What do you think will change in online (and face-to-face) education?

[TreadingLife]

I'm starting a new thread for this, becuase whether or not covid makes major changes to higher education, (and education at all levels, for that matter), it's likely to have a lot of long-term smaller effects.

• All kinds of technical problems should be improved by the massive testing this situation produces.
• Some platforms and technologies will become big winners via natural selection. (Zoom?)
• Even technophobic instructors (and students) will have to become minimally proficient in various things.
  Saying something is "just too complicated" won't fly as much.

Care to speculate?

Maybe, but from a personal standpoint, I can't say I'm doing anything in a particularly systematic fashion, or a fashion that I'd care to repeat. I decided that given the kind of place I teach it was a bad idea to try to have "live classes," so I've been uploading lectures. I just found the simplest thing the school has for doing that. Predictably, it is pretty annoying to manage, especially because my internet speeds at home have really plummeted, but the last thing I want to do is switch and try something different now and confuse myself and the students more. I'm just not finding this to be a particularly fertile ground for innovation. I'm supposed to be teaching a summer class and if that runs online as well, I might actually be able to figure out some ways to make it work, but I haven't learned much from switching in the middle of the semester, other than that it is as unpleasant as I imagined it would be.

Just curious, what system are you using for recording your lectures (if you can say)?

M.

Kaltura. I can't tell if the software just sucks or if it is just that the combination of my internet being slower than usual and their servers being overloaded. It is taking foooooreeeeeeeevvver to upload stuff. Should I switch to Zoom?

Another bonus of Zoom is that you can have the files record to your hard drive instead of to Zoom's cloud. I find this advantageous because using Canvas's Studio, I lost an entire lecture because of an internet/website/forgot to pay the troll under the bridge issue. I'm not dealing with that again. Zoom records to my hard drive and then I can upload it to Canvas. I also upload to my Box folder for a backup, then I can delete the files on my hard drive. They do take up space.

[spork]

. . . . that anything tangential to the direct learning/teaching that happens between teacher and student will be exposed as tangential or even expendable.

At least, that's what I'm hoping. After completing my first week in this new reality, I've realized that I've spent the majority of my time on actual teaching. All those other things like superfluous meetings, public events, admin-busy-body activities created only to justify someone's frivolous job, extracurricular things that I get guilted into, etc. were all canceled because their delivery was face-to-face. And, you know what, it's starting to become obvious that all that stuff was unnecessary in the first place.

+ infinite

I would love to see line item billing of students for services that aren't directly teaching/learning-oriented. Universities already charge for housing and food. You want to play a sport in college? Excellent, you pay an extra $12,000 per semester. Campus entertainment? Either you subscribe by semester for an extra $1,000 or you pay $75 at the gate for every event.

A natural consequence of the above would be the elimination of a large portion of staff and administrators.

Absolutely, Spork! It's even got a name: Unbundling.

[Bundling is a symptom of insufficient competition, not a cause.]

I've been advocating for the unbundling and disintermediation of higher ed for years.

[dismalist]

I've been advocating for the unbundling and disintermediation of higher ed for years.

'Twould work wonders. We could have colleges where one studies stuff, and we could have colleges where one goofs off, or has one's hands held, all at lower cost than now. The barrier is state certification, which requires all kinds of stuff, prevents entry, and encourages the bundling. Wasn't clever enough to prevent the for profits' rip offs, though. Like the CDC at present.

[mahagonny]

My FB feed is full of teachers of F2F classes remarking how much work it is to do an online class. So there may be some more respect for the effort that those who teach online put in.

Sure, the awareness of what goes into the effort increases, but respect?...it depends on who's having the conversation, their motives. To wit, that isn't he way it works in certain conversations that occupy a niche in higher ed. In which the thought process is 'you're working too hard for the money and job security you're getting, This means you've made poor life decisions and we can attribute this piece of how higher education works to your failing mental health.' Respect for doing honest labor is  a concept that subject to a considerable amount of warpage in a dysfunctional family. This will not change until we run out of town those certain people who don't understand that teaching in college shouldn't be a poor life choice.

[pgher]

I'm finding that I think more seriously about learning outcomes in assignments. Especially for exams. I couldn't figure out a good way to proctor exams, so I'm going to open book. That reflects the post-class reality that students will just look stuff up, so the question becomes, what do they actually need to KNOW that can't just be looked up. Some questions don't change but others do.

Not speaking to you specifically, but to academia in general:

It's about friggin' time!


