KOPECNY, Jan1 & POLAK, Jaromir2
1
2 VSB - Technical University Ostrava, jaromir.polak@vsb.cz
Abstract: The authors come with a question whether it is worth developing distance methods at technical universities in a country with a relatively dense network of universities. The problem is discussed with respect to two fundamental directions of university activities. The first one is life-long learning, the second one is master and bachelor education.
In the domain of life-long learning, the ways of possible advantageous usage of distance education methods are pointed out. On the other hand, there are branches at technical universities where an application of these methods is practically impossible.
With master and bachelor courses, the situation is even more complicated. It appears that it is unrealistic to think about a transformation of whole educational branches into distance methods. However, it is advantageous to apply these methods in subjects of the scientific basis (mathematics, physics, geometry, chemistry) and in social studies. The authors advise to apply the distance teaching methods with part-time students.
A special attention is paid to the training of teachers in different teaching methods and also to the training of authors of the study support materials. The methodological council, composed from the representatives of all the faculties of this University, nominated by the Rector, deals with this task. These intentions are supported by a special part of the University Pedagogical Department. Prospectively, an independent centre for distance and life-long learning could be created.
Keywords: distance education, part-time study
The University of Mining and Metallurgy is a technical university, consisting of five technical faculties - the Faculty of Mining and Geology, the Faculty of Metallurgy and Material Engineering, the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, the Faculty of Civil Engineering, the Faculty of Electrotechnics and Informatics and the Faculty of Economics. About 12 000 full-time students, 1600 part-time students and 1000 post-graduate students study at the University. Besides bachelor's and master's study programmes (often unique in the Czech Republic), the University offers also many doctoral study programmes. However, the activity of the University is not restricted to gradual courses, but it equally has a broad offer in the domain of the lifelong learning. Ostrava region is a region marked by the mining and metallurgical industry, heavily depressed today. Therefore, the University provides a great number of innovative, re-qualification and complementary courses of a short-term and also a long-term character. The offer of these non-gradual courses includes also the courses from the field of humanities, language sciences as well as a University of the Third Age.
After the Velvet Revolution, this classical technical university has undergone rapid changes in many aspects. The offer of educational branches has been markedly extended and entirely new educational programmes have been created, bachelor's studies have been opened. The introduction of a credit system enabled the students to influence in a larger extent the selection of their orientation according to their ideas and requirements. The co-operation with other, especially foreign universities, creates a possibility to study certain subjects or certain study years abroad, some educational branches may be studied in English. The information basis has been considerably broadened by the offer of foreign study literature.
However, what changed minimally, it is the way of teaching. A face-to-face form of teaching, including lectures, calculation training and - since we are a technical university - also a big portion of constructional and laboratory training are still dominant. The faculties have been equipped with modern computer technology, including net connections. It is true that the computers are really used for the class work, but only as tools facilitating the calculation and drawing. Text editors and table processors are used. However, a PC rarely serves as a source of new information or as a means of simple automated control. There is an absolute lack of a software equipment for the teaching or for the implementation of on-line courses.
Already since the beginning of 1950s the VŠB - TUO has been offering also part-time studies. Students of this study form represent generally about 10 to 20 % of the total number of undergraduates. After the Velvet Revolution, the management of some faculties decided not to accept any more part-time students, or at least to lower their number. But the interest of students and enterprises of Ostrava agglomeration forced the faculties to re-open or to extend this study form. In present, the part-time students constitute 10 % of the whole number of the University students.
Nevertheless, both the students and the teachers feel that this study form is not in a good state. What is the practice? Let us take for instance an example of the subject physics included in the scientific part of studies - in total, it consists of 90 lecture hours, 60 hours of calculation exercises and 30 hours of laboratory exercises. The students are supervised by a lecturer in both exercises and there are optional consultations. On the contrary, a part-time student attends only 40 hours of lectures and, besides optional consultations (mostly not used), he or she has 6 hours of obligatory consultations. The examination requirements are the same for both forms of studies. In other subjects, an analogous situation is observed. Consequently, only 30 students out of 100 part-time students inscribed in the first year take the second year, not more than 20 students go on to the third year.
