With China muscling its way into the first ranks as a global power in science and technology—building vast new academic complexes, climbing to the top ranks of the world’s elite universities, surpassing the U.S. in PhD graduates in science and engineering, and on its way to outperforming all other nations in science and technology academic citations—I was puzzled to discover that China is on hold in offering online higher ed degrees.
To expand the nation’s technical talent pool, Chinese universities are upgrading their capacity to offer more up-to-date science and technology courses, with universities just beginning to introduce degrees in artificial intelligence, machine learning, software engineering and other advanced specialties. For China, the move is a departure from its centuries-old tradition of favoring literature and the liberal arts.
China has come a long way from cinema-style instruction to adopt more common digital learning practices, often closely following U.S. advances in online pedagogy, such as flipped classrooms and MOOCs.
Curiously, China’s reluctance to offer online degrees parallels the attitude toward online degrees in the Ivy League in the U.S.—both have embraced MOOCs while turning away from virtual degrees out of concern that remote degrees will damage their reputations.
Stritto, R. A. T. and M. E. D. (2021). What is the Future of Online Education? The Perceptions of Instructors with Over a Decade of Online Teaching Experience. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 24(4). https://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/winter244/thomas_stritto244.html
Rather than asking if online education is going to replace “traditional” education, institutions need to think through how different modalities can meet student needs. Institutions can also communicate with students about the tradeoffs associated with different educational modalities, so that students can choose courses that are the best fit for their lives.
Advocates of competency-based education say they believe public opinion is also shifting their way. They point to a recent national poll showing that 74 percent of voters think the lack of personalized learning in schools is “a problem.”
Readiness for teaching online has been defined as the qualities or predispositions of an instructor that exemplify teaching high-quality online courses (Palloff and Pratt, 2011). Mental and physical preparedness (Cutri and Mena, 2020), a willingness to create active, collaborative learning environments that foster a sense community (Palloff and Pratt, 2011), and acceptance of online teaching (Gibson et al., 2008) also demonstrate readiness for the online teaching and learning modality. An inability or unwillingness to adopt student-focused approaches and the perception that online courses provide low quality learning environments (Gibson et al., 2008) and are not worthwhile (Allen and Seaman, 2015) can be important barriers to the successful transition to teaching online.
Neuroscience research has also revealed that „significant increases in learning can be accomplished through the informed use of visualand verbal multimodal learning‟(Fadel, 2008, p. 12).
Multimodal learning environments allow instructional elements to be presented in more than one sensory mode(visual, aural, written). In turn,materialsthat are presented in a variety of presentation modes may lead learners to perceive that it is easier to learn and improve attention, thus leading to improved learning performance;in particular for lower–achieving students (Chen & Fu, 2003; Moreno & Mayer, 2007; Zywno 2003).
multimodal design, in which „information (is) presented in multiple modes such as visual and auditory‟(Chen & Fu, 2003, p.350).The major benefit of which, as identified by Picciano (2009), is that it „allows students to experience learning in ways in which they are most comfortable, while challenging them to experience and learn in other ways as well‟(p. 13). Consequently, students may become moreself–directed, interacting with the various elements housed in these environments.
Parents interested in remote learning may also discover their choices are all or nothing: Either they can pull their child out of their traditional school to enroll for the whole year in an online option or they can remain in a brick-and-mortar building and hope for the best.
Remote learning isn’t the only need. Pandemic pods and learning hubs have shown the power of small, individualized spaces where community organizations—whose staff often have the trust of students and families in their neighborhoods—to help students discover a sense of belonging and connect them to essential services like tutoring or mental-health support.
how, in practice, did HyFlex instruction for large lectures work out? One University of Copenhagen researcher studied exactly that in a study just published in the Danish journal, Læring og Medier (Learning and Media).
Teaching Crowds: Learning and Social Media by Jon Dron and Terry Anderson Published by Athabasca University, Canada, ISBN: 978-1-927356-81-4 (PDF), September 2014, Pages: 370
Dr. Jon Dron and Professor Terry Anderson of Athabasca University, Canada attempt to introduce a new model for understanding and exploiting the pedagogical potential of Web-based technologies. Recognizing the E-learning/ online education as new model of teaching and learning, the authors show how learners can engage with social media platforms to create an unbounded field of emergent connections.
In chapter 9 ‘Issues and Challenges in Educational Uses of Social Software’ , the writers accordingly examine the dark side of social software—the ways in which it can undermine or even jeopardize, rather than deepen and extend, the experience of learning. They present a series of over-arching issues that warrant consideration by anyone who plans to use social software for learning. These include issues surrounding privacy, disclosure, and trust, cross-cultural dissonances, problems posed by the complexities of technology and by the digital divide, unpredictable systemic effects, and risks such as mob stupidity and filter bubbles.
Sixty-eight percent of students were also in favor of some combination of in-person and online courses. On the faculty side, 57 percent said they would prefer teaching hybrid courses post-pandemic — slightly more than those who preferred teaching fully online.
both students and faculty agreed: Roughly two-thirds across the board said they would like to use more tech and digital course materials in the future.