A more democratic learning
Higher education can be made easier and cheaper without diluting content. New beginnings are being made in this direction
Digital learning is here. The number of
online courses are exploding. Many of the most famous scholars across fields
are being lured by the promise of being able to reach a global audience to
record Massive Open Online Courses or MOOCs. In 2015, there were 35 million
learners taking online classes from 570 universities.
And we in India should be very grateful that
it is happening. We talk a lot about the demographic dividend we are about to
get, but less about how to convert all that talent into the skills that we
need. In particular, our entire system of higher education is desperately short
of teachers; most new business schools and engineering schools survive on
part-time professors who travel from institution to institution, delivering
bread and butter courses. Even the best colleges, universities and institutes
have large numbers of jobs at the professorial level that have been unfilled
for years. This is despite the fact that salaries have risen substantially in
recent years — the problem is that the private sector demand for the kinds of
people we want as professors is also growing fast, potentially even faster. In
other words, we should not expect this problem to fix itself any time soon.
However, there are also some positive reasons
to embrace this change. First, and most obviously, the cost of another person
viewing the same lecture online is essentially zero and if that is the case,
why have a hundred thousand professors redo the same lecture in different forms
in different places? Why not have the person who is best at explaining the
material and conveying what makes it exciting do that job? There will of course
need to be multiple such lectures, in multiple languages and at multiple
levels. But we are still talking about a few hundred basic physics or economics
lectures, not several hundred thousand.
Of course, lecturing is not all that
professors do. We all remember that moment in the lecture when the professor
asked a question and we had the answer and the two of us connected for an
instant, and we felt inspired. Teaching and being taught is a lot about making
those connections; how will that happen in this brave new world of ours, if
each student listens to lectures at home?
The answer is that switching out of the task
of delivering the syllabus frees teachers to take on a very different role.
Simply delivering content from a pulpit is not the most effective way to
communicate with students. The standard lecture format, where students do their
listening in class and their thinking at home is topsy-turvy: It does not
encourage students to bring their questions to the teachers, and does not help
teachers figure out what students have mastered and where they need help.
This is why the best universities in the US,
like Harvard and MIT, despite having the luxury of having some truly excellent
teachers on their payroll, are increasingly embracing the “flipped classroom”
format, where students listen to video lectures at home, and spend class time
applying their knowledge, solving problems, discussing examples, etc.
Professors guide that discussion and fill in wherever necessary, explaining
those bits that seem to be eluding the students and throwing in advanced ideas
that happen to be topical.
What is really exciting is, however, that
these universities have made the video lectures which they use to teach their
own students available to the world free for anyone who wants to listen and
learn from them. They are also encouraging colleges and universities all over
the world to integrate these online courses into their own pedagogy, picking
the pieces that are appropriate for their needs and building a package around
them.
The most recent step in this unfolding might
be the most exciting. These universities are now preparing to offer actual
credentials based on these online courses. On February 6, MIT launched what it
calls a Micromasters in data and economics for development policy, which is a
package of five online courses that, on successful completion, will lead to a
degree from MITx, a newly set up degree granting institution under the MIT
umbrella (for full disclosure, we are excited about this initiative in part
because we created it). The Micromasters, unlike the courses themselves, is not
free but the entire package will cost at most Rs 1 lakh for all but the richest
Indians, and much less than that for those who can demonstrate that they cannot
afford that much. One main reason why the degree is not entirely free is
because the exams for these courses need to be credible and it is costly to
organise properly proctored exams. As a result, students need only pay when
they decide to take the exam for the course — till then it’s just another set
of free online lectures; although by signing up early they will get the support
of a remote MIT teaching assistant and the community of Micromasters students.
This Micromasters programme has no fixed
schedule. A student could take all five courses at once, or just one every year
or semester, and whenever she gets done, in four months or four years, she is
entitled to the degree. It is open to anyone who can complete the courses
successfully, even if she has no previous qualifications whatsoever.
MIT is also encouraging other institutions
worldwide (including in India) to follow suit and offer their own masters
programmes with the MITx Micromasters as the foundation and the primary
qualification. The idea is to make getting advanced credentials easier and
cheaper without diluting the content.
This is, of course, just the beginning. But
many other Micromasters will be coming online soon, and they have the potential
to make high quality higher education much more democratic.
Source | Indian Express | 16 February 2017
Regards
Pralhad
Jadhav
Senior
Manager @ Library
Khaitan & Co
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