GUIDING DESIGN PRINCIPLES FOR INTERACTIVE TELECONFERENCING
                                
                        Mauri P. Collins
                The Pennsylvania State University
                                
                      Zane L. Berge, Ph.D.
                      Georgetown University
                                

Collins, M. P. & Z. L. Berge.  (1994).  Guiding Design Principles
     for Interactive Teleconferencing.  Paper presented at the
     Pathways to Change: New Directions for Distance Education
     and Training Conference, September 29, 30, and October 1,
     1994, University of Maine at Augusta.

Approximately 3714 words

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   GUIDING DESIGN PRINCIPLES FOR INTERACTIVE TELECONFERENCING

                        Mauri P. Collins
                          Zane L. Berge


                          Introduction

     We normally do not have the opportunity nor the time to

analyze individual students nor tailor instructional materials or

activities specifically to them.  We are constrained to group

students together into classes for economic and administrative

reasons.  By varying the media selection, the teaching methods we

use, and the student's classroom activities we attempt to

compensate for the lack of individualize programming.  This is

just as true for distance education as it is for place-based

education.

         Individual, Small Group and Mass Communications

    Ellington (cited in Dekkers, et. al., 1990), suggests three

classes of instruction: individual learning, mass communications,

and small group.  Historically, in distance education there were

few ways to vary delivery and teaching methods.  The

correspondence model of individual learning was used nearly

exclusively for the first 120 years of distance education in the

United States.  Earlier in this century, mass communications

(i.e., audio and/or video in live or recorded forms) expanded our

delivery tools.  Still, the prevailing model is of students

reading, using a workbook, watching a video tape or broadcast

program alone (Garrison, 1993).  Students individually attempt to

make sense or meaning of this type intervention.  To check

students' "making of meaning" in what they read or saw, the

instructor asks them to submit a written paper showing evidence

of familiarity with the content and perhaps the occurrence of

some analysis, synthesis or evaluation. The instructor also

provides feedback, in a dialogue slowed and attenuated by time

and distance.

     For many years individual students worked alone on the

content of a course, and received feedback from the instructor,

in most cases, very slowly and by mail.  What was, and still

often is, missing is opportunities for the use of group learning

models.  Over the past two decades, emerging technologies have

opened to the designer of distance education many more

opportunities to vary medium and teaching methods, to facilitate

the use of group learning models. There have also been

significant changes in the way the distance educator thinks about

how distance learning can be accomplished.

     As Moore (1993) states:

          Above all, the teleconference media allow a new
     form of dialogue that can be called inter-learner
     dialogue.  Inter-learner dialogue occurs between
     learners and other learners, alone or in groups, with
     or without the real-time presence of an instructor.  By
     audio- conference, video-conference, and computer
     conference, groups can learn through interaction with
     other groups and within groups.  There are enormously
     significant implications in this potential, in every
     process of teaching-learning.  In particular, such
     dialogue by learners to learners within and between
     groups makes it possible for distance learners to share
     in the creation of knowledge (p. 33).


                   A More Comprehensive System

     Delivery of instruction is usually more effective when more

than one medium is used, (Dekkers et. al., 1990).  When

considering the various channels of communication for distance

educational purposes, the strengths and limitations of each

available channel can be analyzed.  Once that is done, decisions

can be made concerning the better channel through which to

present each instructional goal or learning activity.  While

there are dozens of factors that may be significant in the choice

of media, we will concentrate here on two dimensions that can be

used to characterize various channels of communication: 1) its

synchronous or asynchronous nature, and 2) its potential to

facilitate both social interaction and interaction with course

content.  This presentation points to ways that can promote the

successful integration of several communications channels into a

more comprehensive and effective system of delivery for distance

education.


           Synchronous and Asynchronous Communication

     Synchronous communication occurs in real time--like a face-

to-face meeting (e.g., among all of us here in this room now or a

class held at a specific location with instructor and students

meeting face-to-face).  All participants in the interaction must

be present, although not necessarily at the same physical

location (e.g., if a class were televised and broadcast live to

other locations).

     Asynchronous communication is in some way technologically

mediated and is not dependent upon teachers and students being

present together at a specific time to conduct learning/teaching

activities.  Using asynchronous communication students can work

at their own convenience when and where they want, and from a

pedagogical point of view, students can also control the pacing

of instruction.


