I keep meaning to write about online college education. But I have to run out to CVS and Michaels and buy out all their cheap Valentine crap for Ian's Valentine Party on Friday. Cheap candy trumps winning and witty blog post.
So, instead check out Megan's blog post, "Envisioning a Post-Campus America." Is she right?
Apt. 11d 
I think she’s mostly wrong. There was a lot of prediction, when the modern telecommunications era began (say 1980) that cities would disappear (or at least become assemblages entirely of poor people), as businesses dispersed entirely to office parks and more and more people worked from home. That hasn’t really happened, as face-to-face communication and interaction remain essential to human production and co-ordination. I don’t think students will learn effectively sitting at home on-line, or that the graduates of such programs will be competitive with those who have been on campuses.
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I agree with Y81 that she’s mostly wrong. At least she’s specific, though, so maybe some punditry will be verifiable in the future.
I think the crux of the failure of the predictions (technology in education, telecommunication revolutions) is indeed that there are power human needs to interact with real live people. There will be changes in education, and some of them might even be substantial. But, I’d make a different list.
For example, I think that the large lecture is going to die, especially when it’s taught by a joe schmo who doesn’t entertain an audience. People still like live lectures, but only if the lecturer is very good.
I also think there’s a range of universities that have used the government subsidy/loan bubble to maintain their “experience of a lifetime” model of education that will have to deal with the realities of less money (and, I don’t think that federal funding of education is going to fill the gap). I don’t know what this will do to students. Will they recognize that they’re not getting value? Or will they try to pay anyway?
And, as usual, MM’s predictions ignore the huge role of science & engineering & medicine funding in major universities. Universities are research centers because of biomedical research. That’s the money driver and it is a profit center. I don’t see that changing because of technology. Of course, that function has already started to wall itself off from the other functions of a university (because medical schools were always run somewhat separately from the rest of the institutions).
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1. Education will end up being dominated by a few huge incumbents. As we see with Facebook and Twitter and, well, almost everything, the internet offers huge returns to scale, and substantial network effects.
If we reach a stage where Facebook College and University of Twitter are the dominant higher education options, I can’t imagine that degrees from them will be worth anything.
This strikes me as comparable to the “for profit college scare” of 10-15 years ago when everyone thought University of Phoenix was presaging the end of the non-profit liberal arts college.
Online education may fill a niche, but as soon as it gets big enough to no longer qualify as a “niche market,” it will have to fit in the hierarchy below the “real” college.
If the thesis is that online education will soon replace the Community College, though, I think I might be willing to listen.
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I have a high school student who is doing half his coursework online through a program in our state. He loves it. He takes AP classes with kids throughout the state and does a lot of his work over the weekend. I’m thinking about taking him along for a semester-long research fellowship in Europe, and having him take that semester online. I think for bright kids it’s really efficient and allows them to work at their own pace. Once you get them hooked on online in high school, though, it would be hard to convince them that they were missing out on some extra special experience in college that can only be had in a classroom. However, I think it works best for bright kids who are autodidacts — the kids who previously would have moved across the country to attend a top-rate institution. Wonder if it’s going to be another of those phenomena where online predominates at the bottom and the tippy top of the scale while not making much difference to those in the middle.
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Here’s another (wholly speculative) prediction: maybe there will be a return of star lecturers. There was a post on Crooked Timber sometime in the past couple years about how there used to be a recognized group of professors at top universities who were recognized as outstanding lecturers, rather than as published scholars, the kind of people who can enthrall a room of 800 18-year-olds encountering Milton or Michelangelo for the first time.
If funding for humanities research dries up, but demand for graduates capable of critical thinking does not, that specialty could come back into demand. After all, if you’re a university administrator, the only thing more cost effective than an adjunct teaching 40 students is a guy who only makes five times as much teaching ten times as many students. To be sure, the cost-effectiveness depends partly on the relative weighting US News assigns to small courses versus courses taught by full professors.
Note that, in another, not entirely dissimilar field, increasing numbers of people do get their religious instruction by attending very large lectures delivered by preachers known for their preaching skills, not necessarily for their cutting edge theological thinking.
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Megan says: “in an online model, we won’t need so many teachers,” but then goes on to say that there will be a greater need for “tutors” as well as for massive testing centers to deter cheating (which will be located where?) And then of course there are all the “graders.” The “course designers,” too, will need to be hard at work putting together classes for students at a variety of levels, from the most basic community college student to the Ivy Leaguer, on a range of topics, updated constantly (not to say there couldn’t be some economies of scale there, of course) and in response to the effectiveness of the strategies. Course designers might also need to consider how the class would fit into an overall curriculum, if such a thing would exist; but maybe this would up to a whole other set of consultants who would decide what a student should take based on his/her career goals. And for students to determine what career they might like or do well in, yet another set to teach them some things about that.
Maybe she has in mind the 5% of schools where profs have 2/2 loads, do a lot of research, and spend less than half of their time actually working with students. For me, at a regional state university, getting to the stage where I mostly teach repeat preps means that I’m down to a 40 hour week – but only if I don’t do research or any innovation in teaching.
