DEOSNEWS Vol. 2  No. 14.  ISSN 1062-9416.
Copyright 1992 DEOS - The Distance Education Online Symposium
   
Editor: Morten Flate Paulsen, MFP101@PSUVM.PSU.EDU
Review: Philip W. Pinder
   
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EDITORIAL
   
I am glad to announce that DEOSNEWS--as one of the first electronic journals
in the world--now has obtained an International Standard Serial Number
(ISSN). It is one more small step toward appropriate recognition of the value
of electronic journals. Hence, it is in a cheerful mood that I distribute
this last DEOSNEWS issue before summer vacation. The editor will spend four
enjoyable weeks in Norway and one week in Canada, so you cannot expect the
next issue of DEOSNEWS before July. DEOS-L, however, will be available for
distribution of information and discussions. Fernando A. Senior has already
taken over as an intermediate listowner of DEOS-L while I am away. Thank you
Fernando.
   
   
                                 Abstract
   
Audio-graphic teleconferencing has been fully utilized in the delivery of
teletutorials of all the courses offered via distance education at the
University Sains Malaysia in Malaysia. The teleconferencing sessions are
delivered incorporating the educational strategy of collaborative learning
to provide quality educational interaction and an effective teaching-learning
experience, thus enhancing the non-contiguous communication. The elements of
collaborative learning appeal to the adult learners and greatly assist in
their intellectual development which in turn will benefit a developing
country such as Malaysia.
   
   
   
            Enhancing Teletutorials via Collaborative Learning
                         The Malaysian Experience
                              Rozhan M. Idrus
                         Physical Sciences Program
                       Center for Off-Campus Studies
                         University Sains Malaysia
                          11800 Penang, MALAYSIA.
                        Tel: (04) 877 888 Ext.3631
                            Fax: 604 - 876 000
   
   
The latter half of this century has witnessed an increased acceptance and
recognition of distance education as an alternative strategy for evolving a
complete system of education (Holmberg 1986). Many definitions have been
given concerning distance education, but it basically comes down to the fact
that students and their lecturer/facilitator are physically separated from
each other and that non-contiguous communication thus compensates for the
conventional face-to-face classroom communication. How one furnishes this
mode of delivery merely emphasises the versatility and conformity of this
educational system in order to promote the most effective teaching-learning
experience. Distance education may even be the preferred delivery system for
certain types of instruction as contrasted with non-feasible conventional
teaching. As an education system, it basically encompasses two operating
subsystems unique to distance education, namely, the Course Development
subsystem and the Student Support subsystem (Keegan 1986). Technological
innovations have thus far rendered tremendous contribution to the support
subsystem and enabled the delivery of information in various forms that are
suited to various learning styles and give the greatest range of alternative
communication modes. Distance Education has also highlighted the concepts of
the self-directed learner (Knowles 1985), the independent learner (Paul
1990), situational instruction (Smith 1989), and also collaborative learning
(Sheridan 1989).
     The Center for Off-Campus Studies (COCS) of the University Sains
Malaysia (USM) in Malaysia is the country's sole tertiary distance education
institution. Established in 1971, it seeks to fulfil one of the primary
objectives of the program, as part of the country's social engineering, that
of assisting adults who had missed the opportunity for higher education to
qualify for a degree. A full description of the system and program at USM
have been presented elsewhere (Idrus et al. 1992).
   
   
Telecommunications
   
     Following the successes of the pilot project of Audio Teleconferencing
(AT) in 1987 and the pilot project of the Electronic Writing Board (EWB) in
1989, all the tutorials at the Center are now delivered by the lecturers
themselves to the students via audio-graphic teleconferencing (AGT). Audio-
graphic teleconferencing greatly aided the teaching of the Sciences where
two-way real time interaction provides an opportunity for immediate response
to questions and the interaction among the participants in the discussion.
   
     Research has shown its (teleconferencing) effectiveness for a
     variety of cognitive tasks. In general, tasks involving information
     transmission, problem solving and generating ideas, giving and
     receiving information, asking questions and exchanging opinions can
     be done as effectively by telephone as by face-to-face and in some
     cases more effectively than by correspondence (Robinson 1990)
   
     However, even with the graphic assistance, teaching via teleconferencing
requires some adaptation in behavior in communication without visual cues.
It also changes communication patterns and the lecturer/facilitator must
incite interactive communication and initiate response to queries and
information. Students too, differ cognitively and affectively in the develop-
ment of their multi-talents and enter the program with varied background and
experience. Hence, the diversity of the  adult student and their varied
levels of learning requires sensitivity to their uniqueness as adults. Adults
draw from their experience of being in vocation and their maturity in
undergoing daily undertakings and this special ability can easily be utilised
in their learning endeavor. The highly teacher-oriented and somewhat passive
Malaysia students have adapted well to these technological innovations in
distance education and an effective teaching-learning environment is sought.
   