Since Google has been around for more than two decades,  it's amazing how slow the education system has been to adapt to the reality that grading students on their ability to regurgitate searchable factoids doesn't really have much value. (Not that there isn't more value than students realize in having all kinds of facts memorized and ready-to-hand; just that information unconnected with insight in how to apply it is virtually useless.)

In STEM fields, "word problems" have been a common way to address this. ( Weak students have trouble and just try randomly plugging numbers into whatever formulas they can find.) I'm always interested when people talk about how they do that in other disciplines. One I can recall is in courses with lots of readings, having students compare how two or more readings deal with some issue. Unless that particular question involving those two particular books is a common thing, it wont' be googleable.

The thing I struggle with is testing skills in a way that is different from finding an example and plugging in different values. (I'm in engineering.) I guess I've been teaching the same course for too many years and need to take a fresh look at things.

[Hibush]

I would love to see line item billing of students for services that aren't directly teaching/learning-oriented. Universities already charge for housing and food. You want to play a sport in college? Excellent, you pay an extra $12,000 per semester. Campus entertainment? Either you subscribe by semester for an extra $1,000 or you pay $75 at the gate for every event.

Absolutely, Spork! It's even got a name: Unbundling.

[Bundling is a symptom of insufficient competition, not a cause.]

The residential campus experience bundles a lot of things into a value-added proposition for many who pay for it. Courses, clubs, dining, tailgating. Also contributing value are the usually unmentioned benefits of getting passed-out drunk at a fraternity party and finding your future spouse (not the same night).

Is this integrated experience a symptom of insufficient competition?  Or only in certain sectors?

[marshwiggle]

I'm finding that I think more seriously about learning outcomes in assignments. Especially for exams. I couldn't figure out a good way to proctor exams, so I'm going to open book. That reflects the post-class reality that students will just look stuff up, so the question becomes, what do they actually need to KNOW that can't just be looked up. Some questions don't change but others do.

Not speaking to you specifically, but to academia in general:

It's about friggin' time!


Since Google has been around for more than two decades,  it's amazing how slow the education system has been to adapt to the reality that grading students on their ability to regurgitate searchable factoids doesn't really have much value. (Not that there isn't more value than students realize in having all kinds of facts memorized and ready-to-hand; just that information unconnected with insight in how to apply it is virtually useless.)

In STEM fields, "word problems" have been a common way to address this. ( Weak students have trouble and just try randomly plugging numbers into whatever formulas they can find.) I'm always interested when people talk about how they do that in other disciplines. One I can recall is in courses with lots of readings, having students compare how two or more readings deal with some issue. Unless that particular question involving those two particular books is a common thing, it wont' be googleable.

The thing I struggle with is testing skills in a way that is different from finding an example and plugging in different values. (I'm in engineering.) I guess I've been teaching the same course for too many years and need to take a fresh look at things.

Just a couple of ideas that come to mind.

Lots of problems require solving for an unknown. The more variiables there are, the more different ways the same basic problem can be offered by simply choosing which quantity is the unknown. If studen ts memorize each variation of the same equation it becomes overwhelming, whereas if they understand how to rearrange it it's straightforward.


Another thing I noticed some years back when I was doing tutorials is that the textbook would often include all kinds of numerical values in the problem, some of which were extraneous. Students who were just trying to find a formula and shove stuff in got flummoxed by having too many numbers for any one formula so they didn't know which one to use.

[Caracal]

I would love to see line item billing of students for services that aren't directly teaching/learning-oriented. Universities already charge for housing and food. You want to play a sport in college? Excellent, you pay an extra $12,000 per semester. Campus entertainment? Either you subscribe by semester for an extra $1,000 or you pay $75 at the gate for every event.

Absolutely, Spork! It's even got a name: Unbundling.

[Bundling is a symptom of insufficient competition, not a cause.]

The residential campus experience bundles a lot of things into a value-added proposition for many who pay for it. Courses, clubs, dining, tailgating. Also contributing value are the usually unmentioned benefits of getting passed-out drunk at a fraternity party and finding your future spouse (not the same night).

Is this integrated experience a symptom of insufficient competition?  Or only in certain sectors?

Remember three years ago when everyone was complaining about how terrible it is that cable bundles Chanels? Now I subscribe to like 10 different things that have replaced cable, I suspect it costs the same amount of money and when I find that something I want to watch is not covered in one of these 10 things I have to then decide if it is worth to pay for the other thing.

It turns out that having to make all these choices is actually a cost in itself. The other thing is that it ignores the benefits of a community, even to those who might not participate in it. Having a decent college newspaper might be a good thing, even for those students who don't write for it, or even read it regularly.

