Universities Shift To Online Learning
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-07-31/universities-shift-online-learning
Stanford University computer Science professor Andrew Ng uses tablet-recording technology he developed to instantly display notes for his interactive video lecture.
Photo credit: Stanford News Service
The nation’s top universities have traditionally offered courses to an elite few. Only qualified students with enough financial resources need apply. But today, hundreds of thousands of people around the world are enrolling in classes at universities like Stanford and MIT. These higher ed institutions and many more now provide free online classes to anyone, anywhere. At the same time, other universities are offering on-campus students the opportunity to enroll in a growing number of online classes. As universities move toward instruction online, observers say higher education -- and possibly the business model -- is being redefined. Diane and her guests discuss the new generation of online learning and what it means for the future of higher education.
Guests
Daphne Koller
founder of Coursera and professor at Stanford University.
Jeffrey Selingo
editor of The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Kevin Carey
director of the Education Policy Program at the New America Foundation.
Peter Struck
professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
Comments
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Students can't be taught or learn in a conventional classroom. What makes anyone think that teaching online is going to work?
Of course everyone can sign up for online classes, meet the fake requirements and be given a degree. Not much different than now when 75-80% of students don't know anything.
Online education will be gaining more credibility. After I received my bachelor's from a local university I was not able to continue on at Michigan State--my GPA was not quite high enough. And I didn't want to be on a waiting list. So, I enrolled in the online master's program from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology.
I had to really work for my grades! I didn't fake it or have others take my exams. The frustrating part is that I cannot be licensed as a Psychologist in my home state of Michigan due to state board requirements of either a practicuum or internship. Still, I do not regret what I have acheived!
I am currently enrolled in the online PhD program in Organizational Leadership at the Chicago School (online of course) and I have to say--there is nothing easy about it!
As a parent and as an employer,a great tool was to look into someone`s eyes to read their reactions. If they don`t understand what you`re saying,the lights are out. One on one instructions is a must. With pocket size technology enabling cheaters already these days,this is a joke.
Roger, Teece, I believe all of your posts reflect my views. Please keep posting.
Sadly, formal education today is not to equip students with knowledge. Formal education is another means of selfish interest and profit-making. The victims of profit based education are the world's population and resources. And, I must add, the world's religions. Human rights are not a part of discussion or print.
I'm an older working adult who needed a college degree, along with classes specifically for my field, in order to advance any further. It was tough to work full time and achieve this goal. I was able to splice together what I needed by having a home college and taking classes online from other colleges and transferring them in. About a third of my classes were on campus and the rest were online. Without having the online option, I would have had to resign myself to staying in the same position for the rest of my working life. Online classes are just like on campus in one regard - they are only as good as the teacher and the method used to teach. I have had some excellently organized and well taught online classes and some sloppy, poorly taught on campus classes and vice versa. There have even been online classes set up for discussion using chat rooms and bulletin boards that were very engaging and informative.
About a year and a half ago I was 28, going on 29, with an undergraduate degree that no one took seriously (BA in cultural anthropology - say what you will about it but I read more, learned more, and worked harder than anyone I knew in other majors). As a result I've been stuck in a paralegal job at a business law firm for 5 years working on commercial lending, entity formation and the like, while still searching for a different job.
I decided I had to go back to school if I had any hope of getting a better position with higher pay but I couldn't afford to take time off to go to school and didn't want to take 3 years to go at night or on the weekends. I searched and searched and found an American Bar Association approved program at a law school in California that offered an online progam in Finanicial Services and Banking Law. For JD holders it earns them an LLM (Master of Laws); for a BA holder like myself I will earn a Master of Science. The cirriculum is extremely rigorous. I have online webconferenced lectures 4 nights a week for 1.5-2.5 hours and hundreds of pages of reading each week. The professors are all very highly qualified individuals in their fields ranging from government regulators, to former state attorneys general, to private practitioners in large, well respected firms. It is in no way easy and I'm learning an immense amount of information.
Sure there are so programs out there of questionable merit but if you find the right one you will not only earn a valuable education but you can actually stay employed full time while doing so which really helps to mitigate debt. I'm paying off my loans while I attend school. That's a really nice head start I wouldn't have been able to get if I went back full time to a brick and mortar school.
I just want to point out that the "fake requirements" you refer to are bogus. Like I said in my other comment there are definitely programs and schools of questionable merit. However, I had to take the LSAT exam (and earn a decent score), do a traditional graduate school application with essays and recommendations, and submit my official undergrad transcripts (also with minimum GPA requirement, I think it was 2.95 or a B-) in order to get into the Masters program I'm in.
Don't judge without having the knowledge to do so.
adks12020, very good point about paying for the education while working. I was able to pay as I went and graduated with little savings, but debt free.
For profit schools have always existed. I took a 1yr.course in electronics in the 80`s. What I didn`t understand was what job this education qualified me to do. All that time and expense to be a tv repair man in a throw away society,was not what I thought I was buying. If the job you`re training for is not in demand,and regularly in the want ads,think twice.
You definitely miss the chance to ask questions in the classroom. Online their are too many students to answer individual questions.
