Will the Coronavirus Forever Alter the College Experience ?

/coronavirus-online-education-college.ht

  • Will the Coronavirus Forever Alter the College Experience? - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/23/education/learning/coronavirus-online-education-college.html

    #continuitepedagogique #US #college #higherED

    “What we are talking about when we talk about online education is using digital technologies to transform the learning experience,” said Vijay Govindarajan, a professor at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business. “That is not what is happening right now. What is happening now is we had eight days to put everything we do in class onto Zoom.”

    Faculty may incorporate online tools, to which many are being exposed for the first time, into their conventional classes. And students are experiencing a flexible type of learning they may not like as undergraduates, but could return to when it’s time to get a graduate degree.

    “The pessimistic view is that [students] are going to hate it and never want to do this again, because all they’re doing is using Zoom to reproduce everything that’s wrong with traditional passive, teacher-centered modes of teaching,” said Bill Cope, a professor of education policy, organization and leadership at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

    More than 75 percent said they don’t think they’re receiving a quality learning experience, according to a survey of nearly 1,300 students by the online exam-prep provider OneClass. In a separate poll of 14,000 college and graduate students in early April by the website niche.com, which rates schools and colleges, 67 percent said they didn’t find online classes as effective as in-person ones.

    Students who want classes best provided face to face, such as those in the performing arts or that require lab work, would continue to take them that way.

    “Let’s take advantage of this moment to start a larger conversation” about the whole design of higher education, Dr. Govindarajan said.