Imagine waking up two mornings a week and, instead of walking to Cohen Auditorium for your Biology 13 class, opening your laptop and watching the lecture from the comfort of your room. This might sound like an unlikely scenario on the Hill, but streamed lectures are becoming more and more of a reality at private and public colleges alike.
While online education is often associated with "non-traditional" college careers such as the education of older individuals and those looking for job-specific training — it has recently been implemented in a number of more-traditional institutions.
According to a 2009 study by the Sloan Consortium, a nonprofit organization devoted to enhancing online education in higher education, 4.6 million students took at least one college course online during the fall 2008 term. Web-based courses played a larger role for public institutions, with 74 percent of such schools believing that online learning is critical for their long-term strategy. In comparison, 51 percent of private for-profit institutions and 50 percent of private nonprofit institutions agreed with that statement.
One reason behind the recent increase in online classes is the decrease in state funds made available to public institutions. State schools have more students registered for classes than they have resources with which to provide classrooms and teachers. This semester, for example, 1,500 students are registered for Principles of Microeconomics online at the University of Florida. The school does not have a space large enough to contain them nor does it possess the financial resources to create one.
While putting lectures online might allow more students to take certain courses, however, some worry about what is sacrificed in exchange.
Up to 450 undergraduates can take Professor of Economics George Norman's Economics 5: Principles of Economics (EC 5) class, making it one of the largest classes on campus. Norman is familiar with the online format of teaching, which he saw being used in the United Kingdom before coming to Tufts, he said. His main concerns with online classes, however, are the lack of interaction with teachers and the necessary rigidness of online courses. Norman finds there is more flexibility in typical classes, where students and teachers communicate directly with one another. If students are struggling, teachers have the ability to divert from their scripts and review problematic material, according to Norman.
Dean of Arts and Sciences Joanne Berger-Sweeney expressed similar concerns.
"It's hard for me to imagine that people would embrace [the implementation of online courses]," Berger-Sweeney said. "Faculty like interacting with their students as much as students like connecting with their professors."
Additionally, online classes hinder professors' abilities to adapt to their students' needs within a single class session, Norman said. "I like to be spontaneous."
Aside from the loss of interaction between students and teachers, there are a number of other concerns about online classes, Norman explained; unless some form of attendance is taken or regular assessments are administered, posting lectures online makes it easy for students to put off watching them until just before exams. Norman knows from experience that very few students turn work in early. As a result, if lectures are online, too much course work may be left to the last minute, he said.
"Students will not look at the material until the end [of the course]," Norman said.
Another practical issue with online courses is copyright law that restricts certain materials from being posted online. While professors are allowed to show slides containing tables or pictures from textbooks in their classrooms, they cannot legally put many of the materials online for a larger public audience to view.
But online classes do present one solution to overcrowded, and potentially distracting, class settings, freshman Jeremy Owades said. Owades is enrolled in EC 5 this semester and does not enjoy being part of such a large class.
"I find it impossible to pay attention through an entire lecture," Owades said. "You have to sit in the first few rows to be able to hear the professor."
Still, Owades feels the quality of professor-taught classes outweighs the convenience of online lectures.
"I would feel robbed of my education," Owades said. "The reason we go here is to interact with really good professors."
Freshman Molly Weinstein does not mind the size of her Political Science 61: Introduction to International Relations class but finds that large lectures present certain challenges.
"The whole structure of the class is different," Weinstein said. "The professor tried to make it discussion-based, but the lecture format and number of students makes it hard."
Freshman Ali Silverstein, whose biology professor posts audio recordings and PowerPoint presentations from lectures online, sees online lectures as an acceptable supplemental practice. Otherwise, she much prefers learning in a traditional classroom environment.
"If you're sick [and miss class], it's a really good resource," Silverstein said. "If I did everything from my room, I wouldn't have the other students' energy and input to feed off of, like I do in class."
Similarly, Norman sees the marriage of technology and traditional classroom teaching as beneficial so long as they complement one another. Norman, for example, gauges his students' understanding by having them answer multiple-choice questions using remote-control clickers.
According to Weinstein, students taking online classes miss out on the best aspects of education, the interactions between students and teachers are incredibly valuable. "We can be taught by a computer, but it's limiting. It doesn't allow us to explore beyond the set curriculum," Weinstein said.
