Exploring An Open Source Online Course:
Freeman, J. (2011). YaleCourses: Outraged Colonials:
The Stamp Act Crisis.
Click the image below to link to the course site:
The course I visited was one part of a 25 part series on the American Revolution. This course was conducted by Dr. Joanne B Freeman. According to Baxterwood (2007), Dr. Freeman has been at Yale University since 1997. She has served as public historian at many institutions including the Smithsonian Institution, and the Library of Congress (Baxterwood, 2007). She has written several books, including Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic, which earned the 2002 Best Book of the Year honors from the Society of Historians of the Early American Republic (Baxterwood, 2007).
As a lecturer, Dr. Freeman does a wonderful job illuminating her topic. She provides an overview of her agenda and highlights the important prior learning we will need for class. She links facts with her insights, establishing each point of her lecture with pointed details and perspectives. Her narrative style is engaging. She provides a thorough storytelling of the events, and then explains why certain aspects of the “Crisis” had major implications on life in the colonies that we as learners may not have deemed significant. For example, she highlights Benjamin Franklin’s frustrations over the failure of the “Albany Plan of Union” – the first and most detailed attempt to create a unified colonial government before the Continental Congress (Freeman, 2011). She also provides insights that refute conventional wisdom. For example, she provides evidence that the Parliament used the Stamp Act to tax the colonists in lieu of the British (Freeman, 2011). To do so, she provides Parliament’s logic, rationale, and anticipation of the colonial perspective and response to events such as supporting the soldiers in the colonies, efforts to end smuggling, the American Revenue Act (Sugar Act), currency and more (Freeman, 2011).
As someone who will most likely never attend Yale University due to financial constraints amongst other things, I truly appreciate the efforts being made by of the most prestigious institutions to share its courses with the world. Such efforts need to be viewed as highly generous, and I wholeheartedly appreciate the opportunity to “sit in.”
That being said, the course does not appear to be carefully pre-planned and designed for a distance learning environment. One of the challenges of transitioning to an open online platform is to avoid the temptation to “Dump” a face to face course onto the web (Simonson et al, 2012). This practice of “shovelware” has a limited focus on the idea of online learning – it only focuses on placing content online (Simonson et al, 2012). As a result, the lecture is a “re-run” – an opportunity to view a previous event - nothing more. Certainly I learned a great deal about the topic and could use this information for my own research and intellectual endeavors. However, as a visitor, I did not have the ability to interact with other asynchronous visitors, share ideas or insights, or otherwise participate in a meaningful way. Therefore, the question becomes, since I am not enrolled and have no formal assessments, what does Yale expect me to really learn from this experience? If it is simply designed for sharing knowledge, is this really a course, or is it just a video?
Dr. Freemen’s course reflects the instructor based model. The purpose is to disseminate information via lecture to a passive audience. The structure of the course is time limited and focuses on “a Congress Bookend Lecture.” As a result, the teacher based instructional model leaves learners listening and talking notes, sponging as much information as possible for “regurgitation” at a later time (Simonson et al, 2012). Clearly, there is an online advantage here, for I could pause the lecture and take notes, getting the actual quote of “in such esteem (a colonial union), the just prerogative of the crown must be preserved or it will not be approved and confirmed in England and the just liberties of the people must be secured or the several colonies will disapprove (Freeman, 2011).” Regardless, one cannot help but feel both overwhelmed by the speed by which the information flows in real time.
As a result, Dr. Freeman’s course did not represent the recommendations of our course textbook: Teaching and Learning at a Distance: Foundations of Distance Education by Simonson et al (2012). According to the authors, effective online courses focus on student centered learning as opposed to instructor driven lecture (Simonson et al, 2012). These courses focusing on opportunities for learners to discover on their own and explore content more deeply (Simonson et al, 2012). Unlike in instructor led models, instructors in student driven models focus on learner needs and desires (Simonson et al, 2012). By giving students the chance to focus on knowledge production, students become engaged on a more meaningful level.
Therefore, effective designers think about what the learner will be doing, not what the instructor is saying. Active learning is a process by which the learner takes control of the instructional pathway (Simonson et al, 2012). Designers should be looking at how learners will learn from the course, and how the instructor will aim to bring this knowledge to life through interactions (Simonson et al, 2012). In asynchronous experiences, this often involves the use of web 2.0 tools to collaborate and develop content mastery using constructivist methodologies (Simonson et al, 2012). Certainly having a well-learned scholar at the helm provides for a far deeper and more enriching content. However, instead of having a “Sage on the Stage,” learners in online environments need to become developers of knowledge through participation in activities (Simonson et al, 2012). If there is nothing to do with the material once they have it, the students simply sit back. Therefore, by simply posting a video online without interactive opportunities, the learner shifts in motivation and focus and the lecture becomes stale. This limits the value of the online experience.
In the case of this course, not only is it passive in nature, but the entire video is simply Dr. Freeman talking behind a podium. She talks about wanting to “live history,” and how her experience with the “Stamp man” gave her own “colonial moment (Freeman, 2011)” But there are no opportunities for her students to do the same. There are no visual aids or learning tools such as PowerPoint slides, pictures or artifacts we can explore. She reads a firsthand account of the event of Patrick Henry’s “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death!” but we can’t see it or read it for ourselves. There are also no activities that put us “in the colonist’s shoes.” Instead, we watch her talk and read. This lack of engagement takes away from her lecture and diminishes the overall experience. Had there been post-production work, the lecture could have been embedded with images or web links or assignments that would allow us to consider the content in a deeper way. For example, using a different format than simply a video post on You Tube, such as a Voice thread, would allow for visitors to comment and engage in the learning process. This would enable commentary from viewers of varying backgrounds to provide their insights. Such an experience would make the lecture transformative in nature – providing the professor’s lecture with the opportunity to take advantage of a 21st century dynamic learning environment. Instead, like the colonists, we as asynchronous learners have “virtual representation,” in the lecture hall (Freeman, 2011).
References
Baxterwood. (2011). Yale University, Hist 116 The
American Revolution, Professor Joanne B Freeman.
Retrieved from:
Freeman, J. (2011). YaleCourses: Outraged Colonials:
The Stamp Act Crisis. Retrieved from:
Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S.
(2012). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations
of distance education (5th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson
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