
Will free MOOCs destroy Higher Education? - davidw
http://www.digitopoly.org/2013/03/26/will-free-moocs-destroy-higher-education/
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tomrod
I certainly think there is room for a culling in higher education. Many of the
current paths are unsustainable.

When times were somewhat simpler, "higher education" consisted of medical,
theological, and philosophical degrees. Recent trends have introduced a wide
variety of specialization; yet demand for interdisciplinarian ability is high
as well.

The question I feel it comes down to -- does every university in the world
need to offer a degree in Art History, or can that be pared down to be more
efficient?

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spikels
I am fascinated by the frequent attacks on online education. Having taken many
classes on both the big MOOCs and smaller platforms I have found it to be an
incredibly positive experience.

To understand the cause of these attacks you only have to look at who is doing
the attacking: professors and teachers along with their professional
organizations and unions. They are truly frightened by the prospect of
competition.

And they should be because most of the classes I have taken for free are much
better than the classes I spent thousands of dollars on in college. There are
also many other benefits such as time and convenience - MOOCs are
asynchronous.

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a_p
I agree that MOOCs have many benefits but I don't think that they are a threat
to higher education. A liberal arts education is not about rote memorization
of facts, but rather about developing the ability to think, reason and write.
One of the reasons that few people are able to educate themselves is because
it requires intellectual maturity to stop, think and challenge yourself about
whether your ideas are correct or not. It is very easy to lead yourself astray
when you do not have anyone to talk to about your ideas. Most professors are
not afraid of MOOCs because MOOCs are not appropriate replacements for what
they do.

MOOCs are useful for learning material that would be covered in "lower
division" classes, which often have little student-teacher interaction. Upper
division classes require more student-teacher interaction, and research almost
always requires in person discussion with a professor.

I think your attacks on unions and "professional organizations", as well as
your view that they are "afraid of competition" is misguided. If you look at
the countries that have the best secondary school education, you will find
that almost all of them have very strong unions. In order to attract
intelligent and competent teachers, you must treat them well. In the U.S, the
smartest students do not become teachers because the pay is awful and the work
is very stressful.

Although academia can seem very competitive (e.g publish or perish),
collaboration is a much more dominant theme than competition. There are many
environments in which focusing on competition is an inappropriate way of
improving things, especially when the rewards are intangible. The joy that a
teacher feels when she sees a student understand something and mature because
of it cannot be measured in dollars, or any other metric for that matter.

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spikels
You make some good points and I don't think that online learning will
"destroy" higher education as MIT's Cusumano seems to think. I read the
original article and agree with the OPs assessment that Cusumano's opinion
piece poorly thought out (I don't recommend wasting the time to read it).

However I see several article each week written by teachers criticizing MOOCs.
They ARE frightened. You seem to agree online class will likely replace many
college classes if only the lower division classes. Keep in mind these are
typically much larger than upper level classes and generate much more revenue.

Not sure I buy your argument that unions are correlated with better teaching.
Yes Mass has both but NYC, Chicago and LA all have strong unions and bad
schools. Unions are for teachers not the students.

It will be interesting how this all plays out. I suspect a mixed model like
you suggest is most likely. Meanwhile I am enjoying taking a few classes
online every few months. I hope you and more of the fearful teachers give it a
try.

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a_p
Unions are useful because, among other things, they attract high quality
candidates who do not want to worry about the security of their job. But
having a strong union is only one of the factors that a teaching candidate
considers. If the pay is awful (and it is awful in most of the United States),
you simply aren't going to attract the best students because they will find
another job that pays much better.

I've found that most schools that are considered "bad" have a majority of poor
students. School districts that serve poor people need _extra_ resources, but
often they receive less funding than richer districts. But just giving the
school districts more money isn't an effective solution, because the real
reason that poor students are (often) unsuccessful is because of their
parents. Poor students fall behind richer students because in most cases their
parents are functionally illiterate, do not stress the value of education, and
cannot help their students with their homework. Studies have shown that
children with books in their homes are likely to be more successful in school
than children that don't. It is likely that the same teacher would be given a
lower rating at a school in a poor district than at a school in a richer
district.

The presence of a union does not guarantee good teachers. Finland, Japan,
Korea, Australia, Canada and other countries that are used in the U.S as
examples of good education systems. To be sure, it is true that the value of
education is stressed more in those countries cultures. But it is hard to
ignore the fact that all of those countries have strong unions.

I think that teachers criticize MOOCs because they are concerned that they
will be replaced with something that has not demonstrated consistently that it
is better for students. The teachers that write these articles don't give a
shit about "revenues" of their colleges; teaching is their passion, not money.
If they were concerned about money, they would not have become college
professors in the first place. If you see any articles concerned about the
"revenue" of a college, it is likely that author is a president of college,
and earns a disproportionately large salary.

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hugh4life
I hope so, but I'm doubtful.

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jeremysmyth
Why do you hope higher education is destroyed?

