Why universities are afraid of MOOC ?
Year 2012 has brought a paradigm shift in the way higher education is imparted with the tremendous growth of Coursera, Udacity and edx. There are other players like Canvas, udemy etc. However there are many people in the university business who are concerned about their jobs and they should be. We have way too many people who are pulling the students down because of their substandard teaching. But the sickening part of the story is that instead of telling the true story, why they are afraid of, they are dressing their concerns as students not getting a fair deal. Which is totally unethical.
Anyone who has been to university knows that there are two types of teachers. Those who genuinely want to teach and those who don't. They think that anyone who cannot understand their lecture is not smart enough to be in their class. They forget that students are enrolled in their class so that they can learn or get a credit for their degree and they are getting paid because they have chosen to enroll in that university.
Most university courses are pretty standard stuff and why should you pay a professor to teach the same course every time when a more competent person can teach the same course with higher efficiency and you have the option to pause, repeat and ask many questions instead of an in class lecture where you are bombarded with information for 1 hr. Already the blended approach of edX at San Jose state university has revealed the better than average performance of students who only take class room lecture. Which cements the point that video lecture are far superior to traditional in class lectures only. What blended lecture does is it frees lot of time for professor to concentrate on each student's particular question rather than wasting class time with lectures they have been giving every year. What this means is that many professors are now reduced to teaching assistant of a virtual instructor but at the same time they need to be more smart, compassionate and accommodating to students and their needs. Universities can no longer charge huge fees for their 101 courses where 400 students are taking the same course and they have to shell out thousand of dollars. It also means that research professors should now spend time doing only research instead of being made to teach lower level courses otherwise many hate to.
It's been too long we have to deal with mediocre professors and their antics and for the first time we really have technology which could impart world class information to anyone at the fraction of cost. However this is going to cause a major shakeup in the university system. Lots of mediocre professors and other university staffs will be laid off as most students will choose to get their degrees from more established institutes.
Anyone who has been to university knows that there are two types of teachers. Those who genuinely want to teach and those who don't. They think that anyone who cannot understand their lecture is not smart enough to be in their class. They forget that students are enrolled in their class so that they can learn or get a credit for their degree and they are getting paid because they have chosen to enroll in that university.
Most university courses are pretty standard stuff and why should you pay a professor to teach the same course every time when a more competent person can teach the same course with higher efficiency and you have the option to pause, repeat and ask many questions instead of an in class lecture where you are bombarded with information for 1 hr. Already the blended approach of edX at San Jose state university has revealed the better than average performance of students who only take class room lecture. Which cements the point that video lecture are far superior to traditional in class lectures only. What blended lecture does is it frees lot of time for professor to concentrate on each student's particular question rather than wasting class time with lectures they have been giving every year. What this means is that many professors are now reduced to teaching assistant of a virtual instructor but at the same time they need to be more smart, compassionate and accommodating to students and their needs. Universities can no longer charge huge fees for their 101 courses where 400 students are taking the same course and they have to shell out thousand of dollars. It also means that research professors should now spend time doing only research instead of being made to teach lower level courses otherwise many hate to.
It's been too long we have to deal with mediocre professors and their antics and for the first time we really have technology which could impart world class information to anyone at the fraction of cost. However this is going to cause a major shakeup in the university system. Lots of mediocre professors and other university staffs will be laid off as most students will choose to get their degrees from more established institutes.
posted by Sumant at 5:12 PM
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