[marshwiggle]

The residential campus experience bundles a lot of things into a value-added proposition for many who pay for it. Courses, clubs, dining, tailgating. Also contributing value are the usually unmentioned benefits of getting passed-out drunk at a fraternity party and finding your future spouse (not the same night).

Is this integrated experience a symptom of insufficient competition?  Or only in certain sectors?

Remember three years ago when everyone was complaining about how terrible it is that cable bundles Chanels? Now I subscribe to like 10 different things that have replaced cable, I suspect it costs the same amount of money and when I find that something I want to watch is not covered in one of these 10 things I have to then decide if it is worth to pay for the other thing.

It turns out that having to make all these choices is actually a cost in itself. The other thing is that it ignores the benefits of a community, even to those who might not participate in it. Having a decent college newspaper might be a good thing, even for those students who don't write for it, or even read it regularly.

The problem with bundling is that is allows the decisions makers to impose a subsidy for their pet rpojects on everyone.  Cable bundles would include a few popular channels plus a whole bunch of really niche things. Libertarians oppose all kionds of taxes for this reason. At least with governements, if they spend money on programs most people think are frivilous voters can boot them out of office. However in an institution, students get no such say over what their bundled fees subsidize. The employees who make those choices are untouchable.

[Caracal]

The residential campus experience bundles a lot of things into a value-added proposition for many who pay for it. Courses, clubs, dining, tailgating. Also contributing value are the usually unmentioned benefits of getting passed-out drunk at a fraternity party and finding your future spouse (not the same night).

Is this integrated experience a symptom of insufficient competition?  Or only in certain sectors?

Remember three years ago when everyone was complaining about how terrible it is that cable bundles Chanels? Now I subscribe to like 10 different things that have replaced cable, I suspect it costs the same amount of money and when I find that something I want to watch is not covered in one of these 10 things I have to then decide if it is worth to pay for the other thing.

It turns out that having to make all these choices is actually a cost in itself. The other thing is that it ignores the benefits of a community, even to those who might not participate in it. Having a decent college newspaper might be a good thing, even for those students who don't write for it, or even read it regularly.

The problem with bundling is that is allows the decisions makers to impose a subsidy for their pet rpojects on everyone.  Cable bundles would include a few popular channels plus a whole bunch of really niche things. Libertarians oppose all kionds of taxes for this reason. At least with governements, if they spend money on programs most people think are frivilous voters can boot them out of office. However in an institution, students get no such say over what their bundled fees subsidize. The employees who make those choices are untouchable.

Yeah, geez, if I don't drive down some street why do I have to pay for a traffic light there. And if I don't have a kid who needs a playground?

[spork]

[. . . ]

However in an institution, students get no such say over what their bundled fees subsidize. The employees who make those choices are untouchable.

Prime example of this is the higher per student spending on athletes compared to non-athletes at places like UNC, Auburn, etc. Students who have no interest at all in athletics are forced to subsidize others through tuition and fees.

[marshwiggle]

The problem with bundling is that is allows the decisions makers to impose a subsidy for their pet rpojects on everyone.  Cable bundles would include a few popular channels plus a whole bunch of really niche things. Libertarians oppose all kionds of taxes for this reason. At least with governements, if they spend money on programs most people think are frivilous voters can boot them out of office. However in an institution, students get no such say over what their bundled fees subsidize. The employees who make those choices are untouchable.

Yeah, geez, if I don't drive down some street why do I have to pay for a traffic light there. And if I don't have a kid who needs a playground?

That's my point about the difference between a government and some other organization. If a government goes off in a direction that doesn't connect with a majority of voters, that government may not get re-elected. As for traffic lights and playgrounds, as long as a government makes voters understand the common good, then actions for the common good will get support. But the more a specific action benefits a very specific group at the expense of everyone else, the harder sell it will be. But a private organization doesn't have the same need to "sell" those narrow interests and can just impose them.

[dismalist]

A private organization can impose a bundle only if there is little competition. There are few cable providers, so they can bundle. There are many  supermarkets, so they do not force me to buy noodles with my chicken.

[spork]

Maybe charlatans in charge of universities will be forced out because criminal or civil penalties:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/29/us/politics/coronavirus-liberty-university-falwell.html.

[Hibush]

A private organization can impose a bundle only if there is little competition. There are few cable providers, so they can bundle. There are many  supermarkets, so they do not force me to buy noodles with my chicken.

Doesn't KFC bundle biscuits and cole slaw with their chicken?  There are many chicken fryers.