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Teacher Union Tries To Block Online Courses
itwbennett writes "Facing budget problems, University of California officials and state analysts say that expanding online courses could help them 'innovate out of the current crisis.' But the lecturers whose jobs are at stake see it differently. Now the UC chapter of the American Federation of Teachers is fighting to block online courses."
Here is some actual coverage.
Anyway. There's no doubt that a lot of courses can be taught effectively online. There's also no doubt, for anyone who's ever done any real teaching, that once the subject matter gets the least bit advanced, there's a sharp limit to how much you can learn in an online course. Introductory "101" courses, which are mostly taught in giant lecture halls anyway, can probably go online with no ill effect on the students. Once you get beyond that level, most people need face-to-face interaction to really understand the subject.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
It is interesting to think that education by vending machine is turning out to be so successful. I can understand how degrees by coursework can benefit from this. It will be interesting if universities with real brands will ever allow master or doctorates to be via online study. When I did my post grad degree, I saw my supervisor for an hour every week, and I know I was lucky at that. I had a friend who was doing his PhD which saw his supervisor for a grand total of 20 hours during his entire research project. He basically just was included as a name in the research papers, and copied in on any and all email correspondence. Even thought is becoming ever more automated these days.
The argument does fall a bit on deaf ears when you are a student in the first two years at university, sitting in a lecture hall of 900 fellow students, while a teaching assistant goes through the material and can't answer any questions for your.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
IANAPhD, but I nearly was. Quote from a professor: "Getting a PhD is not mostly about learning although that is important, it's about getting things done. If you are a PhD student we in the department will essentially do whatever we can to prevent you from finishing your thesis. If you manage to finish _despite_ us, then you will get the PhD. You will have joined the club of 'people who get things done'. Thereafter schools and other institutions who are looking for people who get things done, and your PhD will tell them that you do."
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
Well, I'd suggest that "featherbedding" doesn't really require a union or any other such organization.
My high school didn't have a teachers' union. But I ran into a problem when, in my sophomore year, I decided to learn some math. By around Xmas, I'd gone through all the math texts that were available from the math teachers. Then, when I asked them for advice and help in getting more, I was told that I "wasn't ready for such advanced texts" as basic calculus. In talking to them, it was pretty clear that they were unhappy with me, and I got a real feeling that it was because I'd just made all their "advanced" classes useless (to me).
But I had some friends at a nearby college, so I arranged for them to find more math books that I could borrow. Some came from their profs, some from the math department's library. I also verified that there are other US high schools that teach calculus classes; this didn't endear me to my teachers, either.
Actually, the organizational problems didn't end there. A couple of years later, I found myself at a nearby college, where the math dept offered me "advanced placement" into 2nd-year calculus. It rapidly became obvious that I knew the material better than the prof did. Trying to convince the department to let me transfer to a class where I would learn something was pointless, so I wasted my time getting past that and a few other "pre-req" classes that I had to take despite already knowing the material.
It's easy to interpret all of this as a case of teachers blocking a bright kid's advancement, because the kid is making the teachers look unnecessary. And I had any number of discussions of the topic with other kids with an "attitude problem" similar to mine.
I also eventually ran across a clever explanation: The classroom lecture is the best method developed so far to teach students who can't read. That does describe a large fraction of the US college student population, of course, so the lecturers are still needed for them. But for the rest of us, regardless of the presence of unions, we're still likely to run into blockades that force us to sit still while the instructors work for their pay.
Since then, I have occasionally wondered whether my getting involved in Internet software development will eventually have any effect on this general problem. If so, don't make the mistake of thinking it was accidental. The topic at hand has been discussed behind the scenes, at least by a few of us. Online "classes" are just one of the attempts to alleviate such problems. There are many students in the world who don't have local access to good teachers, but who do know how to read. I'm one net.developer who isn't very sympathetic with teachers who try to block students' access to information.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
I also eventually ran across a clever explanation: The classroom lecture is the best method developed so far to teach students who can't read. That does describe a large fraction of the US college student population, of course, so the lecturers are still needed for them.
Your full explanation is of course nothing more than an attempt to ease your own ego. After all, in your own mind you must be better than those other people. So the explanation must involve them being inferior to you and the whole system not catering to you obviously superior mind.
Someone who doesn't need to prop up their own inferiority complex on the other hand may simply explain it as being the fact that different people learn differently. Many people can read a book but they'll simply learn better in a lecture setting.