Twenty years ago I was responsible for creating an online version of Carnegie Mellon University graduate programs which were run out of their Silicon Valley Campus. The courses we created, (100% learn by doing courses in masters degree programs in computer science) which were directed by CMU faculty in Pittsburgh, were only sometimes appreciated by the CMU faculty. The students went from hating it during the first few weeks (because it was different from what they expected) to loving it (because they were acquiring real job skills and were getting hired by local companies.) So, while we hear every day that universities will be online next year, we need to understand what they mean by online is the closest imitation to what is there now so that faculty will not have to change anything they do or teach. But things will change. Why does it take 40 hours to learn every single thing? Can’t you learn something in 3 hours or in 300? College would become much cheaper and kids would sign up in order to learn rather than to have a good time and get away from their parents. We can make education work for everyone by making it cheaper and offering thousands of courses
I suspect this has as much or more to do with hiring practices than education. Our company makes hiring decisions 100% based on skills tests, scenario-based interviewing and a few psychometric rules of thumb for how they phrase things in their application letters. I honestly don't know where 90% of my team went to college, and only know the other 10% because it came up in casual conversation.
Also by making learning faster and more relevant they’ll have more time and money to hang out and do the things they come to college to do anyway
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"So, while we hear every day that universities will be online next year, we need to understand what they mean by online is the closest imitation to what is there now so that faculty will not have to change anything they do or teach." What I fear is a "counter-reformation" which undermines whatever progress online learning has made over the past few months as faculty rush back to their old model while yelling about how they were right all along about online learning--how much less impactful it is is compared to the magic of teacher-led face-to-face classroom. For example, https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/views/2020/06/10/online-learning-not-future-higher-education-opinion