Can Online Teaching Replace University Classroom?

Coffee shop in Jakarta could become a classroom for an online learning

I regularly feel the urge to write blogs from my teaching materials. I find them a good way to flush these teaching materials out of my memory bank. When I finish writing it, I feel both satisfied and tired. Much like at the end of every teaching I do in front of class.

One good thing about blogging teaching materials is that I don't have to repeat it. I can imagine saying to my imaginary online students: well, they are on my blog, please read it, and contact me if you have questions.

If students can be motivated to read the material first, then the professor-student interaction will always be Q&A sessions. Discussions take place, instead of mostly one-way communication. That would be lovely.

However, I see little incentive for students to read the material first in the classroom delivery model. Why bother? Professors are expected to deliver lectures; they get paid for doing exactly that. This classroom model is what makes university tuition fees expensive. Buildings need to be erected, full time professors need to be hired.

Which leads me to another question: Can online teaching replace classroom model? There are already many online learning materials. Youtube, Wikipedia, online universities, MIT OpenCourseWare project, and various other sites. I don't think it is difficult for any student to come up with an online study plan for a particular topic or course. I don't think either that learning math or physics online is impossible just because they are mathematical. Video, slides, phone conversations can all be delivered online.

Can an online teaching model be effective? I believe it can be more effective when it is accompanied by the Q&A sessions, or at least as effective without these Q&A sessions. The online model is clearly more efficient. It might even simplify learning process of millions of undergraduate students. What does "simplify" here mean?

Monsoon rain washing quadrangle in Department of Physics, ITB

Students might be persuaded to take fewer courses in an online learning environment since they have more freedom to tailor their individual study plans. I used to live in a dorm in my first year undergraduate and remember arts & sciences students took fewer courses than us - engineering students - since they had freedom to choose (and we don't).

Taking more courses does not mean better understanding. My engineering undergraduate years were always in a rush. Doing homeworks, assignments, term projects, preparing exams. Time moved so fast: exams came and went. I had no time to think and reflect on what I studied. I see my students now feel that way. 20 years separate us and there is no difference. I don't like it.

I had time to think and reflect when I only had to take 2-3 courses per term. This happened in graduate school. I started seeing connections among courses I took in undergraduate and I remembered then that my language became more simple.

Students would actually love fewer courses, I am sure, but professional associations and accreditation boards want to uphold standards. These standards often mean the course load tends to bulge over time rather than gets simpler and leaner.

The US has a market driven university system, where both private and state universities coexist. I think a "drive to simplify" in higher education will occur first in the US, not in Canada. MIT and other prestigious universities might at some point expand their online learning projects into full-fledged online teaching business branches that would compete at a local level with universities around the world. This could be one of the last globalization waves, I guess. (Well, the really last two would be really tough to implement: globalization of free labour movement and state governance.)

I don't see any possibility of self simplification within a university since the world has indeed become more complex. There are always valid arguments to add more courses, or at least keep the number of courses the way they are now. One way to simplify as a response to this pressure is to create more specific programs. Instead of simplifying, it will lead to provincialism.

Only market forces will do this; that is only pressure from students will change things around. Or when MIT and its peers start offering their undergraduate degrees locally at cheaper tuition fees. Or when companies start hiring people based more on their skills than diplomas. Who knows.

Teaching during my sabbatical in ITB, Indonesia (when I still had my hair)