Challenges faced by traditional schools entering into the online (part 1)
1. Make-to-order vs. mass production
In the context of education, online learning is a “make-to-order” business whereas instruction through a traditional ground campus falls under the category of mass production. Applying this to business terms, online learning uses a “pull” strategy while traditional (residential) undergraduate education uses a “push” strategy.
With the realization that each unique customer has varying needs and desires for the purchase of a product or service, most businesses today operate under the “pull” strategy such as Dell or McDonalds. However, traditional education still operates under the “push” method. Statistics show that ninety percent of all incoming undergraduate resident students have the same needs, requirements, and educational expectations, lending to an academic institution’s use of systems of mass production to satisfy these similar needs. The familiarity and success with this type of education system has made it difficult for most traditional colleges and universities to successfully enter into the market of online learning.
Adult learners make up the largest segment in demand and utilization of online education. As adult learners come with a unique set of challenges, most traditional schools struggle with the implementation of the “make-to-order” model to accurately and successfully satisfy these unique educational needs.
Expectations of an adult learner include the ability to have their education tailored around their needs — courses they can take when and where they want, and at a pace that fits their lifestyle.
Practice makes permanent…Proper practice makes perfect
I once read the above title to this blog and as I read it, I thought that is exactly right; whatever we practice is what becomes a permanent fixture in our lives. Think about your golf swing. Most of us probably taught ourselves to golf and did not seek out the expertise of a golf pro. I know I taught myself, and guess what…I taught myself wrong. Of course, going through years of practicing my “wrong” golf swing, it became permanent in my golf game. When I decided to go for golf lessons to better my game, it became even more evident how bad my swing was. As I tried to correct my swing, it was very awkward and very unnatural. My brain and body were so conditioned to doing it the way I had taught myself for years; that there was a natural draw to want to go back to what was comfortable and felt right. As long as I was taking lessons and kept myself connected to a golf pro, I was able to overcome the bad tendencies in my old swing and was able to start to model the new swing the pro was teaching me.
So, off I went out to the golf course to play a round with my brother and to put into practice my new found swing. Slowly over time, my swing drifted right back to the same old swing I had before the lessons. It was not an immediate shift back to the old swing, but it did slowly get there over the course of 18 holes. Why? Because the information the golf pro gave me went out the window and what I had practiced in those early years had become permanent.
I think about my old life prior to having a relationship with Christ. My old life is just like my golf swing, those destructive activities, attitudes, and poor behavior are what I had learned and they had become permanent and comfortable in my everyday life. Just like seeking out a pro golfer to help my swing, I needed Jesus Christ to help me change the old behaviors in my life to a new way of living. When I was with the golf pro, I was able to model the correct swing and behavior that he was teaching me, but as soon as I walked away from him, my golf swing behavior slowly drifted back to the old habits. Just as I needed Jesus Christ to change and break the old tendencies in my daily behavior and thought process, I also need to stay connected with Him so I can model the correct behaviors that He wants me to model. If I let myself drift away from Him, just like my golf game, my daily behaviors will slowly drift back to the same destructive behaviors I had before becoming a Christ follower.
My interview with EdTek Services
Let me start by saying that Liberty University has been in the distance education space for over 23 years, so a very firm foundation was in place as we started our monumental growth effort over the past two years.
Every now and again, I have the privilege of being interviewed or ask to share the success story of Liberty University’s Distance Learning Program. Recently, I was asked by a company called EdTek Services based in Toronto, Canada to do exactly that. EdTek is a company that helps colleges, universities and learning institutions of all sizes facilitate their own online learning programs, EdTek is always interested in discussing ways of making distance learning successful.
Please click here or the EdTek logo above, to visit EdTek’s website to view the full interview
Jesus is still in the business of changing lives
Me baptizing Krystal August 24, 2008
Are you a checklist Christian? (In Krystal’s own words)
Then maybe it is time to evaluate your personal relationship with God. I was a checklist Christian until just recently when a discussion with Ron Kennedy made me stop and re-evaluate my personal (and practically non-existent) relationship with God. I grew up with divorced parents. My mother hated my real father who was in and out of my life, but my dad was always constant. When he decided to marry my mom, he asked both my brother and me if he could marry all of us. My dad is Italian Catholic and my mom is Baptist and grew up in church. This conflict of religions made my parents weary of forcing any religion on me or my brother. We were told that God was in Heaven and that we would have consequences for our actions, but we were never required to go to church. We were required to say grace before our meals and prayers at bed time. My real father and my mother were always fighting and my mother was granted full custody. She allowed my father to have visitation rights and when I was 8, he took us one weekend and decided not to return us to my mother. Two weeks later, we were rescued by my dad and it would be ten years before I saw my father again. Then when I was 12 my mom got pregnant with my little sister. This would actually be my dad’s first child of his own and my brother and I knew that things would never be the same. And we were right. Katelynn was adorable and we loved her very much. But my brother and I both felt that my dad loved her more than he loved us. This was worse than having two fathers: now I felt like I had no father. And then two years later, we also had Kristopher. So there it was: we had been replaced. My brother and I began taking care of each other, feeling that we were now the only family that we had.
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