by Kathy Harvatt

Brenda Conley

Online instruction has added an amazing new dimension to education at all levels—particularly for adult learners, whose work schedules and family obligations make campus-based programs more challenging to navigate. As easy as online education may be for many students, even the most seasoned teachers—like UMUC’s Brenda Conley—have had to add more than a few new tricks to their proverbial bags. As Conley puts it, teaching in the virtual classroom goes well beyond mastering the actual technology, and into the realm of an art form.

"Even with more than 30 years of classroom teaching and professional development experience under my belt, I still consider myself an online professor in progress. And each semester I think I’m getting better," Conley said.

Conley, who now serves as chair of UMUC’s Education Programs, began her career as a high school teacher in Baltimore, Maryland. After earning a master’s degree from Morgan State University, she moved into the administrative side of education, with the Baltimore City Public School System, where she became the director of human resources and went on to complete her EdD at George Washington University. But it was under former Baltimore City Schools Superintendent Walter Amprey that Conley found her true passion—teaching the adult learner. As assistant superintendent under Amprey, she created the system’s first full-fledged professional development center for teachers, administrators, and support personnel.

"It was my job to get the system to focus on its own learning issues, both collectively and individually, and I loved the challenge," she recalls. "After a lot of up-front planning, we created what was then a fairly innovative model for job-embedded professional development, using multiple delivery systems to appeal to different learning styles. It was the first time I had ever worked with adult learners exclusively, and I found myself thinking about teaching in a very different way."

According to Conley, "the essence of teaching is to create an environment conducive to learning." And, for adult learners, that environment incorporates the real-world experience these students bring into the classroom with them. The professor must help them use that experience to build a foundation for new learning. For Conley, that process proved to be the greatest challenge she faces in teaching online.

"The online technologies are truly wonderful and amazing, but it takes a while to figure out how to use them effectively. I am constantly asking myself ‘Did I do enough to get my students engaged in this lesson, to promote their active involvement in the learning process?’ After all, I don’t appear on the screen doing my thing—my written words do. Think about what it’s like going onto a regular Web site and pulling off information. We’re always much more interested in doing that when the site is easy to use, with all the right bells and whistles—menus, graphics, pop-ups and that kind of thing. It’s the same concept when you’re creating an effective online classroom."

As Conley is quick to point out, teaching online takes a lot of work. "Online is far more labor-intensive than classroom-based teaching, for a lot of reasons. First of all, I must plan my lessons with the expectation that my students will be in the virtual classroom almost every day, rather than once or twice a week. That means a lot of posting and updating, including all of their reading materials, as part of the class "Webliography." If these materials are not readily available to copy off the Web, I end up typing them in myself. So my typing skills have never been better!"

Conley also worries that online instruction, in its present form, may not be for everyone. Having spent years perfecting the art of teaching to diverse learning styles, she tries to incorporate something for everybody in her online presentation. Whereas visual learners usually do extremely well in the virtual classroom—"You can capture their full attention by simply adding a lot of visuals, like diagrams, pictures, and cartoons"—Conley believes that auditory learners and kinesthetic learners (those who learn by doing) may not be as adaptable, without other, targeted instructional aids to back up what is on the screen.

"For the auditory learners among us, we are now adding audioconferencing to the online experience. And I have adapted a rather useful classroom technique—known as chunking—for the benefit of my auditory students. This involves breaking information into smaller portions, or chunks, which helps students process it more successfully," she explains.

But it is the kinesthetic learners who present the greatest challenge when it comes to adaptive strategies.

"These learners must do to learn, and experience the actual application of theory. So, for example, I have one exercise where I have them read material about the theory of instructional assessment. Once they’ve finished the reading assignment, they must then create and administer an assessment tool and analyze the entire exercise. Another strategy I use is having students empty the contents of a purse or briefcase and create a self-portfolio using these items. But the real work comes in trying to explain all of this in the online format. It certainly keeps me on my toes as a teacher," Conley laughs.

According to Conley, one of the most challenging aspects of online instruction lies in assessing your success as a teacher—knowing when all of your students "get it" and you can move on to the next lesson. After all, as she puts it, "You’re missing that face time, when a teacher can look into a student’s face and see if the ah-hah! is there." Now, Conley must rely on e-mail postings and online "chats" to figure it out. And, of course, if all else fails, there’s the telephone.

"I feel like I’m getting better at picking up on real problems in student postings," Conley said. "For instance, I have one student whose completed assignments clearly revealed her confusion with the material. So I e-mailed her promptly and asked how I could help. Within a few hours she sent me a long and rather panic-stricken posting, which gave me an excellent starting point for helping her. Now, many e-mails later, she seems to be doing very well."

How does Conley see the future of online education?

"I think we’re getting better as an industry, especially with the advent of technologies like the online ‘Community of Practice,’ where students can actually talk to one another and share ideas and information. We are also adding technologies like video teleconferencing and CD-ROMs to the mix, to give students an opportunity to come face-to-face, so to speak, with their professors. I do think, though, we need to have very realistic expectations around our progress, and fully assess each new step we take. We never want to substitute quantity for quality in this business!"