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I agree that MOOCs have many benefits but I don't think that they are a threat to higher education. A liberal arts education is not about rote memorization of f

by a_p 14y ago

I agree that MOOCs have many benefits but I don't think that they are a threat to higher education. A liberal arts education is not about rote memorization of facts, but rather about developing the ability to think, reason and write. One of the reasons that few people are able to educate themselves is because it requires intellectual maturity to stop, think and challenge yourself about whether your ideas are correct or not. It is very easy to lead yourself astray when you do not have anyone to talk to about your ideas. Most professors are not afraid of MOOCs because MOOCs are not appropriate replacements for what they do. MOOCs are useful for learning material that would be covered in "lower division" classes, which often have little student-teacher interaction. Upper division classes require more student-teacher interaction, and research almost always requires in person discussion with a professor. I think your attacks on unions and "professional organizations", as well as your view that they are "afraid of competition" is misguided. If you look at the countries that have the best secondary school education, you will find that almost all of them have very strong unions. In order to attract intelligent and competent teachers, you must treat them well. In the U.S, the smartest students do not become teachers because the pay is awful and the work is very stressful. Although academia can seem very competitive (e.g publish or perish), collaboration is a much more dominant theme than competition. There are many environments in which focusing on competition is an inappropriate way of improving things, especially when the rewards are intangible. The joy that a teacher feels when she sees a student understand something and mature because of it cannot be measured in dollars, or any other metric for that matter.

spikels 14y ago
You make some good points and I don't think that online learning will "destroy" higher education as MIT's Cusumano seems to think. I read the original article and agree with the OPs assessment that Cusumano's opinion piece poorly thought out (I don't recommend wasting the time to read it). However I see several article each week written by teachers criticizing MOOCs. They ARE frightened. You seem to agree online class will likely replace many college classes if only the lower division classes. Keep in mind these are typically much larger than upper level classes and generate much more revenue. Not sure I buy your argument that unions are correlated with better teaching. Yes Mass has both but NYC, Chicago and LA all have strong unions and bad schools. Unions are for teachers not the students. It will be interesting how this all plays out. I suspect a mixed model like you suggest is most likely. Meanwhile I am enjoying taking a few classes online every few months. I hope you and more of the fearful teachers give it a try.
- a_p 14y ago
  Unions are useful because, among other things, they attract high quality candidates who do not want to worry about the security of their job. But having a strong union is only one of the factors that a teaching candidate considers. If the pay is awful (and it is awful in most of the United States), you simply aren't going to attract the best students because they will find another job that pays much better. I've found that most schools that are considered "bad" have a majority of poor students. School districts that serve poor people need extra resources, but often they receive less funding than richer districts. But just giving the school districts more money isn't an effective solution, because the real reason that poor students are (often) unsuccessful is because of their parents. Poor students fall behind richer students because in most cases their parents are functionally illiterate, do not stress the value of education, and cannot help their students with their homework. Studies have shown that children with books in their homes are likely to be more successful in school than children that don't. It is likely that the same teacher would be given a lower rating at a school in a poor district than at a school in a richer district. The presence of a union does not guarantee good teachers. Finland, Japan, Korea, Australia, Canada and other countries that are used in the U.S as examples of good education systems. To be sure, it is true that the value of education is stressed more in those countries cultures. But it is hard to ignore the fact that all of those countries have strong unions. I think that teachers criticize MOOCs because they are concerned that they will be replaced with something that has not demonstrated consistently that it is better for students. The teachers that write these articles don't give a shit about "revenues" of their colleges; teaching is their passion, not money. If they were concerned about money, they would not have become college professors in the first place. If you see any articles concerned about the "revenue" of a college, it is likely that author is a president of college, and earns a disproportionately large salary.

by a_p 14y ago

spikels 14y ago

You make some good points and I don't think that online learning will "destroy" higher education as MIT's Cusumano seems to think. I read the original article and agree with the OPs assessment that Cusumano's opinion piece poorly thought out (I don't recommend wasting the time to read it). However I see several article each week written by teachers criticizing MOOCs. They ARE frightened. You seem to agree online class will likely replace many college classes if only the lower division classes. Keep in mind these are typically much larger than upper level classes and generate much more revenue. Not sure I buy your argument that unions are correlated with better teaching. Yes Mass has both but NYC, Chicago and LA all have strong unions and bad schools. Unions are for teachers not the students. It will be interesting how this all plays out. I suspect a mixed model like you suggest is most likely. Meanwhile I am enjoying taking a few classes online every few months. I hope you and more of the fearful teachers give it a try.

a_p 14y ago
Unions are useful because, among other things, they attract high quality candidates who do not want to worry about the security of their job. But having a strong union is only one of the factors that a teaching candidate considers. If the pay is awful (and it is awful in most of the United States), you simply aren't going to attract the best students because they will find another job that pays much better. I've found that most schools that are considered "bad" have a majority of poor students. School districts that serve poor people need extra resources, but often they receive less funding than richer districts. But just giving the school districts more money isn't an effective solution, because the real reason that poor students are (often) unsuccessful is because of their parents. Poor students fall behind richer students because in most cases their parents are functionally illiterate, do not stress the value of education, and cannot help their students with their homework. Studies have shown that children with books in their homes are likely to be more successful in school than children that don't. It is likely that the same teacher would be given a lower rating at a school in a poor district than at a school in a richer district. The presence of a union does not guarantee good teachers. Finland, Japan, Korea, Australia, Canada and other countries that are used in the U.S as examples of good education systems. To be sure, it is true that the value of education is stressed more in those countries cultures. But it is hard to ignore the fact that all of those countries have strong unions. I think that teachers criticize MOOCs because they are concerned that they will be replaced with something that has not demonstrated consistently that it is better for students. The teachers that write these articles don't give a shit about "revenues" of their colleges; teaching is their passion, not money. If they were concerned about money, they would not have become college professors in the first place. If you see any articles concerned about the "revenue" of a college, it is likely that author is a president of college, and earns a disproportionately large salary.