Editor’s Note: This week’s PoliceOne First Person essay is from Dr. Paul Lasiewicki, a PoliceOne Member and a Sergeant with the Flagstaff (Ariz.) Police Department. In PoliceOne “First Person” essays, our Members and Columnists candidly share their own unique view of the world. This is a platform from which individual officers can share their own personal insights on issues confronting cops today, as well as opinions, observations, and advice on living life behind the thin blue line. If you want to share your own perspective with other P1 Members, simply send us an email with your story.
Dr. Paul Lasiewicki
Police1 Member
When online education was first introduced in the early 2000s, many questioned the quality of e-learning...and rightfully so. As a result, instead of being assigned a fitting role in traditional learning institutions, online learning programs were relegated to a more modest position. Online education was (successfully) marketed to offer college access to non-traditional students – as kind of a “next-gen” distance learning option. Although this role brought educational opportunities to those who otherwise would not have been suitable candidates for a more traditional approach (working adults, those locked into rural settings, or those with predominant social obligations like single-mothers), the tendency to market non-traditional students only helped to reinforce concerns held by those who favored more traditional systems of education. Things have changed.
Consider where computer graphic imaging (CGI) technology was ten years ago compared with how it looks today. Ten years ago computer images consisted of simple shapes doing simple things – cartoony and crude. Today CGI has literally transformed the way movies are made. Computer images are so sophisticated and blend so seamlessly with real film images that they are hardly distinguishable from live action. The same comparisons can be made with the advances in the technology of online education.
The rapid development of technology combined with consistent research pointing to the growth of online education as a successful learning model has begun to bulldoze away the old stigmas of online education[3]. Today, nearly all traditional colleges and universities have developed strategies for integrating exclusively-online and blended (online + traditional) campuses[4]. In fact, to quote Harvard Business professor and best-selling author Clayton Christensen: “The train has left the station…” [1]. Even though today it accounts for just 1.5 percent of total courses offered, by the year 2016 approximately one-quarter of all classes will be taken online, and by the year 2019 online learning as a percent of total class hours will account for 50 percent of all courses taken [2]. The change is real, and it’s coming… and not without good reason.
According to a 2009 U.S. Department of Education study, students in online learning environments now outperform those students taught exclusively in traditional face-to-face classrooms [3]. In fact, online learning has moved beyond the goal of providing access to a wider variety of students, to improving the quality of education and training overall[4]. This includes the area of professional training.
In this new era of education and training, an online option is not only necessary, but it is the clear best choice for most professional training. Virtual classrooms are accessible 24/7 and there is no need for an instructor to be present to deliver the material. This is a significant improvement over traditional “ground training” for several reasons. First, online training often costs less than traditional face-to-face courses because virtual classrooms are relatively inexpensive to maintain – especially when compared to the cost of maintaining an on-site training environment with an instructor and a classroom full of students.
This is particularly valuable to smaller organizations with limited training resources. The training environment with its wealth of resources is brought to the site; neither students nor the instructors suffer the expense of travel or set-up. Furthermore, the virtual classroom is available to students all hours of the day and night. As such, employers can provide time during the employee’s normal work hours to attend class – another cost-saving benefit. Lastly, online training offers a platform for reinforcing the application of course material as work-output that has never before been practical enough to achieve in a more traditional setting. For example, instructors can design a curriculum that requires students to submit official reports as part of the graded coursework in a report writing class.
But what types of technology-based learning systems are best? It depends. Training professionals often involves very different challenges depending on what skill is being taught.
With instruction that involves rote learning, monolog-style training is adequate. For example: learning how to speak phrases in foreign languages, learning scripted sales tactics, or receiving legal updates requires only a one-way delivery of information. There is no need to ask questions or to demonstrate proficiency to a qualified instructor because there is no skill that needs to be refined and reinforced. With this type of training, technology alone (DVDs, webinars, podcasts, etc.) is sufficient to deliver training material.
On the contrary, when training involves skill development, technology should be used as a tool by live instructors to deliver material and relay feedback. These hybrid, or blended learning management systems (LMS) involve instruction where multi-media course material is provided online, and then instructors offer one-on-one tutoring to help students develop desired skills. For example: technical skills like writing, experience-based skills like sensitivity, and competencies like ethics require close supervision and ample feedback from qualified instructors. Technology should facilitate this type of instruction. When instructors (or systems of instruction) attempt to train professionals to develop skills using a one-way delivery system (like webinars and DVDs), there is no opportunity to reinforce desired behavior or discourage errant behavior. Teachers in blended LMSs adopt a role of guides and coaches rather than lecturers.
Organizational knowledge is the sum of the combined education and experience of each individual within an organization[5]. The next generation in the evolution of professional training should exploit the vast body of organizational knowledge across an industry. Online training is the ideal vehicle for sharing organizational knowledge – it allows instructors to put material in context like never before possible. Online LMSs enable instructors to capture the knowledge of current experts in their fields, and to funnel their experiences to individuals in the virtual classroom. Instructors can then customize that knowledge to address the needs of the industry, the organization, and of the individual student. In this way, instructors of online courses are not limited by their own knowledge and abilities as much as they were in more traditional settings. There is no longer material delivered through the lens of one instructor. Instead, information is delivered in a way that sheds light on a topic from multiple sources.
The roles of coursework and assignments change as well. Rather than using assignments to check whether the student is able to demonstrate compliance to a concept, assignments become tools for building skills, competencies, and experiences in the learner’s own professional context. Assignments format professional knowledge by framing it in a way that’s meaningful to the student: in a way consistent with the way the professional thinks[1]. So, rather than trying to re-format the professional to accept knowledge as a student, classroom material gets re-formatted into professional knowledge.
Advances in virtual learning management systems over the past decade have helped to marshal a new era in professional training. In many cases, an online training option is the best choice for developing officers’ skills. If your organization is one of the approximately 40,000 law enforcement agencies throughout the U.S. looking to do more with less, training coordinators should consider options that:
1.) exploit technology in ways that allow employees to train while working – increasing opportunity while reducing cost,
2.) tap into organizational knowledge to access the education and experience of experts-in-their-fields, and
3.) ensure knowledge isn’t left in the classroom by employing training methods that require course material is applied to improve work product.
REFERENCES
1. Christensen, C., Horn, M.B., & Johnson, C.W. Disrupting class: How disruptive
innovation will change the way the world learns. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2008.
2. Picciano, A., Educational Transformation through Online Learning: To Be or Not to Be. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks 14(4) (December 2010).
3. United States Department of Education, Evaluation of evidence-based practices in online
learning: A meta-analysis and review of online learning studies. U.S. Department of Education, Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development, Washington, DC. 2009. http://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/tech/evidence-based-practices/finalreport.pdf.
4. Serner, J., Why Online Education Will Attain Full Scale. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks 14(4) (December 2010).
5. Nonaka, I. and Nishiguchi, T., Knowledge Emergence: Social, Technical, and Evolutionary Dimensions of Knowledge Creation. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc, 2001.
