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As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

voiceofsandiego.org

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Re: As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

#131

Post by red-iron-pine »

TrackerFF wrote: post #20
mnky9800n wrote: post #3

Stop offering online classes and expect students to show up in person. Online education sucks, everyone knows this. Everyone knows that they are making some kind of compromise when teaching or taking an online course. And if people are too poor to drive themselves to college or have to work too much or whatever else, then the state should provide opportunities for them so that they can continue their education. Stop…

Why does online education suck? When I went to university, the first week we received the syllabus, and date for final examination. Lectures were some old professors pretty much just doing book recitals in a large auditorium - little to no interaction with the students. If you had questions, that's what the TAs were for. Any actual learning, you had to do in the library or study halls - and hopefully join a reading/s…

* entirely self driven, which is hard for a lot of necessary but often dry courses

* taught mostly via online videos; impossible to ask questions on the spot or explore concepts

* interaction with peers and professors is almost entirely forced or inorganic and often terrible

* limited networking options; no real community; hard to build bridges and get references when your professor is an automated test system (i.e. Canvas, et al)

* often limited screening; U Phoenix or WGU takes anyone, and now I have 100+ semi-literate applicants who somehow pulled a 3.3 via online schools blowing up my applications

* difficult to assess value proposition; you generally need to register to take part, while I can just drive to VA Tech or Dartmouth or even the Naval Academy and walk around and see (mostly) what it's like

Re: As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

#132

Post by gosub100 »

InDubioProRubio wrote: post #50
intended wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The second order effects of cheap education are immense, ranging from longer life span, better health, stronger economies, amongst just a few. The matter at hand, specifically, is one about how our ability to verify is overwhelmed by our ability to generate content. This is playing out with recruitment, bug reports, complaint forms - and going all the way up to sophisticated fraud.

The third order effect of handing out money for nothing, is the chicks coming home to roost as anti-education movements tear down the nation.

No one's "anti education", except universities bloated with administration and professors who publish false data for the gov bux.

Re: As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

#133

Post by mnky9800n »

zulban wrote: post #35
mnky9800n wrote: post #3

Stop offering online classes and expect students to show up in person. Online education sucks, everyone knows this. Everyone knows that they are making some kind of compromise when teaching or taking an online course. And if people are too poor to drive themselves to college or have to work too much or whatever else, then the state should provide opportunities for them so that they can continue their education. Stop…

I currently have a full time job in government as a computer scientist. I'm also taking an online master's at georgia tech and it's fairly good so far - no other way I could study supercomputing. Why would I leave an AI job where I'm learning practical AI skills to study CS? Async with evening exams was my only option. If you don't have a broad perspective on all life circumstances and types of education, don't just…

I had to go to community college while having a job and paying for everything and doing it around my schedule. This was before most places had online options and those that did were like, university of phoenix where it seemed like it would limit you because it wasn't considered the same as a non-profit university. I don't really buy this argument that people need some kind of online experience or otherwise they would be cut out (excluding people with some kind of disability that prevents them from going places). Plenty of people were able to complete college educations by showing up to night classes prior to online classes being a thing.

After that, I worked at GaTech where one of my responsibilities was helping to build the physics portion of the masters program that you are currently in (i don't think the physics portion ever turned into a master program like OSMCS, i left around the time OSMCS started offering degrees). When building these courses we tried to implement the best information from cognitive science and education, we tried to build the best exercises, we had super active involvement in course forums, etc. We did everything right, and we still felt that something was missing from the experience from the teaching side and we did not find that students in the online side participated in the same ways, or learned the same information, as those on-campus. I still believe that most people would benefit more from in person educational experiences. I think your experience in the gatech program is a valuable one and I have heard many positive things about this program since I left to go and do other stuff. However, I still believe that there is something valuable from most educational programs being offered in person only.

Re: As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

#134

Post by foxyv »

HamsterDan wrote: post #22

The author tried really hard to dance around the real problem here: California is apparently paying students to attend online community college. If attending these classes was even just free, this wouldn't be a problem. Giving out student aid for online classes is just ridiculous.

It is important to not deny people what they need in order to prevent fraudsters from profiting. This fraud is roughly 0.3% of total student aide in California.

Re: As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

#135

Post by _DeadFred_ »

InDubioProRubio wrote: post #50
intended wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The second order effects of cheap education are immense, ranging from longer life span, better health, stronger economies, amongst just a few. The matter at hand, specifically, is one about how our ability to verify is overwhelmed by our ability to generate content. This is playing out with recruitment, bug reports, complaint forms - and going all the way up to sophisticated fraud.

The third order effect of handing out money for nothing, is the chicks coming home to roost as anti-education movements tear down the nation.

This. People didn't agree on immigration levels yet they thought people fleeing horror should have shelter from the horror and be given asylum. The Democrats seemed to let the asylum process be abused as a general immigration process and now the US is having a huge pullback/backlash on asylum seekers.

