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American college students are taking a lot more online courses. According to a piece by Kevin Carey at Education Sector:
The Sloan Consortium Report on online higher education… found that the number of college students taking at least one online course increased from 3.9 million in Fall 2007 to 4.6 million in Fall 2008, a 17 percent jump. This week, Sloan released the Fall 2009 numbers. They’re up to 5.6 million, a 21 percent increase.
This year’s growth rate was nearly 20 times greater than the overall growth rate in higher education enrollment, and that the percentage of college students taking at least one online course is now almost 30 percent, up from less than 10 percent in 2002.
This steady growth went largely unreported. In part this has to do with the fact that this online expansion is occurring everywhere, Carey points out. Frankly, it’s just a lot more interesting to note that online sales have destroyed businesses like Blockbuster and independent bookstores than it is to track trends in online higher ed.
Another point, however, is that people tend to look at online education as sort of, well, tacky. As Carey writes:
Adoption of online higher education is occurring in roughly inverse proportion to possession of prestige, both at the institutional and disciplinary levels. So you see a lot of growth in for-profit colleges and community colleges and in disciplines like business and education but far less at elite four-institutions, some of which won’t even accept their own online credits.
This is a good point but, to put snobbishness aside, part of the reason elite institutions aren’t eager to offer computer courses is because they may not be very good.
In July a study by the Community College Research Center at Columbia’s Teachers College, for instance, indicated that while partially online courses might help people to learn information well enough, fully online courses “may…undercut progression among low-income and academically underprepared students.”
It’s very important to know that online education is growing. What’s equally important is figuring out whether or not online education really helps people learn very well.
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ceilidth on November 22, 2010 7:43 PM:
One of the crazier ideas is using online courses for work which involves field experiences which need personal supervision and coaching. Education is a prime example of this. Of the many criticisms of education courses for prospective teachers, the one that I find most valid is that in many states students can become certified as teachers without much actual teaching experience prior to licensure. If we are going to ask more of new teachers, it's essential that they spend time in classrooms with children and that they receive coaching from master teachers or their faculty members. What happens in online courses is that students often are asked to "observe" in classrooms without any way for the university to know the quality of the teaching the students will be observing or the quality of any lessons the students teach. It is the exact opposite of what needs to happen.
Tollhouse Tim on November 23, 2010 7:12 PM:
As a 30+ year practicing lawyer I hasten to point out that attorneys are licensed and placed into practice with no experience and no observation, and often do not even know which courthouse (in multi court venues)to file in. With Mapquest they can now usually get to the court, at least. Law school, followed by the bar exam, are supposed to weed out those without some capacity. Perhaps the teacher licensure proceedure should be brought to a level of difficulty comparable to a bar exam?