Numerous articles, essays, and editorials have addressed the recent growth in online learning, especially at the college and university level. Most of these pieces have presented the relationship between online and classroom learning as a conflict, and many of them have heralded the demise of traditional, campus-based education and all institutions reliant on that method of teaching. Others assert that MOOCs are a fad that will disappear along with correspondence courses.
Both predictions are wrong. Based on my experience, online learning is a powerful, transformative form of education that, nevertheless, will never replace classroom learning on a traditional campus.
I am a professor of world religions at Emmanuel College in Boston, and I teach both in the classroom and online. I think that my students learn a lot in both formats. My experience and theirs—according to student evaluations—has been positive. Still, I have a strong preference for classroom teaching. More importantly, I have a strong preference for the classroom-based residential college campus. Students do as well.
First, the positives of online learning. Colleges are creating massively open online courses (MOOCs). These are free courses in important and challenging subjects offered over the internet. Anyone in the world with an adequate internet connection can take them, and hundreds of thousands have. These courses may revolutionize global education. A villager in Borneo with access to the internet can now take a class in organic chemistry from a professor at MIT. The education she receives could then benefit her local community. MOOCs level the playing field, offering education to people who otherwise might never receive it. That’s a great blessing for them and for the world.
Also, online learning is usually superior to lecture hall learning. Universities love lecture hall learning because you can (inexpensively) cram 300 students into a room with one professor and call it education. That may be a misnomer. Lecture hall learning is passive. At its worst students sit and listen, then memorize facts or master skills that they reproduce on exams. Passive learning like this is ineffective—it doesn’t engage the whole mind, it doesn’t develop critical thinking skills, it doesn’t teach creative problem solving, it doesn’t offer the challenges of group work. Robots do rote memorization and rote tasks well, so anyone with a rote education is vulnerable to replacement.
Good online learning utilizes powerful technological tools to demand that students examine problems from multiple angles, think for themselves, evaluate sources, analyze information, synthesize disparate thoughts, and write their conclusions coherently. Good online learning is superior to most lecture hall learning because good online learning is active and most lecture hall learning is passive. If online learning kills the college lecture hall that will be a good thing.
Nevertheless, despite the transformative potential of online learning, one hundred years from now America will still educate most of its college students in classrooms on residential campuses in a face-to-face format. That education is expensive and worth it.
Can the rich, vibrant, stimulating culture of a college campus be replaced by an iPad? Living at home with your parents, watching an internet lecture, and eating a bowl of cereal in your pajamas is not the same as going away to college. It’s cheaper, to be sure. But it’s not as powerful and it’s not as good.
Yes, traditional college education has become extremely expensive. That expense is due to a number of factors, one of which is an increasing demand for services on the part of students and parents. That demand is increasing, not decreasing. Colleges that want to attract students must offer internships, counseling, labs, clubs, sports, fitness centers, health care, quality cafeterias, comfortable dormitories, large libraries, high tech classrooms, famous speakers, study abroad opportunities, academic support services, financial aid advisers, and career placement. Some bare-bones colleges exist, but very few. Parents want the best experience possible for their child and they’re willing to pay for it. For almost all of them, that is a traditional college campus with a lot of services.
And not without reason. Consider what will be lost by those students who get an online education at home rather than a traditional education on campus. They won’t have access to specialized lab equipment, but familiarity with such equipment is obligatory in scientific professions. They won’t gain the confidence that comes from exchanging ideas spontaneously in a classroom. They won’t be taken by a professor to a local place of interest of direct relevance to their coursework. They won’t argue with a classmate over dinner about a point that a professor made in class. They won’t seek help on a complicated problem from a fellow student down the hall. They won’t sit around a table trying to negotiate the complex social, technical, and intellectual demands of a group project. They won’t take piano lessons or stage a play or improve their public speaking skills.
Worst of all, they won’t have face-to-face conversations with their professors. That is a huge loss. We want our students to be educated, not trained, and education occurs best when humans educate humans directly. Human beings need to relate to human beings. That’s why online dating will never replace real dating, online parenting will never replace real parenting, and online colleges will never replace real colleges. If online learning is so wonderful, then why don’t we switch to online high schools? Or middle schools? Or elementary schools? Because it wouldn’t work. It won’t work in college either.
Emmanuel College, where I teach, has a stimulating urban campus. Here, students become leaders in causes they didn’t know about in high school. They room with international students. They volunteer at organizations throughout Boston. They meet the authors of the books they read. They are placed in challenging internships at Merck next door. Elsewhere, they intern as student teachers, student nurses, and student lab techs.
Academically, Emmanuel students receive the kind of attention that an online degree could never offer. Such personal, experiential learning is taking place at colleges around the country. It transforms student lives. That’s why parents want it for their children, students want it for themselves, and America should want it for its future.