College is Uranium: Online Learning

Do you like my title? I will make a connection in just a bit. This post is mostly about online colleges. I saw on TV that Kaplan now has online courses. So, what do I think about that? Here are some points.

Some people can learn online

I think this is an important starting point. Yes, there are people that can do just fine in an online course. Say there is an online course in physics (and there are). I think that students (not sure how many - could be a lot) that could perform just as well on a physics test as a student that took a traditional format course.

I don't think this is a far fetched idea. What makes a student successful in understanding physics? It is not really what the instructor does, it is what the student does. If a student wants to work at home in his or her underwear, that is great. Learning is all about doing.

Another thing to consider is the format of online courses. They are changing. It is not just an online textbook (which, by the way - I have) it can be a wide variety of technologies (including video lectures).

Are online video lectures the same as in-person lectures?

This depends on what is done in an traditional lecture. If the instructor is just presenting material to a 300-student room, then the video lecture is the same. Maybe the video lecture would even be better since it could be paused and rewound and stuff.

Don't worry, I hear you. I know your class is different because it is smaller and the students can ask questions. Also, you ask them questions to prompt them to think about important issues. Maybe this is true, but also it is possible that this doesn't really add much to the learning. Honestly, I don't know the answer. Anyway, it probably depends on the student.

So, I think that if it is an online course versus a traditional course - it could be about equivalent.

What do most students need in a course to learn?

From my experiences teaching, I think most students need:

  • Face to face contact with instructors. Talking to someone on a phone is not quite the same as talking to them in person.
  • Structured Learning. For many students, they need the structured meeting times - otherwise they put off the learning. Many students also need structured learning activities - it doesn't have to be from a workbook, but that is the same idea.
  • Hands on stuff - like labs.

Can online courses do that same stuff? Maybe. Maybe even more in the future.

Uranium and College

If you take the nucleus of Uranium (Uranium 235), it has an atomic mass of 235 u. If you shoot some neutrons at this, you can get it to break into pieces. The cool part is that the mass of all these pieces does not add up to 235 u. This is the essence of nuclear fission where the missing mass becomes energy (E = mc2).

If college is like uranium, then the classes the student takes are like the pieces that uranium can break into. A college experience is more than the sum of the classes that make up that degree. And this is where online universities have a problem. I like to think of college and universities as a community of learners (and I am one of those learners). College is more of an experience and a time to learn to think about things in different ways. Here is a quote that I just made up:

If you need a diploma to show that you have been to school, it may not have been worth it.

So, colleges and universities do two things - foster learning and research is the first thing. The other thing they do is to somehow mark or score or "grade" the level of understanding of students. This "grading" is done both with grades and by having students declare majors. Why? I guess the reason is to somehow "certify" the students. I know I am crazy, but wouldn't it be cool if we didn't have to do this grading stuff?

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Online learning can be quite useful in some situations. Ultimately whether you are learning online or in person it boils down to this -- You get what you put into the experience. Students can disappear on campus just as easily as online, especially in large institutions. Ideally science degrees would require some lab time - so this may not be ideal yet.

I've seen some great online tools for distance learning. Drexel University uses Second Life to communicate with students - post lectures, assignments, etc.

>I know I am crazy, but wouldn't it be cool if we didn't have to do this grading stuff?

Not crazy at all. Maria D suggests separating the teaching from the grading/certifying. If someone else were grading, what would our classes look like? But then we wouldn't have control over how the students get graded...

"Real" college helps not just in learning about your subjects, but learning about how to be a normal person :) I and most of my friends were pretty socially useless in high school, we bloomed in college. Not that this is true for everyone, but I know a few people that might have actually grown up a bit had they attened a university instead of living at home a few more years post-high school and getting an associate's degree. College teaches you to fend for yourself, how to handle people vastly different from you, and how to take some responsibility for your own life. It's also the single most fun period of your life, and I wouldn't have missed it for anything.

By Rob Monkey (not verified) on 15 Feb 2010 #permalink

My problem with video lectures is it's often difficult to make out any board work the professor might be doing. There are some exceptions to this, but they are rare. Often if I'm taking a class I'm having trouble with a particular topic I'll check out YouTube and see if some professors have posted any lectures on said topic. Most are useless (I mean, not any more helpful than the lecture I've already attended).

I think the problem is most online classes don't have video lectures. The advantage of a video lecture is that so long as you are paying some attention, the professor is usually prompting you to make the next step mentally and getting you to think about problems and problem solving while you're watching. Most online classes are not any more effective than the book alone or the book plus a selected solutions manual. Some classes might work really well online (an intro level programming class for instance), but most I think would hurt students who learn via audio or kinetic methods. I also agree that accountability and regularly scheduling blocks of time to at least THINK about the material are a huge part of in person classes.

Rob- my experience is the kind of people who will grow find ways to grow. For some of us college isn't "the best experience" of our lives. I did most of my growing while working and many of my non-college attending friends experienced similar growth during the years plenty of other selfish students were "enjoying" college.

@FrauTech,

I agree there are technical difficulties with video lectures - but I assume that these kinds of things can be fixed. Maybe even in the future something just as good as face-to-face will come along.

I usually work with web-based applications like http://www.showdocument.com
I use it for sharing my designs and documents with partners and clients,
but i guess it can used for other purposes too. If you're looking for a free solution you should check it out.
- Laura W.