   
Collaborative Learning
   
     In a society where seeking higher education or qualification is no
longer a matter of self esteem, but contributes to promotional aspects and
better job prospects as well as meeting the need for skilled and educated
manpower for the country's massive industrialization drive, the adult
students are highly motivated and goal-oriented. As the setting provides, any
learning strategy that appeals to them as adults and works well in distance
education greatly assists the students learning capability. To this end,
collaborative learning was highlighted in a working paper presented in a
Workshop session at the University Sains Malaysia in Malaysia (Idrus 1991).
Collaborative learning is essentially different from the traditional style
of education in that the students are involved in the development of their
own learning experiences.
   
     The term collaboration describes a voluntary association between
     two or more organizations, in which agents or representatives of
     each work together to achieve some separately held and some
     commonly held objectives. Collaboration involves some sharing of
     planning, decision making, and resource utilization (Hite et al.
     1975).
   
     Specifically it is a pedagogical style that emphasizes the collaborative
educational efforts among and between the adult students and their lecturer.
The students therefore share knowledge and information with one another and
through collaborative learning too, learn with their lecturer, instead of
from the lecturer alone. Students then begin to feel and appreciate and
experience knowledge as something to be gotten and created rather than
sitting passively taking notes or listening passively to their teacher.
   
     It is the use of knowledge rather than knowledge itself that is
     affected by the nature of its consequences. Use implies perform-
     ance; performance entails action (Bruner 1986).
   
     The Malaysian students are thus transformed into active doers and this
somewhat removes the pedestal onto which the lecturers are placed and the
student-lecturer relationship becomes one of mutual respect; slowly detaching
from the much accustomed hierarchical classroom situation/condition.
     The task of the lecturer in the preparation and implementation of a
teleconferencing session is not an easy one. Apart from preparing a tele-
tutorial (including the preparation of an agenda despatched a month earlier),
knowledge of the subject matter, pedagogical expertise, and the ability to
use the technology, they have to create an intellectually and emotionally
attractive "telepresence" and build  "virtual communities" of learners (Dede
1990). Therefore the teleconference sessions have to be structured to provide
socio-emotional support and the feeling of shared space to the students or
among the participants. A list of mediator skills for a successful telecon-
ference session have been presented (Boone 1985).
   
   
The Malaysian Scenario
   
     The trials and tribulations of the Malaysian students undertaking a
distance education program can be appropriately summarised in accordance with
a research result:
   
     Often the student must "leave" a part of himself behind as a
     consequence of being a student. This may mean a change in friend-
     ship, activities and/or hobbies. This study found that students
     experience a significant decline in their level of physical ability
     and level of fitness; they have fewer hobbies; their social life
     is less active than in their pre-student days; they find they have
     less in common with friends from pre-student days; and they
     participate in fewer community and civic activities. Therefore the
     changes of lifestyle may be a reflection of something more
     fundamental than simply becoming a student and may have its "roots"
     in developmental changes (Lauzon 1989).
   
     Collaborative learning worked in two phases. Students attend their
respective teletutorials and laboratory sessions at 12 regional centers
situated throughout the country. Initially the students get together for
about one hour before their teletutorial session to study collaboratively
without the lecturer. Each student would have done their own research and
study as soon as they received the agenda for the session. This one hour
session prior to the teleconferencing served many purposes. In order to
ensure one-hour quality educational interaction time, the session must also
contain quality discussions. Therefore through collaborative learning,
students discuss their topic and iron out the basics and easy problems among
themselves. Weaker students learn from the more proficient and this too helps
them reinforce their basics; this is very important especially in the science
courses. In view of this, other work also suggested that the collaborative
process which encouraged the intellectual skill of critical and mutual
inquiry facilitated content recall (Welds 1986). In the end, the students
have a pool of questions common to the group for the teletutorial. This is
implemented throughout all the regional centers. This will ensure quality
questions from each group although some overlap might occur with the other
regional centers. Now they have the initiative with regard to their own
learning and that of their course-mates and because all contributions are
received in the spirit of genuine respect, the students themselves provide
the motivation for the group, provide immediate feedback on team ideas, and
their sense of self-esteem is enhanced. They will feel more comfortable with
their independent study and they will feel more confident in relating their
problems later on in the discussions. This collaboration among the students
is important because sometimes students can relate their problems better
among fellow students. This interaction also helped to extinguish the
seclusive and secretive habit of the Malaysian students, who for some unknown
reason prefer to perform alone and in their own environment. This negative
attitude comes unstuck when faced with a problem in independent learning.
     Then came the teletutorial proper. Guided by the agenda previously
dispatched, the lecturer facilitates the discussion and readily enters the
discussion and process of mutual inquiry and relates to the students as a
knowledgeable co-learner. The electronic writing board effectively mediates
communication in the process as sometimes students may not be able to relate
a concept verbally and the lecturer too has the opportunity to visually
elaborate phenomena to avoid misconceptions. Apart from the lecturer creating
telepresence, the students active participation in the collaborative learning
atmosphere also helps overcome the feeling of alienation that is inherent in
distance education.
   
