Future of online teaching and open course ware type classes - your preditcions

freedom462

[freedom462]

I know that dissatisfaction, or rather, deep, deep hatred, for public schools and universities is fairly commonplace around here and the need for massive overhaul in the educational system from kindergarden to the graduate level is one of the top priorities for many Freepers. And so there has been talk about the rise of online educational systems, to use as key examples Open Course Ware, EdX and the Kahn Academy. There has been talk of the extent to which they will replace teachers on other forums and so I figured it was worthy of a separate thread.

This is also for those who have used these online educational systems and/or have extensive knowledge. What is your prediction about the future of these online education systems? Do you think that

A. They will have only a limited influence on primary and secondary education and classroom teaching and union dominated schools will be prevalent

B. They will lead to classroom teaching become 100 % obsolete and replace classroom teaching to the point that for Kindergarten through to graduate education, classroom teaching sill simply not exist anymore.

C. It will be between A and B, in that it will serve to complement classroom teachers, from Kindergarten through to the University level, who do their jobs effectively while exposing the teachers who are doing a substandard job. In this scenario, naturally, it would still be considered a serious threat to the teacher's unions for obvious reasons.

D. it is simply too soon to predict the extent of their impact in 10, 20 or 50 years or later.

I was wondering because there has been extensive debate over this. There have been calls for it to replace classroom teaching entirely, to be sure. And it has already had effect in terms of getting students to take university courses online, thereby massively cutting down on the out of control costs. But at the moment, universities and colleges are still flooded with students who want the full classroom experience; online teaching may lead to more of them opting out of it but universities still have more students than they know what to do with. And as for replacing high schools and middle schools, it appeals to many who have dealt with awful public primary schools. But even some of those who invented the online systems, for example Salman Kahn, have said that these systems as they currently exist could at best complement properly done classroom teaching, not render it completely unnecessary.

So for those who have experience in this, what are your reflections and predictions on this?

[freedom462]

I think much of what you said is right but with one important issue to note: high school students often need the personal interaction of a teacher classroom setting just as much as middle school and even elementary school kids too. It is not until they get to college that it really becomes substantially less vital. That is probably an important reason why we, and other Western nations as well, structured our educational systems so that they are fundamentally different for those over 18 vs those under 18. In high school there are some particularly advanced kids and certain types of special needs kids for whom online education will be seen as a potential replacement as you had said. But I think they will be exceptions rather than the rule and that there are undoubtedly millions of high school kids for whom online interaction could not replace personal interaction anymore than it could for middle school or elementary kids. At least that is my view, your own personal observations may be different.