10-03-2012, 12:28 AM
Quote:Online education threatens traditional colleges, IdeaFestival speaker says
3:03 AM, Sep 21, 2012
Colleges and universities that don’t have the stature of the 60 most prestigious research and Ivy League institutions are fast headed for “irrelevance and marginalization,” said Richard A. DeMillo, an expert in online learning who spoke at the IdeaFestival conference downtown [Louisville] Thursday.
The proliferation of knowledge via online courses presents unparalleled challenges to colleges and universities, said DeMillo, an author and director of the Center for 21st Century Universities at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
When it comes to evaluating undergraduates, faith in the grading system is giving way to desire for more concrete measurements, like subject testing and evaluation of job applicants, DeMillo said.
Besides, he added, the grading systems at colleges and universities nationwide don’t have much credibility.
“Two thirds of college students earn A’s and B’s. We live in `Lake Woebegone,’ ” DeMillo said, recalling the fictitious town featured in radio host Garrison Keillor’s “Prairie Home Companion” where all the children are “above average.”
The public is quickly changing its perceptions of colleges and universities as a “must-have” experience, particularly because the cost of higher education can reach as high as $200,000 for a four-year bachelor’s degree, he added.
Besides, emerging online universities like Coursera offer free courses from the likes of Princeton University, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Pennsylvania, Stanford University and more.
“The cost of a college degree has far outstripped any value that people assign to it,” DeMillo said during his on-stage conversation with Idea Festival host and creator Kris Kimel.
Colleges have long used written tests to measure how much knowledge students assimilate, but new tools are emerging that make those and aptitude tests obsolete, he said. For example, DeMillo said universities can assess how long people dwell on a subject on a computer screen, and where they click a mouse.
“You can watch students as they are learning,” said DeMillo, author of “Abelard to Apple: The Fate of American Colleges and Universities.”
“When you start analyzing data on that level, you can make very specific predictions about what works,” he said. “Analyzing how students use computers is transforming higher education.”
Research on online education also shows that many people can learn without knowing their teacher, he added.
“The data does not show you need in-person interaction or emotional intelligence to learn,” DeMillo said. “We are seeing today the absolute first level of experimentation.”
Spalding University President Tori Murden McClure said before DeMillo’s talk that the school is changing fast to catch up with the online revolution.
In the last 12 months, she said, the university has gone from zero online courses to 50 classes online. McClure said many university officials feel “fear and trepidation,” at the rapidly evolving landscape of higher education.
One model to consider is training for careers that need “hearts and hands,” she said.
“Your X-ray might be read by a radiologist in Mumbai, (India), McClure said. “But the nurse with the morphine will be at your bedside. Nurses are not going anywhere.”