Dive Summary:
- Jeremy Teitelbaum, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Connecticut, writes for UConn Today, arguing that massive open online courses (MOOCs) will not be able to ultimately displace traditional classroom learning environments.
- Teitelbaum points to higher education's ability to survive the invention of the printing press and the failure of the University of Illinois' online Global Campus initiative as indicators that universities will continue to evolve successfully with face-to-face instruction still playing a crucial role.
- He also tells other educators not to panic, stating that good universities will benefit in the long run from "a talent pool with a broad perspective and deep expertise."
From the article:
One of the hot trends in higher education is the spread of MOOC: Massively Online, Open Courseware. MOOCs are online courses with high production values that are freely available to the public. For example, Harvard and MIT recently announced edX, an online partnership to offer online learning “to millions of people around the world.” Stanford, Princeton, Michigan, and Penn have teamed up to launch Coursera, which promises the opportunity to “Learn from world-class professors, watch high quality lectures, achieve mastery via interactive exercises, and collaborate with a global community of students.” ...