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I think the point they were trying to make is that many of the teachers at large unis today are in fact grad students. I taught at least two courses while I was completing my PhD that I'd never even taken before and had nothing to do with my speciality. They just needed someone to teach the courses. I was frankly just a few weeks ahead of the students I was teaching. Sure, I'd try to bring in the way the topics were discussed and covered in my area of expertise, but the reality is most people with PhDs don't have a thorough understanding of all of the topics covered in intro courses they have to teach or even deeper dives into specific topics. A PhD is a deep expertise in a specific sub-area of a field. PhDs don't inherently know everything about their specific field.
Isn't that the nature of teaching? No teacher knows everything and ideally a teacher should learn something him or herself with every iteration of a class.
I always felt somewhat cheated when grad students would be the instructors. I paid thousands for the master, not the apprentice. But then again, I want to a teaching-focused college and only encountered grad student instructors in the enormous classes that had "break-out" sections where they only reinforced the material and devised activities based on it.
The social aspect of colleges (and even jobs) is what seems to be causing people to drag their feet into the 21st century, and leave the old way behind. Obviously, not all classes can be done online - labs - how do you do labs online? But other than that, it seems pointless to make college students go to campus if we have the ability to teach everyone remotely.
I would have loved that when I was in college - considering I was the (at least in the olden days before everyone got major $$ in student loans and spent it on just about everything but education), typical "poor college student", I would not have spent so much time at bus stops waiting, on the bus waiting, walking from the bus stop to home, back to the bus stop waiting, on the bus waiting, to the place I was working (I didn't take out student loans), and then back to the bus stop, waiting, on the bus waiting, and then the walk home from the bus stop at the end of the day. So much time could have been saved that I could have used to work more and study more.
For younger kids - this isn't as easy, because we have households where both parents work - and this is putting a burden on families (and since this is the Economics forum, I'll leave my personal opinions about all of that to the side.....) but for college students, it's time to rip the band aid off and get with it. It's going to happen no matter what, some day.
Would save a whole lot of money, you could potentially not even have to move away once you were accepted even if your university was across the country...depending on the degree sought.
We've had this technology for a long time - but for some reason, people don't want to use it. I still think it's mainly all about the social aspect of school more than anything else.
But again, it's going to happen some day, despite how many are kicking and screaming against it all.
I am loving the extra hour or 2 of morning sleeps that I get since primary schools closed for covid...I used to harass myself with a LOUD alarm clock at 5:50 am, struggling to get myself on feet/dressed, wobbling to the kitchen to prepare breakfast/lunch for my kid, struggling again to wake up my (sleepy) kid after done in the kitchen, clothing/rinsing/combing/eating/packing before trotting 2-5 blocks while fearing the school bus leaving without my kid, but then feeling frustrated by often having to wait for 5-20 minutes before the bus coming in sight...it usually took a good 80-100 stressful and tired minutes when everything was done and set on a good weekday morning, not to count the 2x pain level on windy/stormy/biting mornings. With remote learning, we get to sleep until 2 min prior to the zoom class before learning/snacking in the comfort of pajamas and use the time/energy saved for good quality online gym classes together......
Its not going to happen, because online and remote are failing badly. Teachers around the country are burning out - putting together good online content can keep a teacher working 12 hours a day, and the students don't even check in - extraordinarily demoralizing.
Around the country, anywhere from 15% to 60% of the students don't even check in to online school.
We knew this from MOOCs - all the hype about youtube school had disastrous retention. The physical space is important psychologically than we ever imagined.
For those like yourself who want online education, it should be available, but it does NOT work for a majority. It has nothing to do with the quality of online education, much of which is good. It has to do with human psychology and motivation. Being in the shared space to learn is more important than we gave it credit for.
It will happen. I didn't say it would happen tomorrow, but it will definitely happen, and all the 17th century luddites will have to come along whether they like it or not.
Everything is going virtual, which is time and cost efficient. When people get adapted to online learning, it will be difficult to lure them back on campus. It is foreseeable that over 50 % of higher ed institutions will close down their campuses in the coming decade. Education reformation is in the making and thanks to covid!
No. 'Murica will not give up its beer pong, frat craziness, and football parties.
