Full-time nurse, part-time teacher and student
August 21, 2008
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Naomi Carniol
SPECIAL TO THE STAR
After 28 years in nursing, Colleen Collier loves her job.
That's why she works full time as a nurse in the pediatric critical care unit at Children's Hospital in London, Ont.
It's why she teaches clinical instruction part-time to aspiring nurses taking the collaborative nursing program through Fanshawe College and the University of Western Ontario.
And it's also why she's finishing her Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree at Ryerson University, which she began part-time in 2005.
With Collier's packed schedule, finding time for schoolwork isn't easy.
Taking her degree through distance education is the key, the London resident says.
"I'm not bound by a schedule that says I have to be in a classroom every Monday at 3 o'clock," she explains. Instead, she can read course lectures at her own pace whenever she has time.
Across Canada, universities are offering a growing number of distance education courses. While their academic content is similar to courses taught in the classroom, the format is different.
And the format is increasingly interactive. A decade ago, distance education often meant students and instructors mailing assignments back and forth.
"That was as impersonal as you could possibly get," says Wayne Seller, a University of Toronto professor who co-ordinates courses on education for the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.
But as technology has improved, so has distance education. Universities still have correspondence courses, but they also offer online courses that are highly interactive, personal and provide unique opportunities for learning.
Now, instructors post lectures and reading assignments on a password-protected website. Students can then log on whenever it's convenient for them to access the information.
"When I'm teaching a course, my classroom is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week," Seller says.
Depending on the class, the website may include a discussion board where students can post comments related to the class.
With some courses, they can also post personal information so they and the teacher can get to know one another – rather than study as a collection of anonymous faces in a virtual classroom.
Christopher Thomson teaches a popular online class called the Philosophy of Love and Sex, through Ryerson's Chang School of Continuing Education.
At the start of each course, he hosts a "meet and greet" on the discussion board for the up to 40 students who are registered. He introduces himself and posts information about his background and family. "Many of the students respond in kind," he says.
Thomson requires students to post answers to three course-related questions each week, as well as comment online about each other's postings. Sometimes, students agree with each other. Other times, there are debates.
"Part of what it means to do philosophy, rather than to read it, is to actually discuss ideas with other students," he says. "The discussion board facilitates that type of personal interaction between students."
It also helps students communicate with the teacher, says Collier, who has been taking Thomson's online course this summer.
"If you have questions or if there is something you don't understand ... you simply send an email to the professors," she says. "There is no waiting in line to ask a question."
Thomson admits he was a bit nervous the first time he taught a course online, but he has quickly become a fan. "I love what I do," he says, adding that the quality of education is the same online as it is in traditional classrooms.
Online courses have the added bonus of freeing students and instructors from geographic boundaries. Thomson lives in Kentville, N.S. Seller lives in Thunder Bay, where most often he's at his office in the OISE Northwestern Centre.
Both teach classes for Toronto-based universities, and only a few of their students live in the GTA.
Thomson's students are scattered throughout southern Ontario, while Seller's are mostly Canadians teaching abroad. For a recent course, Seller had students in China, India, South Korea, France, Switzerland and Saudi Arabia.
The fact that students live in different countries enhances the course, Seller says, as his students learn from each other about teaching around the globe.
With most online courses, assignments range from traditional essays to more technologically based group projects.
For example, Collier and her fellow students designed a website as part of one nursing course, and created an online skit for another.
She wondered how her group would complete the projects without meeting face to face. But they had no trouble communicating through virtual meetings online.
But most of all, it's the flexible schedule that has turned Collier into a fan of online education. She's even found time to take ballroom dancing classes with her husband.
"Online education allows me to ... have a lifestyle that's conducive to balance," she says.
Toronto Star