Re: As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

#136

Post by FrustratedMonky »

stikit wrote: post #117
floor2 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it’s generally accepted that requiring some level of skin in the game from those that benefit does a decent job of doing this "Generally accepted" by who? Based on what? Sometimes the reactions on this site are silly. We're talking about community college here. The people going to community college are trying to transition their life from minimum wage retail job to useful careers as things like dental hygienists, n…

>>>"Generally accepted" by who? Based on what? Off the top of my head, so may not align exactly with formal definitions, but economics is the study of allocation of resources and how incentives play a large role in how human behavior is influenced by those incentives. I prefer Sowell for a primer but if he’s not to your liking try google, keywords economic incentives and resource allocation. i have plenty of personal…

I do see where you are going here.

But using student debt, as an incentive to study hard, as justification that debt is good, is bit of a stretch.

There are plenty of students that do well without pressure.

Programs that are trying to pull in people on the fence will inevitably have some that don't make it, the goal is for a net positive. If local employers have 1 extra qualified employee at the cost of 2 or 3 that don't make it, it still balances out. The state is out the money for a few tuitions for students that didn't make it, but the lifetime earnings of the one that made it is greater.

Re: As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

#137

Post by intended »

InDubioProRubio wrote: post #50
intended wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The second order effects of cheap education are immense, ranging from longer life span, better health, stronger economies, amongst just a few. The matter at hand, specifically, is one about how our ability to verify is overwhelmed by our ability to generate content. This is playing out with recruitment, bug reports, complaint forms - and going all the way up to sophisticated fraud.

The third order effect of handing out money for nothing, is the chicks coming home to roost as anti-education movements tear down the nation.

As someone else pointed out, yeah - anti education movements are a third order effect of how succesful education is at not making people vote for religious causes and non scientific positions.

The threat of its efficacy, is why, since 1960 onwards, a large chunk of the western world has been figuring out how to bend psychology, rhetoric, and media forces to undermine "Ivory tower" intellectuals.

Yes, a succesful movement has been undermined because it posed a threat to people with the money to spend to fight their battles.

This is old news.

Re: As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

#138

Post by mnky9800n »

RHSeeger wrote: post #128
ethagknight wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole discussion revolves around credentialing and certification that you actually learned the stuff you claim to have learned, that you jumped through the hoops required by a given college system whose reputation you want to lever into a career. If you just wanna learn stuff online, dive in and watch YouTube or any of the variety of online educstional services, but in reality you want a certification that says y…

The goal of the system as a whole should be to help people live better lives. That includes providing the knowledge for people to do the jobs that help society function. And whatever is needed to help them convince employers to hire them (ie, credentials). And (hopefully) other knowledge that helps them in a more general way (ie, the various generic classes that teach non-domain knowledge). The fact that public colle…

Yes but they have to be willing to do things that sacrifice other things in order to get ahead. And those sacrifices should be minimized in places outside of their control. Like a child of poor parents should not be penalized and be unable to afford school or take massive debt to do it. It is unacceptable to live this way. It is not fair. People should be given the option to pursue skills and knowledges without a financial burden. And because that is true, people need access to the best possible educational environment and I guarantee you that is not watching video lectures and it’s not plugging in answers into some dumb course management software. That is not a good use of anyone’s time. This is why students should be expected to show up and be present in class because so much of learning is done together. Online environments create a barrier between each other in this case.

I am sure there will be someone who will say, but I liked studying alone. Yes, I agree with you. Pursuit of knowledge by yourself is an important skill to have and a time that is meant to be enjoyed. And what I say to you is this, creating knowledge with others is also a time to be enjoyed and if you miss out on that you are missing out on some of the understanding your books cannot provide. And I would welcome you to work on teams which give you the opportunity to work in this fashion and see if you enjoy it. Because I found that I really do and I want to share that with others.

Re: As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

#139

Post by spwa4 »

lores wrote: post #62
InDubioProRubio wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The third order effect of handing out money for nothing, is the chicks coming home to roost as anti-education movements tear down the nation.

Europe as a whole manages to hand over money for nothing to would-be students in need without any anti-education backlash. An anti-education stance is the cause of protesting education subsidies, not their consequence.

Yeah right. Now go visit East Germany, no shortage of anti-education anti-intellectual attitudes.

Re: As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

#140

Post by spwa4 »

patcon wrote: post #76
philipallstar wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not cheap education. What is the point in deliberately changing the topic? It's about paying people to consume free education.

No. It's a Sybil attack on subsidy to help ppl of different means equally make room for education in their lives. No one is "making money" unless they are committing fraud. They are being put on an equal playing field -- the subsidies are seemingly directed at the individual, but are terraforming [of the field] in nature, not for enrichment of the individual. I was able to get educated with full focus on that task, b…

Read the article. The students complained about aren't after the opportunity.
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