1.1 Utilizing distance education in your professional development  (Page 6/6)

Table 5

In 2004, the studio class was 35.7% female, while the off-campus students were 51.8% female. In the studioclass in 2004, 71.4% of the students were classroom teachers, and 14.3% were school administrators. At the remote sites in 2004,79.1% were teachers, with 18.0% stating that they were administrators. In 2002 we noted that females did select theon-campus class more than the off-campus sites. This was reversed in 2004, so no conclusions can be made about selection of sites bygender.

The reasons the students chose a particular method of course delivery was also an area of inquiry. The studiostudents were asked if they would have preferred to have taken the course off campus instead of coming to the studio. Although in2004, 11.9% said that this was sometimes true, 85.7% stated that it was never true (a change from 30.6% and 69.4% in 2002, but similarif added together). The students who completed the course off campus did not have to pay student fees (recreation, library use,sports and musical tickets, etc.) and only paid tuition for the three-hour graduate course. Students on campus had to pay the fulltuition and fees amount. When we asked the off-campus students the advantage of taking a course on television, 93.5% said that it wasfor convenience. An important question for the off-campus students was the following:“Considering the advantages and the disadvantages of a television course, would you take another one ifit was something that you needed and it was at a convenient site?”Responses indicated that 97.8% would take another televised course. Clearly, the advantages outweighed the disadvantages for thesestudents.

Conclusions

Distance education experience was more evident in the 2004 survey. The“no-call-in”rule was considered reasonable by the students, and most of the on-campus students werenot bothered by the phones. Taking attendance took quite a bit of class time, and students at both sites wished that takingattendance could be reduced or eliminated. There were problems with the technology, but these problems were not major for moststudents. Students who had no prior degrees from these two universities took the television courses, pointing out potentialrecruitment benefits of this method of instruction. When asked the reason that off-campus students completed the course by television,the overwhelming reason was the convenience of driving to a nearby site instead of traveling to campus.

The results were positive for our off-campus students and technology-based leadership development. Theoff-campus students received the same instruction as campus students for a lower cost, with no major technological problems,and at a convenient location. The on-campus students seemed to accept the various technological requirements necessary for ouroff-campus students. For school district leaders considering technology-based leadership development, the results areencouraging.

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