Hi Billy, In the "funny you should mention it" category... > Now here's where I start asking questions. What do we mean here by "the > caliber of professor at MIT"? Almost every prof at MIT will be deeply > knowledgeable in his or her field, and will be a first-class researcher. But > online as well as in the traditional classroom, we still have to ask whether > and how those kinds of expertise translate into learning for the student. If > the most knowledgable scholars in the world can be lousy teachers in a room > full of people, they can be lousy teachers online too. >
I just had lunch with the Dean of one of the largest Computer Science programs in the United States. I had been part of his Dean's Advisory Board. I told him I was resigning because: a) I am trying to de-legitimize traditional higher-ed institutions, in favor of online and informal learning b) I want to demonize Computer Science, to force academics to tackle "real" problems in how computers and people process information He took it surprisingly well... E On Mar 6, 2012, at 7:54 AM, [email protected] wrote: > > > > The Atlantic > > MIT Online vs. Your Local College: How Will Web Learning Stack Up? > > By Alan Jacobs > > Feb 23 2012, 11:31 AM ET 37 > > The success of e-education depends on whether universities can design online > environments that are conducive to learning. > > > In one of my first posts here at the Atlantic, I wrote about universities and > the problem of credentialing. If a school like Stanford offers online classes > to non-Stanford students, and those students learn a great deal, then what is > that learning worth? Or, to be more precise, what might a potential employer > think that that learning is worth, in the absence of a formal credential like > a grade or a degree? > > Well, as Megan McArdle has reported here recently, at least one university, > MIT, is moving towards making a kind of credential available for people who > take and pass its online courses. The plot, then, is definitely thickening. > And some questions are beginning to loom in my mind. > > McArdle quotes Stephen Gordon, who posits a scenario: > > Now, imagine a personnel manager at a mid-sized corporation who's looking for > an employee with some particular knowledge. There are two candidates: one > with an appropriate college degree from the local state school, a second with > relevant MITx certificates. Let's say all other things between the candidates > are equal. Which should the manager choose? > > Given the caliber of professor at MIT, the online student may have learned > just as much. > > Now here's where I start asking questions. What do we mean here by "the > caliber of professor at MIT"? Almost every prof at MIT will be deeply > knowledgeable in his or her field, and will be a first-class researcher. But > online as well as in the traditional classroom, we still have to ask whether > and how those kinds of expertise translate into learning for the student. If > the most knowledgable scholars in the world can be lousy teachers in a room > full of people, they can be lousy teachers online too. > > And then there's the question of what kind of teaching excellence is needed > for online learning. So far, universities that have sought an online presence > have tended to put their best lecturers online -- the people with the most > dynamic personal presences. The Richard Feynman model, the funny, charismatic > master explainer, seems to be the thing sought for -- but what if people > don't actually learn all that much from such figures? > > Consider the distinguished physicist from Harvard, Eric Mazur, who has > recently discovered that his students haven't been learning all that much > from him and have tended to forget most of what they do learn soon after > learning it. He's completely rethinking his teaching style from the ground > up, and while his students are now learning more, they're not learning it by > watching the kind of show that Feynman once put on. > > So: let's go back to Stephen Gordon's hypothetical manager who's trying to > decide whether to hire the local college grad or the person with the MITx > certificate. Right now that manager is in the dark, because the MITx > certificate is an unknown quantity. But a few years down the line some data > will be in, and if the MITx certificate holders are able to hold their own, > or outdo the local college grads, that will not be because they have watched > a bunch of stimulating lectures from world-class scholars, but because people > at MIT will have figured out how to design online environments that will > maximize learning and retention. > > That's going to be the key to the future of online learning: not whether > universities simply film their best lecturers, or place all their course > materials online, but whether they find an optimal design for online learning. > > But of course, as I suggested in my earlier post, it may not be universities > who first figure this out: it may be educational entrepreneurs like Sebastian > Thrun. If so -- and depending on what kinds of intellectual property claims > people like Thrun can make and sustain -- universities may find themselves > playing a futile game of catch-up. > > The ones best placed to avoid such an unfortunate turn of events are, of > course, the wealthiest universities, and if they are willing to invest a lot > of money, time, and energy, then they may well end up, as McArdle suggested > in her post, ruling the roost even more confidently than they do now. But I'm > not yet convinced that many of our most prestigious institutions are in this > particular game to win it. > > > > > > -- > Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community > <[email protected]> > Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism > Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
