Study Tools for Servicemembers
Written by Kenya McCullum
MAE 2009 Volume: 4 Issue: 5 (September/October)
Desert, On Patrol at Sea or Commuting On the Subway.
INTERNET-BASED TOOLS
Blackboard. Blackboard (www.blackboard.com) is a suite of Webbased curriculum delivery systems that can make it easier for soldiers to access their class work and other resources related to their studies. Through this program, which is sold by Washington, D.C.-based Blackboard, students can more easily pursue their studies in a way that is personalized for their specific needs.
Allison Middleton, a performance technologist at the design and development branch of the Coast Guard Training Center Yorktown’s Performance Technology Center, knows first-hand how useful the Blackboard suite of products is for military students. When she was enrolled in a master’s degree program while working at the Intelligence Coordination Center in Maryland, she was able to access all of her work at her convenience.
“I like Blackboard because no matter what desk you’re sitting at or your location, you can log on and get all of your course information,” she said. “This is extremely helpful since we move around so much in the military.”
Elluminate. Much like Blackboard, Elluminate (www.elluminate.com) makes it easier for military students to keep abreast of their coursework—especially when they are deployed. Offered by Pleasanton, Calif.-based Elluminate, the program includes audio, video and Web solutions that students can take advantage of.
An example of what can be done with this program may be seen at Hawaii Pacific University, in Honolulu, where professors have incorporated it into their classrooms. According to Asoke Datta, the school’s assistant dean of academics for off-campus programs, one professor used the program to allow deployed students to make their required course presentations to the whole class. The professor was able to schedule multiple presentation times through Elluminate, giving all of the students—both military and civilian— the opportunity to see the work of their peers. As a result, military students were not precluded from the classroom experience, even though they were miles away from their classmates.
This kind of innovation is nothing new at Hawaii Pacific, according to Datta, who said that the school offers many learning tools and encourages its professors to engage its students using various kinds of technologies.
“Our university is one where the faculty members are the masters of the curriculum, so they will customize their academic delivery depending on what it is they’re teaching and what the students need,” he said.
Smarthinking. Washington, D.C.-based Smarthinking (www.smarthinking.com) provides online tutoring services that colleges can sign up for to help their students brush up on the subjects that they find challenging. Students log on to the Internet and receive assistance around the clock, seven days a week. Tutoring can be in the form of a live chat or an e-mail exchange in which tutors answer student questions within 24 hours. More than 500 institutions and companies currently use the service, including South Puget Sound Community College, Empire State University, Park University, the University of Cincinnati, Capella University and the Houston Community College System.
Online tutors are especially helpful for military students who, in addition to needing flexibility, may have been away from a school setting for some time.
“Quite a few of the military students are coming back to college after quite a long period of being away from high school, so their skills are a little rusty at times and need sharpening,” said Datta.
OTHER EFFECTIVE TOOLS
CD-ROMs. Some colleges will assist their military students by sending them CDs of their course material. These can include the lectures themselves, as well as PowerPoint presentations and other tools that professors collect to facilitate student learning. These can be helpful when deployed in remote areas or off at sea where Internet access via satellite connection is harder for servicemembers to get when the need isn’t strictly related to the operation at hand.
Electronic books. With the popularity of Kindle, Amazon.com’s platform for reading electronic books, students are using the device as a way to conveniently download their textbooks—instead of carrying these hefty tomes around or to Iraq or Afghanistan if they are deployed.
Video. Some colleges give students the option to watch their lectures via podcast, streaming video on their Websites, or on YouTube.
Some professors may also make videos to supplement their lectures and provide any additional information that they feel will enhance student learning.
News sites. Although news Websites may not be directly related to their classes, military students reading news from around the world gain a broader perspective that contributes to the success of their studies, whatever they may be. Dr. Craig Greathouse, assistant professor of political science at North Georgia College and State University, said that following current events aids and informs the study of history—and vice versa.
“As long as students are reading, they’re going to acquire information,” Greathouse noted. “One of the biggest things we tell our students is that knowledge of history is going to be essential if you’re going to understand why things happen in a region. You really can’t understand what’s currently going on in the Middle East without really understanding the historical developments, especially since World War II.”
SCHOOL-BASED TOOLS
Independent studies. Some schools offer independent studies to their military students. Students are partnered with a professor, and they work together to develop a course that gives the student the opportunity to complete required classes in a flexible manner. Likewise, some schools, such as the University of Wisconsin- Platteville, offer print-based coursework that the students finish in their own time and—if they don’t have access to the Internet at their location—mail back work to professors.
“This option attracts a lot of military students because if they get stuck in the middle of nowhere in Afghanistan, they may not have a reliable Internet connection,” said Les Hollingsworth, the school’s corporate marketing director.
One school, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has taken the notion of putting content online to the extreme, making the content of virtually all its courses available online for free, no registration required, through an initiative called MIT OpenCourseWare (ocw.mit.edu).
Supportive Education for the Returning Veteran (SERV). One prime benefit of electronic study tools, for individual or collaborative use, is the ability they give students to study at their own pace and with particular students. As John Schupp, director of Cleveland State University’s SERV group noted, the transition by servicemembers from the battlefield to student life is not always easy.
To aid in veteran students’ success, SERV allows incoming students to take general education classes only with other military students, with no civilians. These classes are taught through briefings—an approach to learning that the veterans are accustomed to because of their military training—in which the professors speak about a subject for 10 to 20 minutes and then the students spend time together working to understand the material.
It’s the ability to work together, whether through electronic study tools or together physically in a room, that matters most to many military-related students, Schupp said.
“The biggest difference that a vet has when he goes from a military to a civilian environment is the lack of the team around him,” Schupp added. “The military stresses teamwork. In order for everyone to succeed, everyone’s going to work together. Education is all about yourself because it’s personal—my book, my notes, my grades, my test. When you go from [the military] environment to all about yourself, there is difficulty in that transition.” ♦