Online Education & In-Person Learning Shouldn’t Be Mutually Exclusive
Posted by anastasia on 08-20-2009
Last June I was invited to a retreat where some of the biggest thinkers in education were asked to dream up what K-12 education should look like without limitations. One theme that emerged from the working group I was in was the need for individualized learning plans and the role of the internet in being able to address this — both at home and at school. We didn’t throw away the physical concept of schools, but we came pretty close – making the face-to-face experience much more group oriented and collaborative with the teacher’s role shifting from lecturer to facilitator.
When I saw this post yesterday on the New York Times Bits blog summarizing a study claiming that online learning actually “beats the classroom,” I felt like maybe this is one proof point that would bring us closer to truly transforming public education. From the post:
Over the 12-year span, the report found 99 studies in which there were quantitative comparisons of online and classroom performance for the same courses. The analysis for the Department of Education found that, on average, students doing some or all of the course online would rank in the 59th percentile in tested performance, compared with the average classroom student scoring in the 50th percentile. That is a modest but statistically meaningful difference.
The challenge of course is that public education has become such a huge bureaucratic institution literally warehousing millions of students. The notion of individualized education plans combining online learning from home and in school with decentralized classroom experiences feels like an impossible dream. The system’s response (at least on the K-12 level and with the exception of some charter schools) appears to create the dichotomy of “virtual schools” and “physical schools” forcing students to choose between online education vs. classroom learning. But like the Man From La Mancha, maybe we should keep dreaming. This study tells me that the quality of online education is improving. And part of my dream, of course, includes the ongoing collaboration from industry to make these virtual options the most innovative and cutting edge they can be for students (vs. being developed in isolation by ed tech courseware companies who may actually be behind the technology curve).
Sorta Related
A reader emailed to tell me about a new project being developed by Spero/BigTime TV in the UK called the Media Hub project, which is designed to provide digital resources for disadvantaged communities through United World Schools, a newly registered UK charity. The project is at pilot stage, and they are currently negotiating with prospective partners, with a view to staging a formal launch Q1 2010. They plan to work with “many different companies to provide a best practice solution” (music to my ears). Definitely one to watch…
Categorized under: Education