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Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 2,641 Likes: 3
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Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 2,641 Likes: 3 |
I doubt that many of our children will forego residential college for online courses, but the question may be which courses are best taken online and which in person. Large introductory classes where you don't interact with the professor anyway may be the ones you take through online classes before college. Online courses may free students to follow their intellectual interests in college, knowing that they can take "practical" courses later or concurrently. For example, Harvard Business School has created HBX CORe, an 11-week online course on the basics of business. It grew out of a pre-MBA curriculum they had for MBA students who had not majored in business. The impending surge for the University of EverywhereBy George Leef Pope Center March 25, 2015 ...
No—it’s real and the U.S. (make that the world) is on the brink of the greatest educational change since Gutenberg invented printing. That is the argument Kevin Carey presents in his new book The End of College. Rapid improvements in information technology are already giving students far better learning opportunities than they’d get in the vast majority of “real” courses, and at almost no cost.
Carey calls this fast-emerging educational landscape the University of Everywhere. Once people discover that the high cost college degree—which doesn’t necessarily betoken any level of knowledge or skill—is no longer obligatory, many colleges will find their enrollments plunging. Those that survive will offer solid education at reasonable cost. Higher education as we’ve known it, organized mainly for the benefit of the purveyors of education, will give way to new modes of teaching and assessment based on the needs of learners.
Carey sums up the weakness of the typical American college this way, “Students are left to the whims of professors who haven’t been trained to teach and aren’t accountable for helping students learn….Colleges give 19-year-olds too many reasons to have fun and not enough reasons to study consistently and thoughtfully.”
Quite so, but why does Carey believe that online courses are such a great improvement? Because he took one. Not just any course, but MIT’s introductory biology course, The Secret of Life, taught by Professor Eric Lander, who can put at the head of his list of accomplishments having led the Human Genome Project. To take this course, all Carey had to do was to sign-up online, then start watching the videos. (He could also read Professor Lander’s text, which he largely did.)
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Joined: Apr 2013
Posts: 5,272 Likes: 12
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Joined: Apr 2013
Posts: 5,272 Likes: 12 |
Interesting article, thanks for sharing.
While I'm glad to see the diversity of learning experiences being offered, I'd not want to see all education converted to an online format.
I understand that "hybrid" or "blended" courses also exist, combining online independent work with in-person meetings, scheduled on a less frequent basis than traditional in-person courses.
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Joined: Feb 2011
Posts: 471
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I think online courses are worthwhile for exploring subjects, dabbling with higher education, or a particular segment of the population. I actually think many students would be better off not going away to college immediately after high school but spending time really deciding what their interests are. So I personally think MOOCs are a good way to experiment with interests and not go into debt.
I think Carey's points about the weaknesses of the typical American college experience are valid. Too many colleges are spending money on everything but what goes on in a classroom or with instruction. Instead the money is being spent on dorms, recreation departments, landscaping, etc. And far too many 19-year-olds attend college because everyone else is doing so or for social reasons rather than for academic reasons. Why so many parents are willing to fork over oodles of money or let their children accumulate so much debt without really any concrete goals or objectives in mind in attending college is beyond me.
The education sector is currently in the midst of a technological revolution. One only has to subscribe to EdSurge (an education technology site) to see the amount of changes and the amount of money involved. More and more is going online and that's for all segments of education (elementary, high school, and higher education).
Also - if you look at some of the stats with MOOCs, graduates, career changers, and retirees comprise a significant segment of the population taking them. You've got to be somewhat motivated to follow through and finish a MOOC too, which eliminates some.
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Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 2,498
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Learning happens best when students receive individual feedback from expert teachers.
It has already long been the case that different learning environments offer this feedback appropriately or inappropriately, well or poorly or not at all.
The grave concern now, evident across the academic world, is that "cost-cutting" measures" (or: shifting resources away from instruction and toward administrative bloat) will once again make this feedback available only to the elite, leaving everyone else to struggle under circumstances that do not provide appropriate learning experiences.
The problems with online learning and MOOCs are well known: they are typically suited for highly motivated learners who already have excellent skills in assessing information and monitoring their own learning, but poorly suited for everyone else.
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Joined: Mar 2013
Posts: 1,453
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The problems with online learning and MOOCs are well known: they are typically suited for highly motivated learners who already have excellent skills in assessing information and monitoring their own learning, but poorly suited for everyone else. The irony being that these ought be the only people attending college in the first place.
Become what you are
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Joined: May 2011
Posts: 269
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Not sure I agree, madeinuk. Highly motivated, yes, but few enter college with fully developed skills in assessing information or monitoring their own learning. These are usually learned in college, even by the best students.
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Joined: Apr 2010
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Not sure I agree, madeinuk. Highly motivated, yes, but few enter college with fully developed skills in assessing information or monitoring their own learning. These are usually learned in college, even by the best students. Agree.
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Joined: Feb 2011
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The point is one well-made, however, that the online-only, massive enrollment MOOC style offerings are least suitable (by far) for those that they are most likely to be enrolling, given how things are going in higher ed.
There have been plenty of studies about that. The bottom line is that the students who have the worst preparation are least likely to benefit from online coursework.
I also agree wholeheartedly with DeeDee and Ljoy-- and really, this has become much more pointedly so, in my estimation. Secondary education does very little to instill those skills in most students. DD has noted that her skill set there is much more highly developed (but then again-- we have encouraged-- nay, INSISTED-- upon that ) than that of many of her freshman peers.
They all struggle that first year, and some of them into the second one, too. IME, I mean.
Like cdfox, though, I also agree with Carey's assessment of the structural problems that are driving students to the lower cost (and probably lower quality, realistically) offerings in MOOC's and other online platforms that are even less finely crafted.
Using MOOC's to explore career and educational interests, though-- now that is an excellent use of those resources.
Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.
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Joined: Aug 2014
Posts: 149
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The problems with online learning and MOOCs are well known: they are typically suited for highly motivated learners who already have excellent skills in assessing information and monitoring their own learning, but poorly suited for everyone else. The irony being that these ought be the only people attending college in the first place. I thought college was where you were supposed to go party away from mom and dad??? No? No really, I really enjoy taking Stanford Online courses when I can although it has been a while since my last class. Being too busy to really take college courses anymore, these free online courses are a fun way to learn. I have always been an autodidact, and online learning is perfect for me. I wish I had had these when I was younger.
Last edited by it_is_2day; 03/28/15 10:13 PM.
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Joined: Feb 2011
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Yes, if you're an autodidact, then MOOCs may be ideal. I couldn't agree more. Another point - Already, MOOCs are being increasingly used as a recruitment tool to attract those highly motivated students (the diamond in the rough so to speak), many of them international students. They're partly aimed at finding the next Einstein. Think what you like about MOOCs, but MIT and other universities are using them to find those in far-flung places of the globe ( http://www.slate.com/articles/techn...n_edx_mooc_then_gave_lessons_to_mit.html). We've got a global educational arms race and MOOCs are just a part of it. It no longer matters if you're can't physically attend MIT because you can learn virtually with MOOCs in Mongolia, Nepal, China, India, Brazil or anywhere else. HG/PG population is not restricted to the US.
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