           Interaction in Formal Learning Environments

     From the learner's perspective there are essentially three

types of interaction involved in the process of schooling i.e.,

guided or formal learning.  These can be considered as

interaction with the content, interaction with the instructor and

other students, and interaction with the institution.  While this

presentation is not focused on how the institution promotes

learning, it is an important aspect of interaction, mainly

through structuring the support and resources available to

students.

     Hillman et. al. (1994) summarize interaction in an

educational context as:
     
          The importance of interaction in education is
     practically a "given."  Shale and Garrison (1990a)
     state that "in its most fundamental form education is
     an interaction among teacher student, and subject
     content."  Sewart (1982) proposes that all educational
     transactions lie somewhere on an interaction continuum,
     with learner-instructor interaction at one end and
     learner-content interaction at the other.  Anderson
     (1987) and Keegan (1990) believe that interaction is
     the key to effective learning and information exchange.
          Moore (1989) considers interaction "a defining
     characteristic of education," (p. 2) and regards it as
     "vitally important" (p. 6) in the design of distance
     education. Booher and Seiler (1982) show that learners'
     avoidance of learner-instructor interaction harms
     academic achievement, while Thompson (1990) identifies
     interaction as a significant component in promoting
     positive learner attitudes toward distance education.
     Interactions between instructor and learner and
     interactions among learners provide opportunities for
     an educational transaction.  Without interaction,
     teaching becomes simply "passing on content as if it
     were dogmatic truth," and the cycle of knowledge
     acquisition-critical evaluation-knowledge validation is
     nonexistent (Shale and Garrison 1990b, p. 29). (p. 31)


                    Interaction with Content

     The very phrase "interaction with content" occurs frequently

in the literature (see Moore, 1989), but is a problematic

formulation as content can not interact, hold a dialogue, nor

answer back.  Interaction about course content can occur within

students' own heads as they hold dialogs within themselves while

attempting to construct meaning, answer questions, or find the

appropriate places to integrate incoming information to existing

schema.  Even when studying alone or in self-study, students must

engage in this kind of internal dialogue in order to retain

information.  The content does not merely pass before their

senses but must be cognitively processed (Bower and Hilgard,

1981). Typically, in formal schooling, much content delivered to

the student quickly becomes "inert" (Gagne et al., 1993) as it

has little relevance or use in the life circumstances of the

student, eventually becoming "lost" to retrieval.  Hence,

instructors, especially in business, are exploring the advantages

of just-in-time learning.  It appears that knowledge and skills

acquired immediately prior to a need for their use may reduce

retraining because the original instruction occurred too long

before an opportunity for use arose.


                       Social Interaction

     The importance of interpersonal interaction in learning is

well accepted (Fulford and Zhang, 1993), although some distance

educators still advocate an "independent learner" model.  Even

while an independent learner is cognitively processing course

content in a setting divorced from peer interaction, they are

also, it is hoped, taking what they have learned and applying it,

making it meaningful in the context of actions and interactions

within their own lives as they seek personal satisfaction,

credentials and advancement on their life path.  When students

have the opportunity to interact with one another and their

instructors about the content, they can analyze, synthesize and

evaluate course content and use their new learning to construct a

shared meaning, making sense of what they are learning.

     We suggest that well designed interaction about content can

move learning from the lower levels of cognitive processing such

as recognition and comprehension to the higher levels of

analysis, synthesis and evaluation (Bloom, 1956; Garrison, 1993;

Moore, 1993).  Formal schooling can most effectively occur in

situations where intellectual operations can be practiced with

adequate feedback from the community with whom the scholar, or

apprentice scholar, is attempting to build meaning.  As the

instructor encourages interaction, learners can become personally

involved and such interaction is essential to effective mediated

learning (Hackman and Walker, 1990).


                    Characteristics of Media

     Figure 1 shows selected media along the continuums of

synchronous or asynchronous communications and interaction.


                  [INSERT FIGURE 1 ABOUT HERE.]


There is some overlap among the quadrants in what can be

accomplished with many of these media.  However, the attempt here

is to place each medium along these two dimensions at the place

were we hypothesize it could be used most appropriately for

instruction. The most notable exception is computer conferencing.

It can be appropriately used in a much broader scope than perhaps

any other single medium in education.  However, it is not found

in the synchronous/content interaction quadrant because we do not

believe it appropriate to deliver high density text in real-time

using computer conferencing.

