Student Learning

I've been invited to be a member of the LT student panel this coming Friday. I'll be sitting on a stage and asked a whole bunch of questions about online learning and the future of education at UNSW. I'm going to be joined by 3 other students from different backgrounds within UNSW.

Me: Undergrad, Engineering, male
Student 1: Undergrad, arts, female
Student 2: Post grad, biology, ?
Student 3: Undergrad, ?, ?

Student 1 and I finished having the 'interview' (although it was really more of an information session) today. They asked us questions which pretty much boiled down into a chat about what our positions were regarding online learning.

I realized almost instantly that they collected a whole bunch of different students with the intention of sparking a heated debate. Student 1 (the undergraduate arts student) is a 30 year old computer hating enthusiast. She openly proclaimed that she couldn't use them and thinks she never will. She even gave a fascinating example of how she thought an assignments instructions "use double spacing" mean't she had to press the space bar twice in between every word. I'll summarize her argument in dot point by subtracting her beautifully worded waffle and leaving the meat.
1) Online lectures are bad because no student will attend class anymore
2) In class learning is > any alternative assuming you have an inspiring teacher
3) If given the chance, online learning tools will eventually replace Professors and traditional teaching.

The only way I could hold myself back from ripping into her argument was by making my face a statue. Every beautifully articulated phrase bounced off my face causing only a minor crease in my fake smile and maybe an occasional twitch in my left eye. OK, this is why I'm awesome and she's not:

1) Albeit Engineering is very different to any arts subject, so not everything I'm going to say is applicable to other subjects (although I suspect most of it will be). Firstly, I do not think class attendance will dwindle, in fact I think it will increase if Online learning is applied correctly. What does 'applied correctly' mean Matthew? Thanks for asking Matthew. Online resources should be used purely as an enhancement NOT a replacement for teaching. Class should be dedicated to deriving theory (or explaining underlying concepts) and tutorials should be dedicated to practicing these concepts, however all online tools should be dedicated to: filling the gaps in student knowledge, providing assessment, providing additional learning material to foster creativity and enthusiasm for the subject. Online lectures make up just a small part of online learning and can assist in at least the first two things i mentioned.

In my experience, people who end up skipping class don't skip class because they have a party to go to (especially in Engineering). Instead I find that people skip class because they feel that they will get a negligible benefit from attending. This should say more about the quality of traditional teaching than online learning. In the last few years YouTube has become such a 'how to' tool. You can learn how to do anything from making a cake to finding the shear stress in beams. As of late 2012, YouTube has been filled to the rim with educational videos provided by MIT OpenCourseWare, the Khan Academy, Udacity and more. Most of these videos come in the form of 10 minute snippets making them the perfect way to fill in the gaps or improve student learning. They also allow students to learn at their own pace (with the FF, RW and Pause features), which is crucial! These videos should never replace learning though. That will kill motivation.

While I'm on a rant, let me talk briefly about what's happening now in Engineering courses. A lot of courses (I'd say a majority is an understatement) feature professors who cling to power point presentations to deliver information. As a result, professors end up describing the slides for hours and only end up putting the occasional extra commentary in. I view this as a convenient cop out. I think professors need to ditch the power points and teach old school with the blackboard and chalk. It's an effective way to teach and it is the main source of motivation that the students need. The role of the professor is vital!

2) This is just untrue. I referred to studies in my Thesis that showed that blended learning (Traditional + online) is vastly superior to just traditional learning. Analtyical subjects thrive on the idea of having in class lectures to explain the basic concepts and provide motivation, and have online tools to refine and improve.

3) This sounds like George Orwell's 1984 hysteria. In short I think online learning can assist teaching, and this will make Professors more internationally acclaimed. The best way I can describe this is through an analogy. Consider the paranoia surrounding the rise of online sharing of music in the early 2000's. At the time, people thought that not being able to buy records would spell the end of record companies. However, due to royalty cheques and advertisements, musicians still get buy comfortably. I think this can be applied to online learning. Professors like Walter Luis are already tapping this online market and are earning quite a reputation. Now it isn't enough to live off YouTube videos, but as long as Universities keep paying Professors (which they should as I've argued earlier), then there will be no economical issues.

On a separate note, I went to the beach yesterday and put sunscreen everywhere on my body except for one vital area; the back of my knees. It hurts so much when I walk that I'm forced to imitate a penguin :(