The Reading Seminar: A Web-based Distance Learning Course in an MPA Program.

As more MPA programs engage in computer-facilitated instruction, questions about the types of courses best suited to the medium and the quality of pedagogy that can be expected naturally arise. This paper describes a web-based, asynchronous, distance instruction course that uses the Internet as the classroom. The Reading Seminar is both readingand writing-intensive. It uses a peer review process that encourages interactivity among students who critique and comment on one another's work, and it resides on a web site that is pre-programmed for easy use by faculty who lack the time or technical proficiency to create their own.1 Computer-facilitated distance learning courses are finding enthusiastic advocates among MPA faculty. At the same time, however, there are questions about whether the quality of the learning experience can match that of learning experienced in the traditional classroom. One factor that distinguishes distance learning from learning in the traditional classroom is the level of interaction that occurs between student and instructor. This paper explores whether the interactive communication between instructor and students that is generally present in the traditional classroom can be duplicated, or simulated, when the classroom is the Internet.The context used for discussing these questions is a reading seminar that relies on Internet-mediated instruction and that was recently introduced into the MPA program at Virginia Commonwealth University. The reading seminar is both readingand writing-intensive with an emphasis on critical thinking, and is specifically designed to be conducted on the Internet.2 Internet-Mediated Instruction A search of the literature devoted to multimedia education suggests that controversies over the wisdom of and practical problems associated with Internet-mediated instruction, and in particular distance learning, focus on how to apply generally accepted pedagogical principles to the medium and on how to evaluate the application of these principles. In its earliest incarnation, distance learning was associated with correspondence or mass communication models of education using self-paced learning materials guided by instruction through mail communications. More recently, distance learning has been characterized by synchronous and asynchronous communications using twoway technologies to facilitate instruction (Berge, 1999). The range of computer applications in education as well as the terminology used to describe them is considerable.These include multimedia lesson systems, hypermedia systems (hypertext and hypermedia linking) using JPAE5 (1999)3:237-248 Journal of Public Affairs Education 263 This content downloaded from 40.77.167.45 on Fri, 27 May 2016 05:41:40 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms The Reading Seminar: A Web-Based Distance Learning Course in an MPA Program web sites created by instructors as "bulletin boards" on which general course information and subjectspecific hyperlinks are posted, and creatively designed interactive courses that are exclusively web-based. In Berge's (1999, 6) description, "webbased instruction requires the use of only one interface, the web browser, while (1) permitting students or instructors to give presentations, using the web system for various forms of communication, and allowing linkage to others' presentations; (2) enabling either asynchronous or synchronous communication among participants; and (3) providing individual, small group, or mass communication." Internet-mediated instruction, particularly when applied to distance learning, bears a negative association with the much older correspondence-type course. This fuels claims about the inability of distance learning to compete in quality with learning experiences in the traditional classroom setting (Jaffee, 1997; Mclsaac and Gunawardena, 1996; Clark, 1993)The elements most frequently cited as missing are the absence of active student participation and interaction with one another in the learning experience, as well as the element of personalized instruction that occurs between student and teacher. The views of education scholars who are addressing "best methods" for teaching and learning with computer technology vary widely and are too numerous to treat adequately in this paper. In general, however, educators are attempting to adapt Internet-mediated instruction to three models of learning: "the constructionist model for formal conceptual learning; the apprenticeship model for skills development; and the behaviorist model for the passing on of large bodies of structured material" (Underwood, 1994, 3). Process-oriented pedagogical approaches include the teacher-centered transmission model and the student-centered constructivist and interactionist models. For example, direct instruction using the teachercentered approach may be used for transmitting facts, rules, and procedures; the student-centered approach is appropriate for problem-solving, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation (Berge, 1999; Borich, 1996). Interactive Multimedia (IMM) is one of the terms generally used in the literature to describe hypermedia used interactively among students and between students and instructor. It appears to be the most apt descriptor for the Reading Seminar format. Contrary to the notion that learning occurs in isolation, as critics of distance learning claim, IMM proponents suggest that well-designed IMM courses rely on process-oriented, cooperative interactions among students and on an instructor who is no longer in charge of the medium but shares cooperatively in the process with students. With IMM, the skills and experience that students and instructor bring to the medium and the degree to which the medium is designed to support learner interaction determine the quality of the learning experience (Reeves, 1993)This view is also compatible with the literature on distance learning, or Asynchronous Learning Networks (ALN), which has begun to emphasize interactivity in response to a principal criticism of distance learning that educators have voiced. Interactivity, from both the IMM and ALN perspectives, presupposes a level of communication between students and instructor and among students that overcomes the interaction deficiency in early distance learning programs.These early programs emphasized the independent, self-directed learner, and important elements of human contact and interaction present in traditional classroom settings were lost 0affee, 1997). ALN models are differentiated from synchronous communication models by type of interactivity. Synchronous interactivity occurs in real time as in face-to-face or telephone communications; however, real time web-based computer conferencing and synchronous chat are technological options. Asynchronous communication is technologically mediated and does not depend on teachers and students coming together at a specific time/place to conduct learning/teaching activities. Students in the ALN environment work at their own pace when and where they choose (Berge, 1999).