[sdpd] Teaching SDPD at distance for peanuts

[Armel Le Bail <armel...@fluo.univ-lemans.fr>]

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Hello,

Hopefully, many subscribers to this mailing list are teachers.

Distance Learning (DL) courses are not so frequent in my country
so that administration declares to be unable to evaluate the
work. Trying to obtain informations about how asynchronous  DL
is considered in general in the world, when the question to pay 
teachers arises, I obtained one interesting answer below. Since
the students have subscribed to the list, they may have a more
precise opinion which they could deliver here. Thanks.

Armel Le Bail
http://www.cristal.org/course/

 >++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 >Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2000 07:18:42 +0200 
 >To: WWWDEV...@LISTSERV.UNB.CA 
 >From: Marshall Wick <marshall.wick...@GALLAUDET.EDU> 
 >Subject: Re: Evaluation of the teacher work in asynchronous courses 
 >
 >Armel Le Bail wrote:
 >> When an asynchronous course exists only in distance learning mode, 
 >> how is generally estimated the number of "teaching hours" with 
 >> equivalence to f2f teaching hours ?
 >
 >I checked out your website and I am very impressed 
 >with the spread of your student body in your course in 
 >that many countries are represented. 
 >. 
 >I also discovered another little fact that may influence 
 >the answer to the above: you are using 'asynchronous 
 >course' in the narrower context of a 'self paced/anytime' 
 >course which means the course is over when the student 
 >has completed the materials whether it takes him/her 
 >5 days (putting in 10 hours a day, perhaps) or 20 weeks. 
 >This makes comparison of instructor hours virtually 
 >impossible to compare with f2f. Asnychronous courses 
 >can have the same structure as a f2f course except that 
 >there is no fixed time for meeting in a physical structure 
 >and there is flexibility in when the students complete the 
 >assignments within a framework. This is probably the 
 >more typical asynchronous course on the university 
 >level here in America (self paced courses are more 
 >common in corporate training sessions) and thus the 
 >issue of hours is mostly in terms of the extra time it 
 >may take to answer email, etc. from each student and 
 >whether the extra time is equivalent to expected 'office 
 >hours' of the faculty. In a typical 3 credit hour course, 
 >taken in an American university, using a semester mode, 
 >the faculty member is expected to make 42-45 hours 
 >of contact with the class (as a group) plus office hours 
 >for individual consultation but in actuality, it depends upon 
 >the nature of the class and the method used to teach it.
 >For your purposes, I would look at it this way: would a f2f 
 >course in the subject you are teaching take those 42 hours 
 >to enable typical students to achieve the stated objectives or 
 >outcomes? If it would, then you could evaluate your work 
 >by the similar or (hopefully) superior performance of your 
 >students on the outcomes regardless of the number of hours 
 >that you actually had contact with the students. The very nature 
 >of online courses in asynchronous mode is that some will 
 >require a lot of handholding and encouragement and others 
 >will work completely on their own without contact with the 
 >instructor except to get their grade.
 >- + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + -