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Colleges are reopening in fall, but many professors won’t be present

nytimes.com

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Re: Colleges are reopening in fall, but many professors won’t be present

#61

Post by pyuser583 »

vgchh wrote: post #41

For universities to fully crumble and education to become significantly cheaper, in addition to all the advancements that have occurred in last decade, I believe we need a credible way to certify students online. Imagine if someone sitting in Tibet or slums of Bombay could prove to Googles of the world that he/she (and not some hired help) successfully completed a highly ranked test online, it could be transformative…

But colleges aren’t about testing, but educating. Taking people who can’t pass a test, and turning them into people who can.

The test is merely to help discern how good a job the schools have done.

The etymology of educating is to “lead someone out of” something - namely ignorance.

Re: Colleges are reopening in fall, but many professors won’t be present

#62

Post by crimsonalucard5 »

sys_64738 wrote: post #37

Online classes simply don't have the value that in person classes have. Extend that to degrees and that's the stigma you have to deal with when trying to get a job. Telling an employer you got your degree remotely V the in class person, who are you gonna hire?

>Online classes simply don't have the value that in person classes have.

This is debatable. There's pros and cons for each.

>Telling an employer you got your degree remotely V the in class person, who are you gonna hire?

This never happens in practice. If that's the schools are the only things we're comparing then of course I hire the one with the more reputable pedigree. I don't even consider courses taken or dive any deeper than that.

Re: Colleges are reopening in fall, but many professors won’t be present

#63

Post by pyuser583 »

sumoboy wrote: post #23

So many of these teachers have become unqualified to teach remote classes since they can't adapt to virtual engagement to help students succeed. They don't answer emails, don't chat, leaving students lost. You get more from a youtube video in many cases. Remote teaching has made these teachers lazy IMO.

As former teacher: teaching is hard, and teaching remotely is harder.

Maintaining classroom order is a big part of the job. How are you going to do that remotely?

When I say maintaining order, I’m not even talking about discipline. Think Roberts Rules of Order. Just coordinating discussions in a meeting of 30 people.

Teachers are taught to engage students, and get them to engage with each other.

Just look how fast a HN comment thread can go off the rails.

Re: Colleges are reopening in fall, but many professors won’t be present

#64

Post by pyuser583 »

unishark wrote: post #40
sys_64738 wrote: post #37

Online classes simply don't have the value that in person classes have. Extend that to degrees and that's the stigma you have to deal with when trying to get a job. Telling an employer you got your degree remotely V the in class person, who are you gonna hire?

> Online classes simply don't have the value that in person classes have. I certainly agree with this (people aren't that stupid). But schools like Stanford and USC have been doing online MS programs for decades. As far as I know they are are just as valuable to your resume as an in-person MS from the same school. The value is in the fact that your average student simply doesn't have the self-motivation to do fully-o…

I’ve benefited immensely from online education, but it’s not a substitute for an in person liberal arts education.

Re: Colleges are reopening in fall, but many professors won’t be present

#65

Post by bachmeier »

gbronner wrote: post #18

This is looking more and more like an extinction event for academia. Elite institutions can charge whatever they want for their brand name and selectivity, and for the environment of other equally motivated high potential students. Other schools combine a school with a resort/cruise ship experience. Insofar as the school is no better than a bunch of videos, and the resort is mostly shut down, so long as employers don…

I believe you're referring to lectures rather than a university degree. The arguments you're making are no different than the ones made by people saying traditional colleges would be gone in five years once MOOCs arrived. It's possible that things will change in a major way, but simply being able to watch a lecture from your home is neither new nor a substitute for a traditional four year college. (And note that the in-person lecturing part is actually really cheap - much cheaper than the same lectures online, and only a tiny percentage of the cost of running a university.)

Re: Colleges are reopening in fall, but many professors won’t be present

#66

Post by vgchh »

pyuser583 wrote: post #61
vgchh wrote: post #41

For universities to fully crumble and education to become significantly cheaper, in addition to all the advancements that have occurred in last decade, I believe we need a credible way to certify students online. Imagine if someone sitting in Tibet or slums of Bombay could prove to Googles of the world that he/she (and not some hired help) successfully completed a highly ranked test online, it could be transformative…

But colleges aren’t about testing, but educating. Taking people who can’t pass a test, and turning them into people who can. The test is merely to help discern how good a job the schools have done. The etymology of educating is to “lead someone out of” something - namely ignorance.

There are a lot of people who are capable of self educating and removing ignorance from their lives, but don’t have the means to pay for the fancy universities and prove their capabilities, which is what in the end certificates do. They provide a baseline, a level playing field if you will.

Re: Colleges are reopening in fall, but many professors won’t be present

#67

Post by tkgally »

dredmorbius wrote: post #52
gbronner wrote: post #18

This is looking more and more like an extinction event for academia. Elite institutions can charge whatever they want for their brand name and selectivity, and for the environment of other equally motivated high potential students. Other schools combine a school with a resort/cruise ship experience. Insofar as the school is no better than a bunch of videos, and the resort is mostly shut down, so long as employers don…

I'm leaning more strongly to "major impact / selection event / paradigm shift" than extinction. Education generally, and universities specifically, are highly durable institutions which have undergone massive changes over time, whilst retaining recognizable elements from their origins. Specific universities are remarkably durable, with the oldest (Bologna, Oxford, Salamanca, Cambridge) dating to the 11th and 12th cen…

> I'm leaning more strongly to "major impact / selection event / paradigm shift" than extinction.

I agree. I teach at a large public research university in Japan, and we're near the end of our first semester teaching all of our classes online. It has gone better than many (any?) of us expected.

The university's decision in late March that all of our classes would be taught in real time using videoconferencing, with prerecorded videos and other asynchronous methods only as a supplement, seems to have been correct. Live online classes, it turns out, are often just as interactive and engaging as in-person classes. Some teachers even report that their students participate more actively and thoughtfully in discussions online than they do in the classroom.

There are still many unresolved issues, of course, including how to conduct tests fairly; how to enable more informal mingling among students; and, perhaps most difficult, how to teach subjects that require physical equipment or in-person interaction, such as laboratory chemistry, nursing and medicine, performing arts, etc.

But the fact that many subjects can be taught satisfactorily online upends one of the fundamental assumptions of higher education: that teachers and students need to be in the same place at the same time to have high-quality interactions. If they haven't already, forward-thinking universities will soon start taking advantage of this opportunity to create well-planned, rigorous degree programs open to anyone in the world who is qualified and has a decent Internet connection. Even if the coronavirus crisis ends and people can travel freely again, such programs should still be able to succeed.

Re: Colleges are reopening in fall, but many professors won’t be present

#68

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

gbronner wrote: post #18

This is looking more and more like an extinction event for academia. Elite institutions can charge whatever they want for their brand name and selectivity, and for the environment of other equally motivated high potential students. Other schools combine a school with a resort/cruise ship experience. Insofar as the school is no better than a bunch of videos, and the resort is mostly shut down, so long as employers don…

Small liberal arts colleges may be extinguished but the major universities will live on. The sciences, medicine, and engineering fields still require facilities and equipment beyond the reach of the individual, particularly for cutting edge research. I could point to universities with their own wind tunnel for aerospace engineering, their own research and teaching hospitals, their own small silicon chip fab and so forth.

Re: Colleges are reopening in fall, but many professors won’t be present

#69

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

gbronner wrote: post #18

This is looking more and more like an extinction event for academia. Elite institutions can charge whatever they want for their brand name and selectivity, and for the environment of other equally motivated high potential students. Other schools combine a school with a resort/cruise ship experience. Insofar as the school is no better than a bunch of videos, and the resort is mostly shut down, so long as employers don…

> Elite institutions can charge whatever they want for their brand name

Also, their brand names may be tarnished. For example, Yale and Stanford are named after men who abused black and brown people. If the Universities decide to no longer honor these men and remove their names from the university, they will have lost a lot of the brand that they built up over many years.

Re: Colleges are reopening in fall, but many professors won’t be present

#70

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

vgchh wrote: post #41

For universities to fully crumble and education to become significantly cheaper, in addition to all the advancements that have occurred in last decade, I believe we need a credible way to certify students online. Imagine if someone sitting in Tibet or slums of Bombay could prove to Googles of the world that he/she (and not some hired help) successfully completed a highly ranked test online, it could be transformative…

It would be transformational if firms would be okay with some of their team working in a different timezone. It's hard to collaborate when you can only meet in the evening for one worker, and early morning the other. I don't know if there's any logistical solution to this.
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