University of Phoenix is the United States’ largest private university. It has over 400,000 students split between a robust online learning program and 400 brick and mortar campuses and learning centers. Through GeekMom, I have been offered the opportunity to take an online class (of my choosing) with UOPX and write about my experience. This post is part of that ongoing series.
Each class at University of Phoenix has a "team learning" component--in fact, the work that I completed with my team in Marketing 421 was worth 30% of my grade. UOPX believes that this team learning "grows collaborative skills" and provides students with a "built in support system," although Katherine Mangu-Ward's article "Why is everyone flaming the University of Phoenix" at reason.com posits that learning teams are primarily a cost-saving measure:
University of Phoenix has rebutted this point on its website:
The school goes on to note its small class sizes (between 10 and 20 students, each). If bottom-line cost really was the only driving force behind the use of "learning teams," one is left to wonder: why does UOPX keep class size so modest?
As with most arguments, I think both sides have some valid points.
At heart, I'm a constructivist--I believe that people learn best by experiencing new ideas and then reflecting on their experiences through a variety of modalities--hearing, writing, reading, seeing, doing, acting, dancing, drawing, building, etc. UOPX is right: collaboration is absolutely an important tool in this reflective process. When we bounce new ideas off of our peers, we're able to reality test, analyze, elaborate upon, and reinforce them while also attaching them to previously-held knowledge. Additionally, it makes sense to acknowledge collaborative opportunities as an important aspect of workforce preparation--and it is even reasonable to assume that, as UOPX asserts, learning teams can:
- Allow students to broaden and deepen the understanding of concepts explored in the classroom.
- Serve as laboratories through which students develop into more effective leaders and members of workplace teams.
- Serve as vehicles for reflection, by which adult students make sense of and apply new knowledge.
- Provide a sense of community and support that is invaluable in helping working students cope with the challenge of balancing school with other life demands.
However, it may be taking a generous leap of faith to believe that these objectives can be optimally achieved without intentional, ongoing, scaffolded support from the instructor. Our instructor did provide us with a team charter to read and sign at the beginning of our project (a form of this charter is used in every class). It asked for our names, emails, and phone numbers, asserted that we should work with each other's strengths and backgrounds in order to divide up responsibilities, and laid some guidelines for open communication and fair contribution. What it did not do was provide the team with a venue for becoming comfortable with each other so that we could actually develop an understanding of each other. Yes, the charter suggested that the team check-in with each other five times during each week but it didn't elaborate on what type of exchange should take place during those check-ins or give the team short term goals to work toward so that camaraderie developed.
University of Phoenix proudly proclaims that the majority of its students are "non-traditional," but in the case of learning teams, does not necessarily acknowledge that "non-traditional" is synonymous with "over-booked." This was certainly the case with my team members: not one member of my team was "just" going to school. Each person had a family (including children or grandchildren) as well as a full-time job. Without explicit requirements to do otherwise, our team communicated as little as possible in order to get our job done--not out of laziness but simply because we all lived with so many constraints upon our time.
As my class progressed, I couldn't help but think: five weeks is not a great deal of time to get to know a team under the easiest of circumstances. Meanwhile, the learning teams in my class were all working together (in the midst of our four textbook chapters a week, our online class discussions, our two additional research papers, our jobs, and our families) to create 6,5oo-word, research-based marketing plans for original concepts. If my team had implemented a calendar of bi-weekly video chats using a program like Skype or Google+ Hangouts, we would have gotten to know each other much better and also been able to discuss the assigned texts in relation to our marketing plan assignment--all of which would have helped clarify our roles and responsibilities for the project.
Moving forward, I hope that Phoenix incorporates group video chat into their classes for just this reason.
Next week: Accreditation and the question of non-traditional students.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QN38vHZjWXw&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
