Challenges in Open Education
Introduction
Education, the foundation and driving force of individuals’ well-being and success through their lifetime, has been attached great importance to. For many decades and even centuries, people’s pursuit for higher quality education are permanent. However, the way that students access knowledge has been transformed remarkably in the era of technology and information. In the past, the vast majority of students tend to learn knowledge and gain skills sitting in classrooms and taking notes in lectures. Nevertheless, alternatives to the traditional way of learning prosper in the contemporary age, when open education plays a crucial role. Technically speaking, open education encompasses any resources, tools, as well as practices that renders convenience to open sharing to enhance educational access across the globe. Put it another way, based on the conservative traditions of knowledge sharing, open education utilizes the latest technology to build a vast pool of educational resources which can be reached by almost anyone with low costs. It aims to benefit as many learners as it could by taking advantage of the internet.
Saying that though, since its emergence and development in the early 21stcentury, open and distance education has been involved in long-running debates with regards to various challenges and issues brought to learners at different levels. This paper aims to identify the major problems and figure out how educators and learners should respond.
Literature Review
Several lines of evidence in academia have suggested that the advantages of open, distance education cannot outweigh its problems. Some scholars set forth a question that it is difficult to define the scope or field of open distance education. And this is in that some definitions lead to the “characterization of distance education that is unnecessary bounded by past practice and results in a tautological descriptive definition” (Keegan, 1988). Others, while acknowledging the benefits brought by open learning systems in various developed countries, try to deal with more complex and obstinate issues on this subject, such as how to evaluate the effects of adopting open learning, how to select the curriculum and learning materials of media, the possible negative impacts of open education as well as others (MacKenzie, 1975).
What is more, Sherry (1995) argues that open and distance education is so important to students that their downsides should be paid particular attention to. Using distance learning theory based on instructional design and delivery, she explains that specific operational issues, policy and management problems, as well as lack of mediation could all affect the success or failure of learners using these open education resources. Based on the assumptions of Sherry, Gellman-Danley and Fetzner (1998) looks specifically at the policy issues for open and distance learning, extending that choosing technology is no difficult at all. Instead, it is the policy development and planning on how to apply these digital tools in education that should be weighed carefully. This is in that a wide range of institutions — most of them are in anarchy at the very beginning — are involved to connect learners to all kinds of education resources via open learning systems. Chances are that these institutions could generate mess if there are no careful handlings such as well-planned policies targeting at them.
Major Issues in Open Education
What can be found from previous sections is that existing literature have covered a broad range of open education issues, pointing out the complexity of this new learning tool in the modern society. This finding makes this research focus on several specific, more real-life issues in this field, including lack of support, feelings of isolation, as well as discipline.
First of all, as has been pointed out by some scholars, lack of support is one of the chief problem in open education (Tutordoctor, 2019). To be specific, the physical absence of tutors or instructors means that students cannot find in-time help when they are in need. Although there might be more than enough resources for students to use, they might encounter difficulties that are not related to the abundance of information. For example, when they are processing a series of new concepts in the field of psychology, say self-edification and self-efficacy, they might figure out the major differences between the two indiscernible ideas by googling them. The point is, however, that they still do not know how to examine the two similar concepts in their real life without the confirmation from their tutors. Likewise, they might not be aware of their mistakes or missing important building blocks when learning new knowledge if there are no additional, simultaneous support. From this perspective, it can be said that lack of professional and in-time support has become a barrier to learners when they are enjoying the benefits of open education resources.
Another challenge is the feeling of isolation and separation. In traditional classrooms, students are surrounded with a group of peers who are almost at a same level with each other (Tutordoctor, 2019). The similar learning experience, learning environment and intellectual allow them to learn things quickly when feeling companied. Peer-based learning turns out to be effective in working on their communicating and problem-solving skills by engaging them in group discussions and cooperation. For example, explaining what they understand to students around them, teaching those who have difficulty in learning concepts, as well as defending their positions could tamp their knowledge. However, all these might be in absence in open education, and this could have unintended consequences, where the feeling of being isolated and separation dominates. This feeling, on most occasions, is negative and might result in decrease of learning enthusiasm and perseverance, which has become one of the most major concerns for many educators.
Conclusions and Recommendations
In a nutshell, it is undeniable that open education is positive, by and large. Its main purpose and mission is to promote educational equality worldwide by making various education resources accessible to everyone. To large extent, open education systems have helped achieve this goal in different countries. However, several major challenges hindering the further development or enhanced effectiveness of these systems must be given careful handling. Existing literature have mentioned most of them, ranging from policy issues to operational issues. This paper puts an emphasis on operational ones including lack of in-time support as well as the feeling of being isolated and separated, both of which could decrease the expected outcome of online learning. And this section hopes to provide several possible recommendations to ease or even eliminate these issues.
Speaking of the lack of support, working one-on-one with a tutor is part of the most straightforward and to-the-point solution. This suggests that each student, when asked to learn through open education systems, is supposed to be assigned to a tutor or instructor who should monitor their learning progress and help them identify the missing building blocks as mentioned above. Based on that, additional support such as those from parents and the community should be involved as well. For example, communities could organize parents on a regular basis sharing the performance and major challenges encountered by their children in common. As a matter of course, such gatherings and shares can be organized online. Compared with the first challenge, the feeling of isolation and separation is much easier to handle. To be specific, it is suggested that students are grouped even though they are in virtual learning communities. For example, open online courses should ask them to answer questions by working in a group if they are going to move to next session. Interactions and discussions can be achieved through webinars, discussion boards and even social media platforms. In addition to curricular activities, outside activities can be organized such as engaging them in sports clubs. This, hopefully, could stop the contagious feeling of loneliness when using open education resources.
Saying that though, what needs to be pointed out is that these recommendations are not once-and-for-all solutions, each of which is featured with unavoidable weakness. For example, the idea of one-on-one tutor could add to the financial and resource burden to the educational department and organizing off-line activities is not always that easy as well. From this perspective, the pursuit of best settlements of these major challenges facing open education will be continuous, and it needs constant efforts paid by educators, students, and the community as a whole.
Reflection
Finally, in retrospect, my thinking and cognition on the subject of open education does not occur from nothing. As a matter of fact, although I have accumulated a few resources and reached out many literature studying this subject, my Learning Pods and Partners have made a great influence on my mindsets as well, and they even change my focus in this research. At the very beginning, all I can see is the visible benefits and advantages of open education, such as its availability; however, my partners discuss their concerns and problems with me using their own learning experiences, which inspires me to shift my focus from the merited strengths of open education to the problems behind it.
References
Gellman-Danley, B., & Fetzner, M. J. (1998). Asking the really tough questions: Policy issues for distance learning. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 1(1), 2.
Keegan, D. (1988). Concepts: Problems in defining the field of distance education. American Journal of Distance Education, 2(2), 4-11.
MacKenzie, N. (1975). Open Learning. Systems and Problems in Post-Secondary Education.
Sherry, L. (1995). Issues in distance learning. International journal of educational telecommunications, 1(4), 337-365.
Tutordoctor. (2019). Problems And Solutions For Distance Learning. Retrieved 12th, August, 2019 from https://www.tutordoctor.com/blog/2015/may/problems-and-solutions-for-distance-learning/