In New York City few of the kids went back to the classroom when the schools were (briefly) reopened. In the suburbs with better schools most did and the classrooms remained open. The educated parents will stop at nothing to get their children educated, including forming learning pods for socialization and group instruction. This will only widen inequality and disparities.
In some areas, it's the opposite; kids in more affluent homes are zooming in, while less affluent ones have worse internet connections and/or parents both have to work in jobs that can't be done remotely (custodial jobs, etc.)
That strengthens my argument; the spread will widen between the underprivileged and the privileged.
No. 'Murica will not give up its beer pong, frat craziness, and football parties.
Yeah but those frat boys are getting upset when they graduate and can't get a job!
I personally know 2 kids that are 2020 grads, C average in Poly Sci and Econ that are enjoying their parents couches at this point totally pissed off that Covid ruined their job opportunities. I think they ruined their own opportunities with the C average in non specific areas of study.
One kid actually expected his starting pay to be around 60K.........coming from a kid that never made more than 5K a year in his whole life! So add in some student loans looming and wonder boy has some serious growing up to do.
Isn't that the nature of teaching? No teacher knows everything and ideally a teacher should learn something him or herself with every iteration of a class.
I always felt somewhat cheated when grad students would be the instructors. I paid thousands for the master, not the apprentice. But then again, I want to a teaching-focused college and only encountered grad student instructors in the enormous classes that had "break-out" sections where they only reinforced the material and devised activities based on it.
Sure, but you said the purpose of education is for people who know something to teach others that topic when responding to the person who suggested a large part of college should be self-study (not saying I agree with that). I was simply stating that in many cases the college teachers' knowledge of the subject isn't that much deeper than the students and they are in fact engaging in self-study to even teach the subject, like the original person stated. The only additional thing we have is pre-built decks and test questions from the publishers.
I think they have to find ways to bring down the cost of higher ed. In reality I think a hybrid class approach that leverages the power of the MOOC for intro level courses is one way to do that. Let's face it, there really isn't much of a difference between a 400 person lecture hall and watching a recorded video online. In fact the recorded video allows for more flexibility as the teacher isn't just standing up lecturing for 2 hours. And if a student can't make it through college without hand holding maybe they just shouldn't be in college, or maybe they can go to a more expensive college option that can offer the smaller classroom sizes and more attention that they need.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ncole1
No. 'Murica will not give up its beer pong, frat craziness, and football parties.
hey!! that was me I just happened to still get by with a 3.5. In all honesty I should have done more the grad school process would have been easier, but I was very immature in my late teens, early 20s. I liked friends, beer, and sports. School was just something I did during the day to get to the evenings and weekends
It will happen. I didn't say it would happen tomorrow, but it will definitely happen, and all the 17th century luddites will have to come along whether they like it or not.
People want to socialize & have community. There are not that many people that want to sit at a computer all day watching videos & responding to them.
Sure, but you said the purpose of education is for people who know something to teach others that topic when responding to the person who suggested a large part of college should be self-study (not saying I agree with that). I was simply stating that in many cases the college teachers' knowledge of the subject isn't that much deeper than the students and they are in fact engaging in self-study to even teach the subject, like the original person stated. The only additional thing we have is pre-built decks and test questions from the publishers.
I think they have to find ways to bring down the cost of higher ed. In reality I think a hybrid class approach that leverages the power of the MOOC for intro level courses is one way to do that. Let's face it, there really isn't much of a difference between a 400 person lecture hall and watching a recorded video online. In fact the recorded video allows for more flexibility as the teacher isn't just standing up lecturing for 2 hours. And if a student can't make it through college without hand holding maybe they just shouldn't be in college, or maybe they can go to a more expensive college option that can offer the smaller classroom sizes and more attention that they need.
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You missed my other point. The big problem with MOOCs was retention. Many of them get maybe 1% completers. It's somewhat higher for those that pay, but what I'm finding in the covid online switch is that attrition can be as high as 60% even among tuition paying students.
This term I lost 20% of students just from the attendance to the first assignment. Then another 10-20% from the first assignment to the second. We will lose our accreditation if this keeps up, but what am I supposed to do about students who don't even open the course page more than once a month?
