Distance learning history degree

A founding concept of the United States Sports Academy in 1972 was that it would be a "university without walls" that could meet the needs of its students by teaching sport in any location in the globe. The Academy has met this challenge, offering a great deal of flexibility to its students through innovative teaching practices such as distance learning, the mentorship, independent and individualized study. Given that distance education is philosophically fundamental to the institution, as it presently exists, a review of the evolution of distance education at the Academy serves as a guide in understanding and appreciating the commitment the Academy has made to remaining vitally contemporary in its delivery of sport education.

Throughout this article references to the Academy's National Faculty, also known as NAFAC, will be made. Indeed, the NAFAC recruited during the formative years of the institution was located throughout the United States and abroad. The NAFAC, a prestigious body of sport educators and professionals with comprehensive expertise in the field, serves the institution to this day. By definition and implication, the NAFAC has largely been both a non-resident and non-local faculty, with some exceptions. Presently, there are roughly 400 members of the Academy's NAFAC whose expertise covers a wide variety of disciplines within the sport-related field. They are respected members in their fields even though they may not possess a terminal degree. What the Academy has recognized in those not having a terminal degree, nevertheless, is the vast experience and notoriety they have earned through that experience. This offers the Academy's students to study "at the side of the master" in many instances.

As an extension of this concept, a key component of the Academy's program has been the experiential training gained through the "mentorship." A mentorship is conceptually a structured and greatly expanded internship. In developing this opportunity for experiential, hands-on training, the Academy's students have typically gone to where the mentor is, rather than seeking to bring that NAFAC member or mentorship supervisor to the Academy campus.

The Academy's graduate curriculum with its sport-specific focus requiring only eight or nine courses plus a thesis or experiential training through the mentorship, is particularly well suited for distance learning delivery. The narrow focus of a graduate program obviates the need to cover a broad base of topics typical of undergraduate study.

Just as important to the efficacy of distance learning is the composition of the Academy's student body. The average age of the Academy student has fluctuated, over the years, in a narrow band between 27 and 32 years old, and currently it is 31.2 years. These students with bachelor degrees already in hand, are usually working professionals. They have embarked upon careers, purchased homes, and started families. Thus, the ability to pursue a needed graduate degree without suspending a career or dislocating a family makes non-traditional educational program delivery particularly attractive to these individuals. Academy academic programs have always been designed to meet the needs of the working professional both in content and through delivery.

The relocation of the Academy to the Mobile area in 1976 brought it under the accrediting authority of the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (COC/SACS). The COC/SACS accreditation criteria at that time placed limits on the amount of individualized or correspondence study that could be incorporated into a graduate student's program of study. Thus, the Academy's graduate degree program evolved to a traditional residential model of instruction to meet these accreditation criteria. In so doing, the number of credits that a student could apply toward a degree through individualized study was substantially limited. Nonetheless, most students continued to use a combination of individualized study with resident study and their thesis or mentorship experience to satisfy the requirements for receiving the Master of Sport Science degree.

In early 1993, the Academy began the planning process for the introduction of distance education as a delivery system for its Master's degree program. In terms of infrastructure and organizational processes, the Academy installed an institution wide computer network and added specialized staff to support an integrated computer technology program. At the same time, the Department of Continuing Education, under whose administrative oversight fell the individualized study activities in the Division of Academic Affairs, was restructured and staff was added to become the Department of Continuing Education and Distance Learning (CE/DL). Through the Department of CE/DL, the Academy began a process of curricular review to insure that program content and competencies would be the same for all students regardless of their choice of program delivery. In so doing, the institution restructured its individualized study courses and organizational processes to accommodate true distance education delivery. This process culminated in the implementation of an "asynchronous, transformational and computer mediated" course delivery system for distance learning delivery of its Masters Degree courses. Briefly, it is "asynchronous" in that students enroll and learn at their own chosen time not dictated by an institutional structure. It is "transformational" in that learning activities are engaged by the student individually. Finally, it is "computer mediated" in that some of the activities and most of the communication between student and professor take place via computer technology.

Between Fall Semester 1993 and Summer Semester 1995, the faculty embarked upon an extensive rewrite of the Academy's courses to ensure that there was equivalency in residential and distance learning course delivery. By the end of this process, all of the Academy's course work that was deliverable by distance learning had identical syllabi with respect to course objectives and specific competencies as those found in residence. This process not only included the physical writing of courses but also extensive training for faculty and staff in the specifics of program administration in a new learning/instructional environment. This process insured both that the course objectives and specific competencies were accommodated in the instructional materials and that the faculty was prepared to deliver the courses to the students at a distance.

The fact that the Academy decided upon asynchronous, transformational and computer mediated educational delivery system for distance learning delivery of its Masters degree courses is no coincidence. Given the strength of the institution's international programs, reflecting the global nature of sport education, it was clear that the distance learning delivery system had to accommodate students living across many time zones. Accordingly, it was determined that an asynchronous model for educational program delivery would be most appropriate for the Academy.

Once the determination was made that an asynchronous model of program delivery would be employed, the Academic Committee understood there was a need to transform the learning experience for the student from what was delivered in the classroom setting to one from which the student would derive a valid learning experience at a distance. This transformation of course content was done through a series of learning activities as outlined immediately below. It should be noted that these were the "second generation" of distance learning materials with the individualized study materials being referred to as the "first generation." The second generation was employed from 1993 to 2000. It should also be noted that while the following second generation learning activities are still being used for some distance learning courses, these are being phased out in favor of the Academy's "third generation," web based delivery which commenced in January, 2001. These learning activities included:

1) Required readings through a combination of a textbook and supplemental materials as all of the Academy's distance learning courses have been developed around a textbook.

2) To insure that a student had read the text, each course had a study guide that included two 100-question multiple choice sets that students had to complete as they worked their way through the material. These study guides had to be completed with a minimum score of 80% before students were allowed to take the final examination. While the minimum score was enforced, these questions were not a part of the final course grade.