     Part and parcel of Moore's (1993) formulation of

"interaction with content" is the idea of structure:

          With regard to the media, a recorded television
     programme, for example, is highly structured, with
     virtually every word, every activity of the instructor
     and every minute of time provided for, and every piece
     of content predetermined.  There is no dialogue and
     therefore no possibility of reorganizing the programme
     to take into accounts [sic] inputs from learners.
          There is little or no opportunity for deviation or
     variation according to the needs of a particular
     individual.  This can be compared with many
     teleconference courses which permit a wide range of
     alternative responses by the instructor to students'
     questions and written submissions (p. 26).

     How accommodating a particular medium is with regard to

novel feedback from other people, including the instructor, is

one hallmark of the dimensions shown here in Figure 1.

                       Guiding Principles

     When decisions need to be made about delivery methods, or

when thinking about features of the course or learning activities

development, we hypothesize that in the service of well

constructed objectives, these principles should normally guide

the course design/development:

- technological minimalism
- density of content should be inversely related to the amount of
     synchronous communication within the (distance) education
     learning environment
- synchronous communication allows social interaction as opposed
     to only the processing of content
- adequate technical support and training for both student and
     instructor is essential
- an important goal of (distance) learning is the creation of an
     environment of cooperation and trust among students and the
     instructor so that meaning can be built and shared.


Technological Minimalism

     Minimalism was an art movement in the 1970s (Baker, 1988),

whose philosophy is well expressed in the words of one leading

sculptor when he said: "'Minimal' means to me only the greatest

economy in attaining the greatest ends" (Andre, 1984).  The

movement's philosophical basis is rooted in the:
     
     distinctly American tradition of respect for plain
     facts and plain speaking, manifested in Shaker
     furniture and the pragmatist philosophy of Charles
     Sanders Peirce and William James, in the precisionist
     paintings of Charles Sheeler, in the "scientific"
     realism of Thomas Eakins, the photographs of Paul
     Strand and  Walker Evans, and the poetry of Williams
     Carlos Williams and Marianne Moore. (Baker, 1988, p.
     13)

     Such simplicity and the American cultural myth of "the

simple life" have always sounded a counterpoint to the

materialistic individualism of most of American life.  For many

years now those who have not embraced technology as the cure for

all educational ills, and have hesitated to join the flight for

more and more sophisticated, costly, and complicated delivery

technologies have been stared at askance and belittled as

Luddites.  Still, there is a firm common sense, a philosophical

and economic basis for the position of "less is more" in

educational technology.

     We are defining technological minimalism as the unapologetic

use of minimum levels of technology, carefully chosen with

precise attention to their advantages and limitations, in support

of well defined instructional objectives.  When a course moves

beyond the traditional delivery technologies of paper and face-

to-face, chalk-and-talk, class work assumes as a prerequisite

that the learning site or the student be equipped to use whatever

level of technology has been chosen for the course.  Access to

often complex and expensive technology becomes a serious issue.

This is particularly evident in the international delivery of

distance education, where lack of technology is further widening

the gap between the "haves" and the "have nots."

     From the viewpoint of institutions in general, and

instructional designers in particular, there is no need to

apologize for espousing technological minimalism and the

consequent well-designed use of the best features of low

technology solutions.  There is wisdom in technological

minimalism--the more bells and whistles a delivery technology

has, the more expensive and complex the equipment needed, the

greater the limitations on student access, the greater the claims

on time and travel (e.g. to live videoconference sites), the more

extensive the technical support needed and the greater the chance

of inopportune equipment failure.


Density of Content Should Be Inversely Related to the Amount of
Synchronous Communication Within the (Distance) Education
Learning Environment

     Recorded text, video, or audio can carry the highest burden

of content as recorded media can be crossed and re-crossed, mined

and plowed from many different angles and perspectives, at many

different times, to yield meaning on many levels, as the needs of

learners change.  But once recorded, it becomes static and

subject to private interpretations that may be quite different

from the initial meaning intended by the speaker.

     A face-to-face lecture, which is synchronous, is limited in

the amount of content it can carry.  Unless recorded in print, on

video or audio tape, a lecture is ephemeral and afterwards exists

only in the notes and memories of the speaker and those who heard

it.  When lectures are presented in mediated form they can

quickly become tedious and boring, and students' minds wander.

Students can process information much faster than the speed of

most speech, so it is possible that this spare processing power

can be turned to other uses than the integration of incoming

information.

     A heuristic for mediated communication is to present

information, i.e., lecture, review readings or demonstrate, for

20 minutes at most.  After that, establish a short activity to

allow for active processing of the material followed by a report,

or an opportunity for a question and answer period, with the

instructor or students concluding the unit with a short summary

of content and activities.


