And Now… Software Will Allow a Single Professor to Deliver, ‘Meaningful Education to Hundreds of Thousands of Students at Once’
May 23rd, 2012In ten or twenty years, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the majority of paid work in companies, that is, work that isn’t done by machines, being done by these “certificate” holders. They’ll live in ever expanding slums, autonomously policed by RoboCops and drones. They’ll have fast Internet and there will be Superbowl commercials about how great all of it is.
—Top U.S. Colleges to Offer Free Classes Online
Via: Inside Higher Ed:
Without diminishing learning outcomes, automated teaching software can reduce the amount of time professors spend with students and could substantially reduce the cost of instruction, according to new research.
In experiments at six public universities, students assigned randomly to statistics courses that relied heavily on “machine-guided learning” software — with reduced face time with instructors — did just as well, in less time, as their counterparts in traditional, instructor-centric versions of the courses. This largely held true regardless of the race, gender, age, enrollment status and family background of the students.
The study comes at a time when “smart” teaching software is being increasingly included in conversations about redrawing the economics of higher education. Recent investments by high-profile universities in “massively open online courses,” or MOOCs, has elevated the notion that technology has reached a tipping point: with the right design, an online education platform, under the direction of a single professor, might be capable of delivering meaningful education to hundreds of thousands of students at once.
The new research from the nonprofit organization Ithaka was seeking to prove the viability of a less expansive application of “machine-guided learning” than the new MOOCs are attempting — though one that nevertheless could have real implications for the costs of higher education.
“… students … that relied heavily on “machine-guided learning” software … did just as well, in less time, as their counterparts in traditional, instructor-centric versions of the courses.”
This shouldn’t be an argument for relying more on computer-guided instruction, it should be a statement damning the current state of classroom education. There’s no comparison between what a good teacher in a supportive school can do for a student and what an “intelligent” computer tutor can do. But, today, whether in elementary school or college, the average student’s experience in a classroom is mind-numbing drudgery.
As a tool for producing limited skill set worker drones with diminished critical thinking skills, however, I’m sure automated teaching software will work profoundly well.
Just stick the reprogrammable labor skill chip in our heads and be done with it already.