When students send me drafts of papers, I never write out comments for them, but instead advise them to come in and meet with me. Sure, I could spend an hour spelling out all the things they might change, the strengths and weaknesses, and figuring out how to frame this so that they either a) take them seriously or b) don’t get too discouraged – depending on their personality. I do this because after writing out many paper comments, I find I can do it better in person, and in about 1/4 the time. I can speed up or slow down on an explanation; I can let them follow a train of thought; I can ask them questions. It’s also effective (though less so) to do it in class, where I can see who’s paying attention and where I lose them. My colleagues who teach on-line and do it well are saving very little time, if any, because personal attention in writing takes a lot more time than personal attention in person.
All of this is to say: most students today need more in-person attention, not less. So I think this is not a good thing overall.
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I love the online world–love it. I’ve developed an online course and even taught it.
But I doubt I will ever teach online again. Am I the one who craves the face-to-face communication, or is it the student? I don’t know. But I think we need it.
I am fascinated with alternative models of education, particularly the idea of getting rid of the lecture (says the woman who pretty much just lectured for 2 hours on The Bluest Eye, but I also had a room full of students who hadn’t finished the book). But I really do believe online teaching works for only a subset of students, not the majority.
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BJ’s last paragraph is basically what I think.
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While I love teaching online, I’m glad my kids can go away to university. Looks to me as though it will be a class issue: my community college students are the ones struggling financially.
And it takes me at least as much time to work online. Even if it’s the 10th time I’ve taught a course and the quizzes may be written, grading papers still takes time.
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I don’t think online learning will replace the university. As af noted, it’s really not requiring fewer teachers. Online in place of the university classroom isn’t all that efficient a use of teaching resources once you count the cost of tutors, markers, course designers, site maintainers, customer service/registrar liasions, etc., etc.
Online is good for accumulating credentials for skills or knowledge that you already know. It’s not so good for learning. It’s really unsuited for learning something that’s tough for you.
My husband is pursuing a college program right now (Canada’s voc ed format, not US SLAC) and it’s working by virtue of his extremely strong work ethic combined with the reality that this stuff is mostly reinforcing what he already has been picking up on the job. When there’s something genuinely new or he’s pursuing a liberal arts elective on the side? Let’s just say it’s a good thing he has two university degrees and a love of learning.
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Not that I disagree too much with BJ’s last paragraph, but: Universities are research centers because of biomedical research. That’s the money driver and it is a profit center.
There’s also money in DARPA still. And other tech drivers–I don’t think they pull in as much money, but engineering schools remain (relatively) well fed. (And okay, some of that is biophysics, point.)
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Just to clarify–a lot of people seem to have rapidly skimmed through the opening section of the article, where
1. I specify that I am talking about MITx or Stanford-style mass classes with automatic grading, NOT the sort of hybrids that most universities are now trying to craft
2. I am not claiming that this future is inevitable, or even likely. I am simply imagining what it WOULD look like if it happened. As I make clear at the beginning of the post, i think there are all sorts of reasons it might not.
So when you say “I don’t think that the world will end up looking that way”, you’re not necessarily disagreeing with me. I was just riffing on a prediction by someone else.
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Its so hard to make the kinds of predictions she makes, because there are so many variables. Though I agree with those who say that most people, including most very smart people, need to be physically around teachers and other learners in order to learn much of anything. Those kids who are learning how to manipulate symbols online, we can test that learning, but very few of those kids are going to get far beyond manipulation into deep understanding. (The most effective models of online teaching at that level that we have are not distance, but on-campus, and involve regular meetings with with teachers/coaches) So a very small comment/prediction, relating to some of what has been said. The current financial situation is giving deans/administrators a good deal of power; not now as we contract, but in the future when we expend again. My hunch is that the institutions which come out of this with deans exercising their power by directing considerable resources into effective teaching and learning practices will end up winning (in some sense). Not among the elite of the elite: it would take many decades for the prestige of Harvard to be eroded by the increased understanding that students at a flagship public are learning more, and anyway, much of the point of Harvard is to gather together the next generation of super-elites, and let them teach each other. But among the flagships, and between the flagships and sub-flagships, and the SLACs etc.
Notice, the vast majority of Bachelors students attend institutions which are already not campus universities. They are physical, bricks and mortar (or foul concrete) buildings students actually attend, but most students live at home, and come and go.
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I think the problem is the assumption that online learning allows economies of scale. But if you look at the literature on online learning (and having taught in an online environment for 5+ years), large online classes have the same problems as large face to face classes. To put it bluntly, they suck. We’ve moved to small online classes (25 or so students) at our institution as a result. They work well, but they don’t save anything over a traditional class.
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Notice, the vast majority of Bachelors students attend institutions which are already not campus universities.
I wonder if that is true if you exclude what used to be called a normal school.
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There are three students in my family who are currently enrolled in college courses. The only one that enjoys the online courses is the one that wants to get through school as quickly as possible. She zips through every course so she can raise her hands and say “done!” and get the degree. I see little contemplation and little comprehension.
My kids in traditional courses come home and talk about discussions, ideas, etc. Some of the courses they just want to be done with, but others have opened their minds to new ideas and paths.
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“The only one that enjoys the online courses is the one that wants to get through school as quickly as possible. She zips through every course so she can raise her hands and say “done!” and get the degree. I see little contemplation and little comprehension.”
I wonder how successful she would be in the traditional class. She may just not have the attention span to deal with it, and the online class is the best fit for her, even if she’s not getting a lot out of it.
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Once you have to pay adjuncts $60000, well, that will be the end of residential colleges: http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/02/15/the-newest-civil-right/
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