After 1990, many possibilities of contacts with other, above all western school systems have opened for our teachers. After the first experiences, an introduction of distance educational methods was largely discussed. Many projects of the change of whole educational programmes to this form have appeared. The authors were probably inspired by educational institutions like Open University (UK), Fernuniverzitat Hagen (BRD) or the CNED (F).
From many reasons, the primary enthusiasm calmed down very soon. First, the contemporary Czech Academic Law did not count with these educational forms. Second, the Ministry of Education was not willing to provide the means for funding the preparation of distance courses. The current educational establishments had not sufficient means for the course production. Finally, our teaching staff was not ready for radical changes of teaching methods. And - without any doubt - the transition on a distance way really means big changes. Especially the last reason is a strong brake of the transition on distance teaching methods.
The following is an opinion pronounced from the point of view of the position and tasks of a technical university.
With respect to a dense net of technical universities in the Czech Republic, a transition of whole engineering branches on distance teaching methods is not a real thing.
There are two main reasons for this statement. The first argument is the above-mentioned high density of technical universities, covering equally the whole area of our Republic. The second reason, incidental to the first one, is a small number of potentially interested persons, the total population of the Republic being about 10 millions. From both reasons it would be economically unreasonable to create complex distance courses covering the whole study branches or the whole study programmes.
Nevertheless, it does not mean that we would completely reject the distance education. There appear two areas of exploitation of this teaching.
First, it is the usage of distance methods in part-time studies. The conception of our study programmes is divided into two parts. The first stage covers scientific subjects like physics, mathematics, chemistry, geometry, as well as humanities and foreign languages and finally the basic engineering subjects. With some exceptions, this first stage is common not only for all the study branches of the Faculty, but generally also for the study branches of all the technical faculties. The second stage is differentiated for particular branches, it is divided into special orientations, the individual subjects being attended by 10, 20, max. by 50 students.
Especially the subjects of the first stage are appropriate for the transition on the distance form, above all for the part-time studies. The estimated number of 500 students already meets the criterion of the minimal number of participants of a distance course.
The second area, where the distance methods could be advantageously applied, is the life-long learning. Even if it would be difficult to teach subjects with a high share of experimental work in a distance form, in the broad spectrum of the offer of the technical university, there is a number of subjects fit for this transformation. Moreover, if the courses created on-line or at least web pages, which may be continuously and cost-effectively altered, will be used, their exploitation will be extended on the regions with a small number of potential users.
The management of this University has reacted to the altered legislative conditions and, in 1993, the University Counsel for the Life-Long Education and Distance Studies was established. This body consisting of the representatives of all faculties and of all-university institutes has been charged with a consistent preparation of the life-long education system. Within this framework, it also deals with the questions of distance education.
In the domain of distance education, the Counsel faced three major tasks. The first one was to prepare several experts on distance education. Within the framework of TEMPUS programme and within the activities of the National Centre for Distance Education, the academic staff had a possibility to attend a series of short-term courses abroad and to take part in special actions arranged by foreign specialists in the Czech Republic.
The second task, in progress nowadays, is to train a larger number of academic staff for the needs of distance education. The University has published a manual presenting the principles of distance education [1]. The University staff had a possibility to join a number of courses in Czech concerning distance education in general, or specialised courses concerning the tutor's work, the writing of distance materials or the administration aspects of distance education.
After these preparatory stages, there was a period of pilot course preparation. The choice of the course was carried out based on the following criteria. First, the course had to verify our ability to create a distance course in all its aspects. Second, it should show the advantages of the distance learning and third it had to meet the criterion of a sufficient number of potentially interested persons. From the last two reasons, a revision course of the secondary school subject matter has been selected.
The idea to prepare distance courses of secondary subject matter arose on the basis of our experience with the running courses for the first years. One of the reasons of a considerable dropout rate of the first-year students is their insufficient knowledge of basic secondary school subjects like physics, mathematics, chemistry and geometry. We saw that it is necessary to provide to our beginning students a possibility to master the basis of the scientific subjects required for the university studies. On the other hand, we recorded a low efficiency of the existing system of the face-to-face revision courses organised in a fortnight block before the start of the first semester. Further information is to be found in publication [2].
