The flava:As more than half of U.S. colleges plan to resume at least some online teaching in the fall, details are beginning to emerge about what classroom teaching might look like in a time of social distancing.
Perhaps the starkest image emerged from Purdue University. Its president, Mitch Daniels, told CNN that some professors will be lecturing from behind clear partitions.
The article:
https://www.edsurge.com/news/2020-05-22-teaching-behind-plexiglass-colleges-wrestle-with-details-of-resuming-in-person-classes
I'd take teaching behind plexiglass any day over teaching via Zoom, or with videos of large classes posted to YouTube. I am deeply ashamed of how amateurish the videos I made of my classes are---but of course, in the near-complete absence of anything that might be construed as help, it took everything I had to make them as GOOD as they are.
ReplyDeleteOne silver lining is that it demonstrates clearly to any honest person that online education is grossly ineffective, barely any different from educational television, programmed instruction, or teaching machines. Only the very most motivated and organized students can benefit much from it. This excludes over 90% of American undergraduates. (I learned Matlab and Python programming online, but I'd already had extensive experience in C++, C, Pascal, and Fortran programming.) The social component of education is too important to be ignored.
But of course, more than a few people in academia and outside of it are dishonest.
Me too.
ReplyDeleteMy best students are doing a great job, which they probably would with any form of instruction. But the average ones are struggling. As for the lower ones, well...personally BU shouldn't let them in, but they or their parents dream that something is going to work for them. Whatever that might be, it certainly isn't more time spent on YouTube.