traditional learning is since we’ve all experienced it. It is students sitting in a classroom, furiously scribbling notes while a professor lectures at the head of the class. Students are given books and articles to read, but the teacher remains the official repository of all officially sanctioned knowledge.

Traditional learning has been referred to as “same time, same place” learning. Students must meet their instructor at a specific classroom in a specific building at a specific time. This kind of learning has been the model for American higher education throughout the twentieth century.

Distance Learning

As with traditional learning, most people have a general idea of distance learning, even if they’ve never experienced it for themselves. Typically, people associate distance learning with a correspondence course, which is a specific type of distance learning. Correspondence courses are classes in which the students communicate via mail with their teachers.

The first distance education in the United States was offered in 1728 when an ad in a Boston paper offered learning by mail (Gilbert 2001, 18). Correspondence courses were offered in Europe as early as 1833. Early topics students could choose from included language, shorthand, and even mining.

Unlike traditional learning, correspondence courses are “different place, different time.” Students are not in the same room as the professor and the response of both student and faculty take place at different times.

Computer Revolution

While advancements in communication tools were easily adapted to learning methods, it was the introduction of the personal computer and the development of the Internet that would create the most radical transformation in higher education.

Learning by computer can be as easy as communicating with your professor and fellow classmates via email. In fact, some distance delivery courses are handled entirely through the use of email. Learning can also be a more solitary pursuit, with the student utilizing interactive CD-ROM. Here are four different types of computer-based distance learning in her book How to be a Successful Online Student. They are:

Online learning is usually a combination of CMC and Computer-based multimedia. When learning SPCOM100 at Stout, you’ll be using a combination of CMC and Computer-based multimedia.

Hybrid Courses

There is one more type of SPCOM100 class for you to consider, a hybrid course. Simply stated, a hybrid course is a combination of traditional, in the classroom, "same time, same place" learning and online learning. According to most studies, this is the absolute best method of learning available. In a hybrid course, you will meet on campus at set times to cover select topics, with all other course sessions handled virtually.

Hopefully, by now you are intrigued by the idea of online learning and are thinking you might give it a try. As a university, we want you to be one of our students, and in addition to that, we want you to be a successful student. So before you sign up for your first class and pay your tuition bill, there are a few things you need to consider.

Computer Access

It should seem obvious to even the most casual observer that to take an online class requires the use of a computer, right? While everyone has access to computers at public libraries, many now have computers at home and at work. The trick for online learning isn’t simply access to a computer, but daily access to a computer. If you don’t have frequent access, online learning might not be for you.

Not only will you need access to a computer, but you will also be required to log into the Internet. Almost all computers now come with an Internet Service Provider (ISP) program already installed. If you haven't already subscribed to an ISP, you will want to do so. You must also utilize the system requirements of Stout to log onto D2L or e-Scholar.

Computer Comfort

You don’t need to be a computer or software engineer to be a successful online student. You do however need to be comfortable using email, an internet browser (Internet Explorer or Netscape) and know how to use a word processing program like Microsoft Word. If you can work with these three things, you are a great candidate for online learning. If not, you should become familiar with them before enrolling in your first online course.

Now that you know more about what online learning is, and what kind of equipment you’ll need, you’ll want to assess whether or not you have what it takes to be a good online learner.

Independent Learning

Since you won’t be in a classroom with your professor and classmates, you will need to be capable of independent learning. Your instructor will provide you with a syllabus, course documents, required readings, and will guide you through your learning experience. They will be available via email to answer questions, and they will evaluate, critique and respond to your work. Since the class doesn’t meet in a physical space at a set time, you, the student, will have to learn independently. You will be responsible for keeping up with the assigned reading and turning in assignments according to the timeline on the syllabus. Remember, you won’t have a faculty member reminding you of this in class.

Active Participant

In the traditional classroom, there are typically two kinds of students: those who participate and those who don’t. Quite often, there are one or two students who tend to ask all the questions while everyone else passively listens and absorbs the information presented. In online learning, students simply can’t sit in the back of their virtual class and not participate. Your questions, thoughts, ideas and opinions are important for the learning process of everyone in the class. Without interaction, there can be no learning in the online environment.

Goal Directed

As you might imagine, it is easy to get distracted and not participate in your online class. This is why time management skills are so important. However, if you are doing nothing more than balancing several spinning plates, there is always the possibility they will come crashing down around you. One of the primary characteristics that keep students from failing in online learning is that they have definite educational goals. Most successful online students have a well-defined aim to advance or change their careers through their education. If you don’t have a clear path in mind, we encourage you to speak with your Academic Advisor before registering for an online course.

Accessing your course

One of the major stumbling blocks for online students is that they do not access their course frequently enough. It’s tempting to think that you can check your class once or twice a week and be done with it. But that’s not the case. One of the primary places that learning takes place is in the asynchronous discussion boards. This is where you participate with your instructor and fellow classmates. Because the communication here takes place asynchronously, information is constantly changing and being updated. If you only checked it once or twice a week, you’d have a lot of reading to do and very likely you’d be very far behind. The fact is you should check your class everyday if possible, or at least five times a week.

Participation

Many people are surprised that participation is such a large part of online learning. Most faculty will weigh your participation very heavily, some times up to 30 percent of your final grade. Participation means checking in on the course shell, responding to questions posted in the discussion boards and replying to responses from your classmates. It also means participating in scheduled synchronous chat sessions and taking online quizzes and tests. Your professors will tell you in the class syllabus exactly what they expect from you in regards to participation.

Since speech is an active-performance based course-we utilize the hybrid format. However, there are instances for distance learning in the SPCOM100-course and these alternate delivery formats are judged on a case by case basis to accommodate both the learner and the instructor.