All three prepared courses – Physics, Chemistry and Geometry are conceived in a uniform way. In the first, verification stage, the course is based on written materials. The student gets the basic information material – a text book [3]. The subject matter is split into several basic blocks – modules [4] and there is a Guide for each module. In the introduction of the Guide, students are acquainted with the principles of distance learning (this is new for them) and they learn how to proceed in studies, also the tutor's role is clarified here – Instructions for the Studies. Then there are special chapters with a fixed structure. A chapter begins with the definition of objectives - here the students are acquainted with what they should have mastered after reading over the chapter. Instructions, perhaps the most important part, follow. Here the students learn which concrete pages and passages of the text [3] are to be read through, which notions are to be familiarised, what they should learn by heart, what they should think over, how they should assess themselves. Under the title "Answer", the students find control questions whose solution is presented at the end of each booklet under the title "Results". The application of the acquired knowledge is very important for all the above-mentioned subjects. That is why we inserted solved examples and examples to be solved, of course again with Results. After the completion of the work with the module, the students have a possibility to verify the work they have done by a final test.
The revision courses are meant both for first-year students and for the students wanting to inscribe in the university studies, primarily of a technological orientation.
We want to use the experience collected during the preparation of distance courses of the secondary school subjects in an essentially more demanding project Transformation of First-Years Teaching of Part-Time Students into a Combined Form.
As already said, a high percentage of students study in a part-time form and the quality of their education does not reach the requested standard. In addition to this, some faculties provide the training in consultation centres located outside this region practically throughout the Czech Republic. The above mentioned problems are therefore connected with the increasing costs on the training taking place outside Ostrava.
The University management therefore considers the preparation of a new system of first years teaching, based mainly on the distance education. The subjects of the scientific basis of the engineering studies have been selected for the transformation into distance form, i.e. mathematics, physics, chemistry and geometry, and subjects like foreign language, economics, social sciences and so on. The selection of these subjects was unambiguous. First, all the undergraduates have to pass these subjects - the criterion of a sufficient number is then fulfilled. Second, it has been statistically proved that the failure in the subjects of the scientific basis is the most frequent reason of dropping out.
As the title of these chapter shows, it is a combined model. Subjects like chemistry, physics are not convenient for a pure distance form. The curriculum planned for the first two years includes, besides introductory tutorials presenting the principles of distance learning methods, also special meetings, e.g. practical seminars in chemistry and physics.
To elaborate a model and to implement it in practice are two distinct things. The preparation of the pilot course showed that the whole process of study support production is a cost-demanding and especially time-consuming procedure. In order to exploit as much as possible the efforts we make, we presume that the study supports, for the time being mainly textual ones, should be elaborated in such a form which would permit their use also by full-time students. This would markedly reduce the production costs.
However, a distance course is not only a matter of first-rate study materials. Within the model preparation, it is necessary to reorganise the work of study administration department and to train the course organisers, both for the stage of the course production, and for the stage of its implementation. The tutor training, however, appears to be the most difficult thing. Our teachers are not accustomed to this way of teaching and to change the people's thoughts is a most demanding work.
In the context of the Republic with a dense net of technical universities and with a relatively low population, it is unreal to conceive whole distance education programmes at technical universities.
We suggest to make use of distance forms combined with face-to-face forms for the study programmes designed for part-time students. We expect that this model of teaching will bring both a general improvement of the quality of teaching and an economy.
Another wide area of the application of distance education methods is the life-long learning, especially if the courses are designed in an on-line environment through Internet.
The biggest obstacle of the development of the distance education is an inertia of the teaching staff.
[1] KOPECNY, J. Distancni vzdelavani. Ostrava: VSB-TU Ostrava, 1995. 35 s. (in czech)
[2] KOPECNY, J. Preliminary training through secondary school subjects at VSB-Technical University of Ostrava. In Congress proceedings of the Global Congress on Engineering Education. Cracow : UICEE, 1998, 153-155. ISBN 0 7326 1903 3.
[3] FOJTEK, A.-FOUKAL, J.-MADR,V.-WYSLYCH, P. Fyzika pro pripravny kurz a prijimaci zkousku na VSB. Ostrava: VSB-TU Ostrava, 1993. 146 s. (in czech)
[4] KOPECNA,M. Fyzika pro distancni pripravny kurz. Cast 3 - Elektricke a magneticke pole. Ostrava: VSB-TU Ostrava, 1996. 38 s. (in czech). ISBN 80 7078 411 3.