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The second point of this editorial highlights what is wrong with higher education in the U.S.: >>Second, courses delivered solely online may be fine for highly

by liber8 14y ago

The second point of this editorial highlights what is wrong with higher education in the U.S.: >>Second, courses delivered solely online may be fine for highly skilled, highly motivated people, but they are inappropriate for struggling students who make up a significant portion of college enrollment and who need close contact with instructors to succeed.<< A college education, at the very least, once signified that a graduate had the wherewithal to actually stick with something for four years and finish it. This included figuring out how to pay for those four years, figuring out how to live on your own and provide for yourself, and actually putting in the work to pass the required classes. A degree was a signifier of at least basic competence and dependability. At the very least, any college graduate you hired in 1980 was likely to be a decent employee. But then we, as a society, decided that a college degree was an end in itself. We looked around and saw that most middle class people had college degrees, so obviously if we wanted to grow the middle class, we just needed more college graduates. And so we turned college into high school, part deux. Now, a B.A. signifies little more than a willingness to borrow silly amounts of money and have instructors and administrators hold your hand through the entire process. If those signing up for online classes are “struggling” or failing to even participate in those online classes, is that person really going to be a productive, high-skilled employee? I think the answer is pretty clearly no. So why do we continue to pretend that person needs a college degree?

antiterra 14y ago
Not at all. I borrowed a silly amount of money so that when I was learning compilers, I could drop into Alfred Aho's office and ask a question. That's not hand-holding, it's a resource for people who learn better interactively vs just reading a book or watching a video. Does it really say something negative about students if they consult with a TA about something they don't yet understand? There is nothing shameful or wrong about admitting a lack of understanding and seeking an interactive discussion to be able to grasp it. If anything it's one of the more professionally applicable skills college can teach. I'd rather hire someone who experientially understood the value of in-person communication and patient explanation than someone pompous who thinks that people who can't get it on their own the first time are a lost cause. Attending office hours is a great use of your time at a college, and showing up requires self-discipline and motivation.
- liber8 14y ago
  Suppose you were to draw a Venn diagram of the subset of students who fail to even attend online classes and the subset of students who regularly attend office hours so that they can more deeply understand a concept. How big do you suppose the overlap would be? I'm not arguing the point you're making. Nobody is. (Although many would argue that spending silly amounts of money is not a prerequisite to gaining access to esteemed faculty.)
  - antiterra 14y ago
    The argument is that it requires more motivation for online students to be successful than those in person. That argument could be wrong, but it does not require students to be total non-attending slackers to be correct. Since you say you're arguing a different point: What exactly were you characterizing as hand-holding?
- DataWorker 14y ago
  You can ask question of the instructor in a MOOC setting and it's actually much more efficient. If several students have the same question, which is likely, then rather than having multiple individuals show up separately at office hours, a single post in a forum will answer that question for everyone, even those who didn't think to ask. This is a huge benefit to struggling students. In general, MOOCs level the playing field in terms of socio-economic barriers to higher education. I believe this is the primary reason for their criticism. They erode the function of higher education in separating the haves from have-nots.
  - antiterra 14y ago
    A post in a forum is nowhere near the same thing as an actual interaction. Maybe something like webchat office hours would come close, but there are going to be people who are much more receptive to in-person learning.
    - DataWorker 14y ago
      Given the extensive body of literature in education research perhaps you can provide a citation?
obviouslygreen 14y ago
The section you quoted suggests to me that, in addition to the "end in itself" issue, we're also starting to treat college the same way we treat primary and secondary education: No child left behind. If the lowest common denominator can't handle it, then we shouldn't be spending money on it. This actually makes more sense from a for-profit institution's point of view than it does for state-sponsored schools, but for whatever reason it started at the latter. I suppose seeing that attitude shift to the former as well shouldn't be too surprising.
- dyno12345 14y ago
  Maybe college is like secondary school because both behave according to traditions that have developed over hundreds of years, whereas online education is something very new and has very different parameters.
- yakiv 14y ago
  I'm going to make an utterly irrelevant comment here, but I think that in general it's better to not use "former" and "latter" like this---it often forces the reader to look back earlier in the text if they want to figure out what you're saying.
- antiterra 14y ago
  Failure should always be a real option for college students. But, that doesn't mean it's not worthwhile to have a system that addresses the slightly less-motivated or those whose learning benefits from personal interaction.
Shivetya 14y ago
I think one of the issues is that at times students are far to separated from the costs. Back in the "good old days" I needed to know where that next class's cost was coming from on top of gas, food, and lodging. The cost was more "real" to me because I knew where all those dollars came from and where they were going

