Line 56, June 13, 2006, Tuesday

Line 56: The E-Business Executive Daily

E-Biz in Action

E-TeachingDon't forget the pivotal role of the teacher in e-learning; the case of Cornell University's Samuel Bacharach

by Demir Barlas, Line56

Tuesday, June 13, 2006
http://www.line56.com/articles/default.asp?ArticleID=7684

Last week, we took a closer look at how the learning process itself requires careful treatment within an e-learning module. Today we build on that theme, focusing on how teaching, too, is of critical value. --Editor
Professor Samuel Bacharach has taught at Cornell University for over 30 years and is the author of business books like Get Them On Your Side and Keep Them On Your Side (a sequel is in the works).
About three years ago, Bacharach reached a point in his career that got him thinking about expanding his legacy. "I started writing for a wider audience," he recalls. "The question was, how do you take sophisticated academic work and make it accessible without diluting it?"
One answer came in Bacharach's writing, which distilled his research into a more accessible format. But he soon realized that there was another way to expand the scope of his work -- take it online. "Four years ago, I was intrigued by computers and animation, and thought about how to use them as a way of learning." Fortuitously, that was just when eCornell approached Bacharach for help in developing online courses based on his material.
"I liked the aesthetics of the whole thing," Bacharach says. "How would you organize the course and sequence the material? When would you use audio and visual cues? It appealed to my sense of drama."
This is an important, if neglected, point to consider when looking at an e-learning solution. How well students (whether high-level executives or college freshmen) learn is at least partly dependent on the learning design of a course. Content is not just a static set of data that students encounter and magically learn from; it has to be delivered in accordance with sound pedagogical principles and, sometimes, by the right teacher.
"Put in the hands of the wrong teacher, e-learning is deadly," Bacharach says. "You have to have skill at editing, pacing, coming in and out, raising the drama, knowing when to give a case study. You have to be able to tell a story." Without these abilities, he believes, a teacher is doomed regardless of environment. "Whoever is a lousy teacher in the world is a lousy teacher online."
You can get away with having a lousy teacher, or even no teacher, if the e-learning material before you is simple. However, Bacharach teaches advanced strategy, such as how to identify resistors and allies within an organization, and how to acquire managerial competence. This is high-level stuff; it requires the right course content and supporting pedagogy.
Sadly, courses of this kind seldom get talked about in the larger e-learning marketplace, because it's a low-skill, high-volume game out there. The first wave of e-learning has addressed basic training, compliance issues, and frontline job functions. There is not yet an awareness that e-learning can have value for executives.
Bacharach got heavily involved in eCornell, helping to retool four of his real-world courses for the Web, because he likes the challenge. He wrote his books believing that there was a popular audience for his knowledge about organizational behavior, and he turned out to be right. Similarly, he is anticipating that eCornell will offer a new outlet for him. "I do workshops and coaching," he says. "You meet good managers in on-site workshops, but that's restrictive." The e-learning platform has none of those restrictions, since anyone with browser access can be a student.
One unintended but positive outcome for Bacharach is a cross-fertilization of material. Some original course material he designed for eCornell has found its way into his regular teaching, for example. "The material from eCornell supplements what I teach at other places." It's an illustration of our belief that, in the future, there will be no real walls between learning and e-learning (or, for that matter, between teaching and e-teaching).
E-learning has also posed a big but enjoyable challenge to Bacharach, who has had to rethink his pedagogy. "The technology is the easy stuff," Bacharach says. "The challenge is how to teach cognitive skills to managers," he says. "It took me three years to learn how to do that in an online environment, but I found ways I could do it. It works."
E-Biz in Action is a series which looks at real e-business implementation experiences. If you have a story you'd like to share, click the link below to contact us -- Editor.