Must-Read: Mark Thoma: 12 Good and Bad Parts of Online Education
Must-Read: The very thoughtful and sharp Mark Thoma has swung around to thinking that, with the right student body, online education can do 60% of the job of the residential university campus for… 10%? 5%? of the non-student-time-and-effort cost. Of course, the principal cost is still student time and effort…
: 12 Good and Bad Parts of Online Education: “I was initially very skeptical about the claims being made about online education…
…but after teaching several of these course during the past academic year my own assessment has become much more positive…. I didn’t give online education enough credit for the things that it can do. Here are some of the positives and negatives…. Let me start with the negatives: Can’t ask questions…. Can’t pace the lecture…. Less contact with students…. Loss of the group experience…. Harder to form study groups…. Office hours not as effective online…. Machine graded exams and homework….
Here are the positive aspects, and some of the ways the negatives discussed above can be overcome…. Students… can hit the pause button, rewind…. Self-Pacing…. Language barriers: International students… with video lectures, they can watch the lectures repeatedly until they understand…. Flexible hours…. I am still worried that the development of online courses will lead to a two-tiered education system, but that’s just another way of saying I think traditional ‘brick and mortar’ education is better…