by liber8 14y ago

antiterra 14y ago

Not at all. I borrowed a silly amount of money so that when I was learning compilers, I could drop into Alfred Aho's office and ask a question. That's not hand-holding, it's a resource for people who learn better interactively vs just reading a book or watching a video. Does it really say something negative about students if they consult with a TA about something they don't yet understand? There is nothing shameful or wrong about admitting a lack of understanding and seeking an interactive discussion to be able to grasp it. If anything it's one of the more professionally applicable skills college can teach. I'd rather hire someone who experientially understood the value of in-person communication and patient explanation than someone pompous who thinks that people who can't get it on their own the first time are a lost cause. Attending office hours is a great use of your time at a college, and showing up requires self-discipline and motivation.

liber8 14y ago
Suppose you were to draw a Venn diagram of the subset of students who fail to even attend online classes and the subset of students who regularly attend office hours so that they can more deeply understand a concept. How big do you suppose the overlap would be? I'm not arguing the point you're making. Nobody is. (Although many would argue that spending silly amounts of money is not a prerequisite to gaining access to esteemed faculty.)
- antiterra 14y ago
  The argument is that it requires more motivation for online students to be successful than those in person. That argument could be wrong, but it does not require students to be total non-attending slackers to be correct. Since you say you're arguing a different point: What exactly were you characterizing as hand-holding?
DataWorker 14y ago
You can ask question of the instructor in a MOOC setting and it's actually much more efficient. If several students have the same question, which is likely, then rather than having multiple individuals show up separately at office hours, a single post in a forum will answer that question for everyone, even those who didn't think to ask. This is a huge benefit to struggling students. In general, MOOCs level the playing field in terms of socio-economic barriers to higher education. I believe this is the primary reason for their criticism. They erode the function of higher education in separating the haves from have-nots.
- antiterra 14y ago
  A post in a forum is nowhere near the same thing as an actual interaction. Maybe something like webchat office hours would come close, but there are going to be people who are much more receptive to in-person learning.
  - DataWorker 14y ago
    Given the extensive body of literature in education research perhaps you can provide a citation?

obviouslygreen 14y ago

The section you quoted suggests to me that, in addition to the "end in itself" issue, we're also starting to treat college the same way we treat primary and secondary education: No child left behind. If the lowest common denominator can't handle it, then we shouldn't be spending money on it. This actually makes more sense from a for-profit institution's point of view than it does for state-sponsored schools, but for whatever reason it started at the latter. I suppose seeing that attitude shift to the former as well shouldn't be too surprising.

dyno12345 14y ago
Maybe college is like secondary school because both behave according to traditions that have developed over hundreds of years, whereas online education is something very new and has very different parameters.
yakiv 14y ago
I'm going to make an utterly irrelevant comment here, but I think that in general it's better to not use "former" and "latter" like this---it often forces the reader to look back earlier in the text if they want to figure out what you're saying.
antiterra 14y ago
Failure should always be a real option for college students. But, that doesn't mean it's not worthwhile to have a system that addresses the slightly less-motivated or those whose learning benefits from personal interaction.

Shivetya 14y ago

I think one of the issues is that at times students are far to separated from the costs. Back in the "good old days" I needed to know where that next class's cost was coming from on top of gas, food, and lodging. The cost was more "real" to me because I knew where all those dollars came from and where they were going