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JulyAugust2014

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58 July/August 2014 BizEd your turn POLITICIANS, PUNDITS, and professors all have weighed in with their expecta- tions about online education. Some claim it will cut the bloated budgets of Ameri- can universities, others that it will trans- form education entirely. We believe these grand claims obscure the real benefits of online education—and could cause actual harm to the educational system. We never should confuse education with the tools that educators use. A chalkboard isn't education, and neither is a computer. We always have known what it takes to learn: well-prepared teachers, motivated students, and a social system that values educational attainment. When teachers, students, and the social system are all in balance, education occurs—no matter how it's presented. While claims about the Internet's transformational abilities seem to us to be greatly overblown, we believe that the Internet does indeed offer real opportuni- ties for changes within education. Unfor- tunately, many of these opportunities are being wasted by politicians motivated by budget savings, teachers worried about job security, and technologists dazzled by new hardware and software. How do we get beyond the hype and the narrow agendas? We must realize that online education can't be suc- cessful unless we deal with two sets of challenges: understanding how learning occurs and understanding how institutions work. What We Know About Learning To understand how learning works, we first must con- sider what constitutes an effective classroom, which means we must recognize the role of the teacher. There simply is no substitute for a well-prepared and moti- vated teaching professional. Videos, podcasts, tweets, and interactive learning software are limited alterna- tives that are most applicable in situations where the goal is rote memorization—not true learning. Such tools could play future roles in the educational experi- Online Education: Hype vs. Reality ence, but by themselves they do not pro- duce educated students. Second, we must acknowledge that without motivated and prepared students, learning cannot occur. Today's online edu- cation requires discipline and learning hab- its that most of today's Millennials do not have. They are not good at self direction; they need constant coaxing and encour- agement, which online learning does not provide. At the same time, high school graduates too easily are distracted by the very technology they are supposed to be using to learn. Third, we must admit that in some countries, including the U.S., public sec- ondary education does not adequately prepare students to be good at reading, writing, and math. It certainly doesn't prepare students to research data, chal- lenge assumptions, and synthesize infor- mation from a host of sources while they work without supervision. Without these skills, students will not succeed at online learning. Fourth, we must pay attention to how learning actually occurs, whether online or face-to-face. The classroom experience falls into two broad categories: drill/prac- tice and critical thinking. Most subjects encompass some areas ideally suited for the drill/practice context, which also makes them ideally suited for online learning. When students can link classroom or online learning with electronic textbooks and their associated web pages, the professor can spend less time on this rote activity and more time on developing students' critical thinking skills. This is the area where we believe online education can be truly transformational. What We Know About Institutions Once we understand what factors will influence the success of online learning, we must deal with institu- tional realities that could threaten that success. First, we must update the learning model of higher education, which has changed little in the past 100 By Charlotte Larkin and Steven S. Shwiff

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