     This pedagogical strategy is very effective because students
     simultaneously experience (a) the active construction of knowledge;
     (b) peer teaching, with its opportunities to build oral explanation
     skill; (c) peer learning, with exposure to good models for problem
     solving and social interaction; and (d) the motivating feedback of
     other students (Dede 1990).
   
     Perhaps it should be pointed out that collaborative learning is not yet
conducted for all the courses available at the Center but is emphasized in
the Foundation Sciences Program. The students also adopt the same procedure
during the compulsory three-week annual residential school at USM where they
get together in collaborative learning before the actual tutorial/lecture
session. Therefore, our program is in a unique position where collaborative
learning is implemented during face-to-face interaction and also via the
teleconferencing sessions. There are also no reports of collaborative
learning analysis from the Center although research along that line is
currently in progress. The credibility of the strategy is well established
with instructional strategies (Kagan 1988) and also the results of years of
observation and study (Goetter et al. 1990); that the strategy was readily
adopted for our purpose was the obvious decision.
   
   
Conclusions
   
     This article described how our current use of audio-graphic teleconfe-
rencing in the delivery of the teletutorials in distance education can become
an effective, stimulating, character building, and powerful educational
medium by incorporating the collaborative learning strategy. Distance
education has developed into a new educational system that is capable of
fulfilling mass education and is still undergoing significant growth. It is
even becoming a popular term among lifelong educators (Clark et al. 1989).
The availability of new communications and instructional technologies enabled
the distance learning classroom to deliver a wider and deeper range of skills
and greater opportunities for students to communicate and interact than the
traditional classroom situation.
     Audio-graphic teleconferencing provided the opportunity for real time
two-way audio and graphic interaction between the lecturer and the adult
students. Teletutorials require more discipline and concentration than face-
to-face situations and although they can be demanding and tiring, they help
train the students to be disciplined and confident (Ensley 1985). The
uniqueness of the educational transaction setting and the diversity of the
adult learners called for effective learning strategies to adequately satisfy
quality teaching-learning experience. Research on the use of collaborative
learning in higher education is not extensive, let alone the use of collabor-
ative learning in distance education. However, the collaborative learning
strategy worked well with adults and it was also suggested that collaboration
is the generator for developing within the adult the motivation and ability
to mature into a sustained, satisfied, and self-directed learner (Goetter et
al. 1990). When the adult students, who have been away from formal schooling
for some time, enrol in the program they undergo changes in their lifestyle
as a consequence of being a student. Relationship between family and friends,
and pre-student day activities too, must be appropriately rationed to provide
for their learning needs. Collaborative learning can also be effectively
employed to counteract these changes; course-mates become new friends and
the quest for knowledge and the interaction during study become the new
activities and social interaction. Collaborative learning will therefore
expand the students' learning experience and capability from individual
insight to collective intelligence. This too is in line with our effort to
enhance our students' intellectual development, growth, and academic
performance and will contribute to the country's need for skilled and
educated manpower. In the 21st century, the students' learning environment
will expand from beyond the formal classroom setting, so too must the
teaching skills and the learning strategies employed in the ever evolving
educational systems.
   
   
References
   
Boone,M.E. 1985. Mediator Skills. In Teleconferencing: State of the Art
     Report 3(4):5-12. Pergamon Infotech Ltd.
Bruner,J. 1986. Models of the Learner. Educational Horizons 64(4):197-200.
Clark,T.A., and J.R.Verduin, Jr. 1989. Distance Education: Its Effectiveness
     and potential Use in Lifelong Education. Lifelong Learning 12(4):24-26.
Dede,C.J. 1990. The Evolution of Distance Learning: Technology-Mediated
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Ensley,R. 1985. Teletutorials: A Distance Tutor's View. Open Campus 10:23-
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Goetter,W.G.J., and F.E.Kazemek. 1990. Collaboration: A Paradox for Indepen-
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Hite,F.H., and W.H.Drummond. 1975. The Teacher Corps and Collaboration.
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Holmberg,B. 1986. Growth and Structure of Distance Education. Croom Helm,
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Idrus,R.M. 1991. The Delivery of Courses via Teleconferencing. Paper
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Idrus,R.M., and A.R.M.Zin. 1992. Supporting Adult Learners in Distance
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Kagan,S. 1988. Cooperative Learning Resources for Teachers. San Juan
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--------------------- End of DEOSNEWS Vol. 2  No. 14 ----------------------
   

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