Ernie : We are on different plants on this issue. No surprise, each of us has institutional reasons that are ingrained because of professional experience. I will make my case in several ways. ( 1 ) Some kinds of education / learning can only be attained in person. We can start with the obvious, physical ed and sports. Granted, these are anything but intellectually rigorous in ways that are found elsewhere in the curriculum, but for starters. Then there are all classes that require lab work. Like chemistry, some kinds of physics, and a variety of kinds of biology. Not talking about freshman surveys, but advanced courses starting in the 300s and especially the 400s ; in some cases this also applies to numbers such as 245 or 270. Next we get to classes that require equivalent of lab work, like TV production. In a similar category are courses that require field work, like a number of anthropology classes, geology, environmental science, and so forth, including some specializations in areas of history. There simply is no substitute for an art historian seeing the inside of a temple or cathedral, for instance, As well, this is to talk about theater, tourism / recreation ( yes there are degree programs in these fields ), and some art specialities. This certainly includes music and other performing arts like ballet. If you told me you could get the same thing via a DVD I'd be convinced you were crazy. Lastly, although doubtless I am missing a few other academic areas, no way in hell could I have learned philosophy as well as I did, imperfectly to be sure, but to reasonably good effect, absent a lot ( really a lot ) of in person discussions with my peers. Again, this is to discuss advanced level studies, NOT Freshman surveys. Same principle applied to Intellectual History / History of Ideas. Granted, as in Chris' case, once you have achieved proficiency in some field, while even then person-to-person might be a real help, you then are in a position to make the most of online learning. Also vitally important is access to a good research library. I can sympathize with what Chris said about living in a small city or small town, have had that experience myself, but this changes nothing. Without a good research library , tough luck. Please don't tell me that you can get all you need online. Any such view is flat out wrong. Maybe for a few limited fields, but for most areas of learning the opposite is the case. None of which counts the advantages for late teens and 20-somethings living away from family, advantages of socialization, of meeting people with new viewpoints, etc, etc, which is one reason I take a VERY dim view of home schooling. Intellectual inbreeding is as deadly to the mind as inbreeding is in a literal biological sense. ( 2 ) All of this said, there definitely are areas where online learning could be as good or even better than classroom education. In examples like Chris, moreover, you get entirely new markets for education, people who simply cannot attend a physical university but who are otherwise willing, able, and motivated. Education does sometimes consist of classroom lectures, and I have given a really large number of lectures myself, but obviously if it could have been done at the time, it would have been a positive good to have had a team of professionals monitor my lectures for History 101 and 102, say, and use film footage of the best parts of each class ( some years I taught multiple sections of the same thing ), splice them together, and create a "best product" for use and reuse, with allowance for revisions to some lectures if new research warranted it. With technology you could also add in selected film footage ( vintage movies of TR or FDR or Eisenhower are examples ), music excerpts, an array of colorful and informative animated maps, and so forth. I'm all for this kind of thing, at least presuming that students have access to a TA when they have questions or need advice. Probably you could do likewise for any number of lecture courses. But are all courses lecture dependent ? You seem to make that assumption, but, gotta tell you, this is anything but an assumption that I make. At the graduate level, at least in my experience, most classes were seminars with heavy emphasis on interaction, a lot of professional-to-professional discussion, questioning each other in real time, mutual critiques, and so forth. Many things you can do online, but these are not among them. ( 3 ) So I'd say that the optimal strategy is to identify all courses ( or modules ) where online education is effective and even superior, and concentrate on them. Meantime, redesign the remaining courses so that they are optimal in terms of promoting student learning. But it must be said that the rigorous classes I took at Roosevelt U were absolutely conducive to actually learning, moreso than any other school I attended, no exceptions, not even UMass. Billy ======================================================= 3/6/2012 3:36:41 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, [email protected] writes:
Hi Billy, On Mar 6, 2012, at 3:24 PM, [email protected] wrote: > Comments below in BF > > > 3/6/2012 2:22:11 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, [email protected] writes: > 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 > > Huh ? De-legitimize Cal Tech ? Stanford ? MIT ? For that matter, Lower Columbia College where a friend of mine once earned a certificate in compute programming ? In general, yes. The very schools I spent 11 wonderful years and thousands of dollars and hours, and continue to support with my alumni dollars. > Why on Earth would you wan to de-legitimate colleges and universities ? Reform them, > that is a no brainer, of course they need major reforms. But de-legitimization > seems to me to go much too far. I chose my words carefully. I want to remove their existing assumed "legitimacy" as providers of education. I want to force them to re *earn* that legitimacy, by actually investing in helping students *learn*. Something top-tier research institutions are *horrible* at. And have gamed the system to de-legitimize possible rivals. > You can't be serious, no matter how good Apple products are, in choosing between > a university and online learning. It is no contest, any university or college by a mile. Nice opinion. The facts argue otherwise: http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2012/01/23/udacity-and-the-future-of-o nline-universities/ >> when it finished, thousands of students around the world were educated and inspired. Some 248 of them, in total, got a perfect score: they never got a single question wrong, over the entire course of the class. All 248 took the course online; not one was enrolled at Stanford. Of course university has many huge advantages over online courses. And students learn in many different ways, and perhaps some thrive on live lectures. But the reality is that for many kinds of learning, and many kinds of students, online learning is *way* better than what you get in a live classroom. > But the article is clear to the effect that colleges and universities need to get serious > about teaching effectiveness, about use of all relevant technologies, especially > online education. As part of the mix, not in opposition to higher ed. Sure, that's where education as a whole is going. But for me personally, my mission is to help burst the bubble that top-tier research institutions are living in. My dream is that by the time my son finishes high school (whatever that means by then), he'll have already learned most of the useful course content I got from four years at MIT. So he can go somewhere else -- more appropriate -- to gain all the other things traditionally associated with college. -- Ernie P. > > B > > > > 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