What we're learning is that human psychology actually requires a human touch. The act of going to class is more important than we thought it was. It's psychological. If all school is about is logging into some website and filling crap out, I would just not go. What's the point? We all know that the actual value of college are the networking connections; the information was always in books long before the internet existed. Self study always possible once books were invented and libraries made them freely available. But you don't make connections or friends over discussion boards (although you can make enemies).
MOOCs & asynchronous online classes are alright for adult learners who already have degrees, know how to learn and have no need for community - corporates trainings, some grad school programs, etc.. Intro classes are precisely the wrong thing. Even in a 400 person classroom you have more community than in an online environment. I got to know the people who sat in my immediate area, row, etc... that human connection is more important than I ever thought it was.
As a related aside - look at how far sports ratings have declined when there are no audiences in the stands. It's just not the same, and people lose interest. Humans need socialization. The internet is amazing technology but it doesn't replace that.
I get that on an internet board where a lot of people are already auto-didacts and work from home, they think they are normal for not needing these things. But I'm telling you from direct experience going on right now - online is failing. It's extremely demoralizing for the instructors - who put in far more hours creating online content than it take to prepare an in-person lesson, and then a bunch of students don't even check into it. Instructors will start quitting if that keeps up.
When creating quality online videos the prep time is quadrupled. For me, doing a lesson based on a 1-hour set of videos takes me about 10 hours of work from conception to posting. First you have to make the powerpoint, then you have to outline or script what you're going to say. This is the normal amount of prep for in-person classes. But oh, there's so much more online. Then you record the video. Usually I need at least 2 takes, sometimes 3. Then add callouts and images to enhance the video. Then re-watch and listen to the video to edit out the imperfections. Then make questions for assessment based on the videos. I watch and re-watch mine 3-4 times in that process before they're posted. Then only 20-30% of the students even watch the whole thing? I won't last long doing this. Media companies like the MOOC creators have teams that divide these tasks down. We're expected to do it all ourselves.
Last edited by redguard57; 12-01-2020 at 11:11 AM..
Then perhaps preparation for college needs to start earlier. I don't disagree with anything you've written, but just because college education has always been sit in a seat with 400 other people listen to an instructor talk for 3 hours a week and take a couple of scantron tests doesn't mean it needs to be that way. Maybe if we transitioned a few courses in HS to a hybrid format students would be better prepared for learning by themselves. It's kind of like saying that students can't be expected to read the textbook because they don't have that innate drive in them. I think it's definitely possible to create study groups via Zoom/Slack/discussion boards, etc. I've done it several times and met people that I still have phone calls with a few times a year to see what they are up to.
MOOCs as they are now are a horrible comparison because almost everybody audits those courses. What is the completion rate of MOOCs where people pay the $50-$100 to actually take it? I've audited tons of courses on Coursera and after the first week decided it wasn't what I thought it was. Does that mean I didn't complete the class or that I didn't feel the topic was worth my time after learning more about the details of the course? Remember in almost all cases as a student you are taking the course because it's required to complete your degree, not because you have an innate interest in the topic. If the teacher said you could get credit for the course without actually showing up or logging on I bet 60-70% of students would take that deal. With Coursera there is no similar "credit" to be had.
Also, perhaps the kids that can't make it with a little autonomy shouldn't be in college at that time in their lives. Remember, work is the same way. Personally, I can say that I probably wasn't as mature as I should have been when I went to undergrad. But, taking a year off after undergrad really helped me understand what interested me and when I went back for grad school I was one of the top students in my PhD program and of my cohort arguably the most well known in our field.
I'm not saying the answer is to switch to all MOOCs, just saying that the huge lecture halls are worthless IMO, both as a student of them and as an instructor of them. Literally the only reason I went to those classes is because I was afraid I'd miss something that would be on the test and I felt like a mooch constantly asking others in the class for their notes. I'd have much rather gone to the gym and watched the lectures online at 9 at night.
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I just happened to still get by with a 3.5. In all honesty I should have done more the grad school process would have been easier, but I was very immature in my late teens, early 20s. I liked friends, beer, and sports. School was just something I did during the day to get to the evenings and weekends 