Synchronous Communication Allows Social Interaction as Opposed to
Only the Processing of Content

     Both synchronous (real-time) interaction and asynchronous

interactions are valuable in distance education.  This idea is

nothing new in place-based education (e.g., in class

demonstration and questions and out-of-class reading

assignments).  We now have the tools to accomplish these goals in

distance education.  There lies the key to the use of technology

for group learning at a distance-- emerging technologies provide

the tools to link people in real-time (synchronously) not just

through asynchronous communication.  Discussions can be extended

in time far longer using computer mediated communication, for

instance, than is possible in other forms of conferencing.

     Group work allows students to practice problem-solving and

higher level thinking skills in the setting of cognitive

apprenticeships.  Just as those receiving training often work

with a master craftsmen and each other and promptly use their

training to enrich their own performance, students can articulate

their newly constructed ideas to others and through rehearsal,

argument persuasion and feedback, build shared meaning.

     Many institutions want to take advantages of economies of

scale and bring costly lecturers face-to-face with as many

students as possible.  This frequently means that technologies

that can best enhance small group interaction (e.g.,

audioconferencing; audiographics) are used as broadcast

technologies and deprive the student of rich interaction with

either the lecturer, instructor or their peers.  Our research

indicates that students see this as costly in terms of lost

opportunities for learning and feedback.

     Attendance at synchronous interactions is more costly than

asynchronous interaction in terms of money and inconvenience

regarding time and/or space.  When you sign up for place-based

instruction, you resign yourself to the cost involved, especially

the inconvenience of going at a specific time to a specific

place. These costs are balanced against the richness that is

sometimes experienced in face-to-face interactions with

instructor and peers.  Historically, one reason to go the

distance education route was to avoid the costs associated with

learning based in place and time.  If you are a distance

education student who wants self-paced, individual study, then

you may have a preference for solitary, asynchronous learning (at

least for some of your education).  But our research indicates

that distance education students who are willing to pay for

synchronous communication, want "more bang for their buck" and

access to interaction with their peers when in synchronous mode.


Adequate Technical Support and Training for Both Student and
Instructor is Essential

     The more technology is used, the greater the need for

technology support, institutional support, and training.  Hillman

et al. state:
     
     Successful interaction in the mediated educational
     transaction is highly dependent upon how comfortable
     the learner feels in working with the delivery medium.
     Learners need to possess the necessary skills to
     operate the mechanisms of the delivery system before
     they can successfully interact with the content,
     instructor, or other learners.  The challenge to
     practitioners of distance education is to create new
     instructional methods that empower learners to work
     successfully with the technology (p. 31).

The instructor needs to be able to use the media, too.


An Important Goal of Distance Learning is the Creation of an
Environment of Cooperation and Trust Among Students and the
Instructor so that Meaning can be Built and Shared

     One goal of education is to move the process of learning

from the warehousing in students' heads of inert knowledge to the

active integration of information into students' cognitive

structures as they build ideas or skills.  Education is what is

left after you have forgotten all you learned in school.  Before

a student is willing to test their new-found ideas aloud, they

must feel secure and comfortable in their learning environment.

They must feel they will not be penalized if their attempts are

unsophisticated or seem weak.  Without an environment that takes

seriously every participant's trials and prototypes, attempts to

articulate their new found understandings would quickly stop,

except perhaps by the cleverest students or by the instructor.


                           Conclusions

     Regardless of the media used, it is the responsibility of

the institution and the instructor to provide a learning

environment in which the learner has the opportunity for

appropriate interactions with content and others (Moore, 1993).

A mismatch of the use of interaction, synchronicity and

technology can lead to loss of the student's attention, boredom,

information overload, frustration, and be costly in time lost for

learning.  Even students who are actively engaged in attending to

the learning activity constantly fight distracting thoughts while

processing new information, (these can be thoughts related to or

unrelated to the content being presented).  One challenge

therefore, for those designing the learning environment, is to

seriously consider which media will best enhance and empower the

learner.

     The use of a variety of delivery media and formats for

information presentation (especially if synchronous learning is

scheduled for relatively long periods of time) with each aspect

carefully chosen and designed to meet specific instructional

objectives is essential. The creation of the student's

opportunity to interact about content with instructors and peers

in ways that enhance the construction of meaning is something we

all must be striving for.


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