Quality Indicators and Benchmarks for Brick & Mortar Courses

I spent a few hours last night trying to find literature on benchmarks and quality indicators for traditional "brick & mortar" courses. Talk about looking for a "hay" in a "needle stack"! I dug and dug until my fingertips bled. Nothing. NOTHING!

Whether you search Google Scholar, ProQuest, or EbscoHosst one thing quickly becomes clear. There hasn't been much (possibly less) work on general benchmarks or quality indicators for brick & mortar instruction in the past ten years. --Or perhaps it is called something completely different and I haven't yet stumbled upon the magic key words. This is likely.

I was able to find plenty of related work in evaluation, but that isn't what I want (or need) evaluating a particular course is different from examining a list of general quality indicators that can be applied to most courses. Hmm... or is it? More questions.

Well, regardless, it seems apparent that the "internet" has created a big push for quality assessment of online courses but the rapid advance of classroom teachnology in brick & mortar courses hasn't spawned nearly so much interest in course quality. Why?

Model of Doctoral Journey

I was asked to draw a graphic model depicting what I envision my doctoral journey to be today.
This is fuzzy but I'll "talk" you through it. I'm the little smiley-faced, starry-eyed cart rider in the lower left corner. I climbed a few "courses" of track (brilliant, eh?) to get to the top of the first big hill...Residency. Along the way I found the adjustment to balancing work, study, life to be a confusing and sometimes frustrating endeavor.

My residency facillitator was Dr. Ron Black. Neat guy, really loves teaching/learning and people; --a good mix for higher ed folks. You can see a bunch of other folks hopped in the little green cart. The stars are gone from the eyes, but we are smiling. I sense that this will be a peak moment and that the next few classes may feel like a high-speed drop from this happy place. Of course the purpose of the hill is to prepare us all for the loop-de-loop of dissertation study design, implementation, write-up and defense. It all sounds rather dizzing at this point; --hence the loop. I'm not entirely clear how the dissertation defense will work but feel pretty certain that their will be no need to look back at that point. Once my study idea and methods are approved I'll stick to the plan that I negotiate with my advisors; --I don't want to surpise them at defense and I certainly don't want them to surprise me with a negative evaluation of the effort. The final destination of this journey is in the party-room atop the Ivory Tower. I've dubbed that room the "Cap and Gown" club. I realize that when the party is over I'll probably be stationed a bit lower in the tower for a time, but that is another journey!

Day 2 UoPx Residency

Today was dissertation, dissertation, dissertation. We talked about the kind of writing that will be used in the dissertation and the dissertation process. Funny, when I was at VT (a decade ago) we never had this talk. It was just assumed that you would somehow figure it out. Really, that was how a research University prepared students for their major research paper.

So, this day was not as much "fun" but it was very useful information. I went around and gathered the email addresses of the other HEA folks in the class. I've started putting together a google-group so we can have better means for staying in touch between residencies/classes together. This evening I will send out invites to everyone and we'll see how it goes.

Face-to-Face Superiority and other reflections

I'm in a one week face-to-face residency program this week. The price to get here goes well beyond the cost of plane ticket and the hotel. There's work to miss, family to leave at home and all the other trappings of a stable well-adjusted adult life that require local attention. And there we go, "require local attention". I suppose that is really the big issue and the big debate with "online vs. face-to-face learning" what elements of learning require a physical local presence. What people and things need to be co-located for a period of time and what happens then and only then. It is a puzzle and I don't think I'll get any closer to an answer in this blog that others have gotten in much longer and much more concentrated efforts. That said, I think I'll move on and do a little reflecting on a particular face-to-face experience... Day 1 of my first year doctoral residency at UoPx

It was a long grinding day. Not an 8-hour powerpoint marathon but eight hours of diverse learners sharing stories of their personal educational journey and the sorts of challenges they had faced on their educational journey. I confess that I don't do emotional-encounter stuff so well. I have emotions but it takes me awhile to reach a level of self-disclosure that goes beyond the weather, current sports scores, and other ritual niceties of conversation. However, I am very empathetic to the emotions of others and try very hard to process their feelings when I encounter them. That is the kind of grinding day it was. Making sense of things is what learning is all about and making sense of people's feelings and current station in life is tough and intense learning. I learned a lot about the varied paths that people take on their doctoral journey. There is a lot unique to each journey but there are a lot of commonalities. The commonalities are comforting...even the painful ones have a comforting effect when shared with others. --At least that is the effect it has on me.

We covered some useful information about program process, way points along the way, things to look out for, etc. That will serve as good reference material (I took notes). However, the sharing had an effect that is larger than mere information that people conveyed about their lives. I can't really pin it down so I won't try to "make-up" something. I'm still sorting it out.

I spend some time staring at the ceiling....thinking about life, priorities, dream, ambitions, etc. I didn't have a great epiphany but did realize that I need more "ceiling-staring" moments. --Will try it again tonight.