Article 11

Seirup, H. & Tirotta, R. (2010) Utilizing Distance Learning as a Strategy for Academic Successs for Undergraduate Students on Academic Probation: Atypical Candidates for Online Learning. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 13(3) Retrieved from ERIC database.

Utilizing Distance Learning as a Strategy for Academic Successs for Undergraduate Students on Academic Probation: Atypical Candidates for Online Learning

Summary:
Holly Seirup and Rose Tirotta of Hofstra University write about a study that explored the implementations, student satisfaction, and the effectiveness of an academic support course that was taught online at a medium sized private college in the Northeast (Seirup & Tirotta 2010). This course was required for students on academic probation. Seirup and Tirotta discuss concerns facing providing a required course in an online format. They write of faculty concerns with the online format as well as student concerns. The concerns focused on faculty and student lack of experience with online courses. They discussed the history of academic support courses on college campuses stating that the goal is “to assist in student transition to campus, to provide necessary academic and interpersonal skill development, to teach and/or enhance non-academic support skills, to develop community, and ultimately, to positively impact student retension” (Seirup & Tirotta 2010 p. 1). After discussing how faculty came to the decision to provide this class within an online format, characteristics of typical online students, how the course was implemented and citing prior studies on student satisfaction with online courses Seirup and Tirotta (2010) state, “On average, the students enrolled in the course increased their GPA by .16 bringing the GPA of more than half of the students above a 2.0 and off of academic probation.

Reaction:
This study was well executed and presented in a very professional manner. The results are quite promising for creating similar programs. In their discussion of typical characteristics of online learners, students on academic probation are out of the ordinary. Students on academic probation are placed in this category and required to complete an academic success course because they are falling behind and not receiving adequate grades. Typically online learners are independent, highly motivated, have good reading and writing skills and are proficient in computer use. Some of these characteristics are definitely lacking in students who are on academic probation. So why did the program have so much success? From reading this article I would agree that such a course would work well for these types of students. I think that students in this category desperately need to practice increasing their self-motivation and self-direction. They also may need to practice working on computers in order to increase their skills in this area. By participating in an online academic support course students are able to practice the exact skills they need to improve.