Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/337193
59 BizEd July/August 2014 ANATOLIY BAB IY/TH I N KSTOCK years. We still have 15-week semesters, core curricula, course requirements, and courses of study that are based more on faculty specialties than the best interests of the students. Online learning has merely been super- imposed over this basic framework. As a result, our universities are experiencing grow- ing tension between those who care more about how things are taught (often educationalists and technolo- gists) and those who care about what is taught (usually discipline-specific faculty). Both groups must work together to apply technology in the classroom and real- ize the promise it represents. Second, we must deal with well-intentioned stake- holders—such as politicians and accreditation agen- cies—who are inserting themselves into the debate about online education even though they are the farthest removed from any classroom and are the least familiar with educational technology. For instance, some politi- cians insist that the goal of a college student should be to get a job upon graduation; they see universities more as job training centers than places of higher education. Accrediting bodies require compliance with course and program objectives that can reduce academic content and rigor to a few simplistic goals. These groups can play meaningful roles, but they also can hamper the suc- cessful use of online educational tools. Educational Experiments So what do we do next? Despite the hype, no one cur- rently knows the best way forward. We believe the answer is to encourage educational entrepreneurship. We must incentivize educationalists, technologists, and profes- sors to experiment with online, face-to-face, and blended classrooms. Some approaches will fail, and some will be more successful in certain disciplines. But unless we inspire these three groups to take risks, we will not enjoy the full potential of these new educational approaches. We believe the classroom of tomorrow can lever- age technology to create a more personalized learning experience, but this will bring many changes. We'll no longer expect large groups of students to move at the same pace through a defined semester; instead, we'll see a more customized and collaborative learning process that's enabled by technology. While this new model is still evolving, it's clear that it will be partially mapped and paced by students. This will change the relationship of the professor with the student, as well as the function of the professor. Collaboration between students and professors is likely to determine how faculty will choose content and practice methods and how students will demonstrate mastery of content. While students still will require specialized face- to-face time with professors, especially to learn critical thinking skills, the timing of these sessions will depend on how much progress the student is making. Thus profes- sors and students together will mix the learning ingredi- ents to produce a new educational environment. The administration and accreditation of education also will have to change. As more learning takes place off-site, the role of nonteaching staff will need to be reassessed. As students and faculty increasingly rely on technology, educational technologists must be on hand to facilitate the use of that technology. At the same time, to reflect the new educational paradigms, accrediting bodies and university administrators will need to change the formulas they use to assess learning outcomes. Finally, we will need to address the challenge of online cheating. It's rampant in online education, and it threatens the educational process. We must find and implement solutions, or all the value of online educa- tion will disappear. Once we address these issues, we expect the 15-week semester, the standardized curriculum, and the lockstep pace of education to become relics of the past. The current rigid model will be replaced with a new system in which learning is viewed as a continuous stream, resources are widely available, opportunities for learning are plentiful, and individual students drop in and out of the learning process. When students, fac- ulty, and educational technologists forge new relation- ships, high-quality learning will occur. Charlotte Larkin is an assistant professor in educational leadership at Texas A&M University-Commerce. Steven S. Shwiff is a professor of economics at the school.