Online learning has existed for years via some for-profit and not-for-profit institutions. It seems to have become more popular as so-called "elite" institutions began to offer such courses. This perpetuates elitism in higher education and continues to pit "elite" colleges against "non-elite" colleges.
To the professor who teaches Greek and Roman mythology from a humanities point of view: Is that class still open? How does a random person who thinks that sounds fascinating take that class?
That's not always true. A lot of the online classes I took also had a weekly teleconference and some of those got pretty lively. And some of the chat room conversations were the same. It all depended on the subject and the teacher's attitude towards interaction.
What an elitistattitude-referring to other universities as offerring sub par educational experience.
It seems to me many of these comments are posted by people who have not taken online courses offered by reputable institutions, and have never visited the coursera website or understand the open-education mission that is behind this mooc movement. These schools are putting out far more resources than they are taking in (which initially is nothing) in this open-education experiment. This is not Phoenix!
While some students and some fields are clearly not a good fit for online education, it can serve a legitimate and valuable role, particularly in providing continuing education and lifelong learning for those who cannot drop a few grand on a for-credit course at Penn or Stanford.
Education is a two-way street. Students have to try to learn and engage, not just expect the info to be downloaded into their brain at the push of a button.
@edwards...you may lose the chance to ask questions in these giant classes but my classes all have less than 30 people in them and the professors answers all questions that are asked. Granted I'm paying for my degree so I'm sure the experience is different.
@edwards While you may miss the chance to ask spur of the moment questions, having taken several courses online, I think the quality of questions asked and answered is more substantive than in in-person classes. Students have more time to construct quality thoughtful questions and responses in an online environment. Of course, this also depends on the instructor and how the course is managed.
This is an exciting opportunity for seniors. So many of us are rejoicing in the time to learn that we did not have earlier in our lives. Also, the additional education could equip those of us who have scant retirement resources to re-educate for continuing our working careers in our elder years.
In our money-oriented, for-profit world, this is just one more way to eliminate jobs. In this case, teachers are at risk. Not to mention the fact that we are losing social skills by isolating ourselves from other people.
Perhaps the Luddite movement was correct???
asharrell I am in one class with about 100,000 people so they can't answer questions. If enough people say something in a discussion thread it will get a response.
Certainly online learning goes way back to correspondence courses. I took a few in Vietnam in the 60's.
As for online learning, in which I have been involved since the early 90's with those I created in a NYC public high school, CyberEnglish, as well as working with Classrooom Connect. The key to go beyond Multiple choice and short answer and to include the all important essay is first use more peer review and to add Teacher Assistants, just as they do in regular college classes.
Come on guys, let's get this going. We have already been doing this for decades. Learn from those who have come before you.
Cheers,
Ted
@edwards Well, I do have a problem with MOOCs and a class with that many people. In my earlier comment, I'm talking about smaller non-MOOC classes. With MOOCs it sounds like questions are crowd-sourced and the popular questions are addressed by the instructor. This isn't the case in regular online non-MOOC courses (in my experience).
When I attended college in the 60's, the object was to obtain an education as well as the degree. Often students do not know what career they will pursue and I think a ccess to "quality" online courses might allow them to explore subjects which would have otherwise not have been available due to excessive tuition and fees. Being exposed to a variety of subjects might allow students to make choices appropriate to their interests and aptitudes.
the idea that peer-to-peer education can substitute for interaction with an expert in the field in nonsense. It trivializes expertise. Further, multiple choice exams cannot assess creative, original thinking. There's been no discussion of the discipline-specific nature to this kind of assessment, which has limited utility in the humanities or even social sciences. MOOCs are just a new manifestation of 'shiny ball syndrome'--chasing after the newest, fanciest technology, without thinking about the relationships between learning and outcomes, or the purpose of a liberal arts education. Universities are MORE than just vocational schools. They have a role to play in creating an educated society that is the backbone of a free society.
Hi, I think online learning is a great tool..... Obviously, there are some courses that will never will go online.....But, online learning is a great tool, because whomever take their time to do this it means they are serious and really want to learn.....
Is there a website of accredited online universities?
In the 60s/70s I could not afford the top schools, but felt that as long as the school had a big library I had just as much access to knowledge as at the Ivy League schools. (The biggest advantage of the Ivy League schools was in the contacts made that could benefit one for a lifetime.)
Today, with all the great access to knowledge available online, I think the whole model has to keep changing, particularly with the outrageous costs now associated with higher education.
@paulamel: Indeed! As the caller from WGU state, this has been done for years. What's new is that faculty from universities with bigger budgets and more status are doing it and finally catching on to online learning.
As a sufferer from undiagnosed ADD, I have found my online learning program to be the solution to my inability to get a college degree. This program is through an established university with a ground campus. The program that I'm enrolled in has sometimes only seven students in the class. I have learned so much and not able to simply regurgitate information because everything is written. My degree is in English Literature and I am one class away from graduation. I am an older student and have spent my entire adult life trying to get my degree. If online education had been available to me years ago, I can only imagine how my life would have been different. Because of my learning disability and now my age, traditional learning would be much more difficult.
Thanks,
M.
@melgarriott-It's probably best to look up the online institution of interest on the individual regional accrediting agency websites. WACS, SACS, etc. or try this website: http://ope.ed.gov/accreditation/