This interesting and provoking article that was passed my way. I was asked for my reaction because of my call for finding ways to increase the thresholds for teaching and learning online while at the same time maintaining quality. My reaction is a simple, “Good for them!” CMU’s robotic software has raised the threshold and maintained at least a similar level of quality as a the course in residence. The software targets all three of the domains of teaching, learning and course administration at the same time.
Now, how attractive would it be to obtain a degree by taking all of my courses in this fashion? Even though, “… the machines were judged to be as effective, and more efficient, than their personality-having counterparts.” I would agree with students who miss the human-human interaction (one of the keys of learning effectiveness).
However, and important in today’s economy, this program as a result of being able to increase the threshold for a service course in this fashion or perhaps one of the intro-to-degree courses, they may now financially be in a position to able to offer smaller enrolled, more personality laden courses to fill out the degree program. This trade-off in the larger context is now possible because a means was found to raise the threshold.
Are there other options? Certainly. Everyone should not start writing decision tree algorithms for presenting instruction. This is a ‘solve it all at once approach’ and instead, one might zero in on just course administration activities, and ask 1) what are the time intensive activities of those that teach online (probably grading and groupwork), and 2) how can we make this more efficient? Perry Sampson is doing exactly this but focuses on the activities of teaching and learning, i.e., how do we make the learning experience more interactive? His tools have demonstrated the capacity for a much higher threshold where students are doing some wonderfully interactive things with content and each other that they weren’t doing before. High enrollments AND interactive inclusive. This is the approach that I argue online education in higher ed must tackle in order to endure over time.
What other examples out there we can point to that achieve this same combination of effectiveness and efficiency?