Orientation Practices for Effective Distributed Learning Coursework: Students Speak Their Minds

As an increasing number of graduate education courses are moved either online or into hybrid formats, instructors and administrators need to consider strategies for how to transition students into these new learning environments. This exploratory, qualitative study looked at one case study course and provides practical recommendations for stronger orientation programs. Colleges and universities have increasingly moved coursework and professional development programs from traditional classroom environments to online or hybrid forums in an effort to maximize potential participation and minimize costs. This drive for online learning has been well documented in a variety of forums, and has been estimated to be worth $23 billion per year to higher education (Wei, 2001). The primary challenges to moving courses into a technologically mediated forum have typically fallen into two categories: instructor and technology. Technological limitations have been dramatically reduced in recent years as commercial providers such as WebCT and Blackboard have begun to provide commercially available products marketed specifically to higher education. The dominant problem, documented by a number of scholars and practitioners, has been trying to get faculty members to participate in offering courses online or in hybrid formats (Pajo & Wallace, 2001; Lynch & Lynch, 2003). Faculty resistance might have initially been based on technology ability or apprehension (Crooks, Yang, & Duemer, 2003), and has most recently been discussed in the form of motivation and compensation. Many institutions initially provided financial incentives to faculty to develop courses that used an online component, and increasingly, colleges and universities are expecting faculty to make the transition to mediated