Update | 11:08 p.m. Read an article by Steve Lohr on keeping abreast of innovation in the Continuing Education special section.
Noah Berger for The New York Times Tyler Kennedy, 9, searches the Web at home in California.
The report examined the comparative research on online versus traditional classroom teaching from 1996 to 2008. Some of it was in K-12 settings, but most of the comparative studies were done in colleges and adult continuing-education programs of various kinds, from medical training to the military.
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 study’s major significance lies in demonstrating that online learning today is not just better than nothing — it actually tends to be better than conventional instruction,” said Barbara Means, the study’s lead author and an educational psychologist at SRI International.
This hardly means that we’ll be saying good-bye to classrooms. But the report does suggest that online education could be set to expand sharply over the next few years, as evidence mounts of its value.
“We are at an inflection point in online education,” said Philip R. Regier, the dean of Arizona State University’s Online and Extended Campus program.
The biggest near-term growth, Mr. Regier predicts, will be in continuing education programs. Today, Arizona State has 5,000 students in its continuing education programs, both through in-person classes and online. In three to five years, he estimates, that number could triple, with nearly all the growth coming online.
But Mr. Regier also thinks online education will continue to make further inroads in transforming college campuses as well. Universities — and many K-12 schools — now widely use online learning management systems, like Blackboard or the open-source Moodle. But that is mostly for posting assignments, reading lists, and class schedules and hosting some Web discussion boards.
Mr. Regier sees things evolving fairly rapidly, accelerated by the increasing use of social networking technology. More and more, students will help and teach each other, he said. For example, it will be assumed that college students know the basics of calculus, and the classroom time will focus on applying the math to real-world problems — perhaps in exploring the physics of climate change or modeling trends in stock prices, he said.
For K-12, online classes may translate to more face-to-face instruction. We pulled our son out of a useless junior high, let him play guitar and video games at home all day, and used an online charter school to teach him ourselves at night. The online curriuculum was definitely superior to what the local school offered, and the 1:1 instruction was very efficient. After one semester, he’s ahead of all his old classmates, rather than failing, and he’s enjoying life. Most people probably can’t arrange their lives to do this, but it sure can work when it works.
If you resonate with the studies conclusions, consider that we’ve only begun to scratch the surface. Imagine what we’ll begin to see when the generation that’s been “bathed in bits” begins building learning communities?
Imagine a mash-up of stumbleupon (randomizing), plus freerice.com (rewards/incentives), plus websites only slightly tweaked to deliver the core content required by states’ NCLB-mandated standards. The most successful (digital) charter school in history.
Great to see the validation from SRI.
Learning is an independent activity Mr. Reiger to the contrary… We all decide what we want to learn — 1st decision and then for different people there are different ways to learn things… The computer which can repreat things forever — and is very patient is a good method for that reason… It can also talk to us and put up something for us to read concurrently — this is where much teaching falls down — on the visual component..A few things do need hands on practice.. say dissection but having had lots of trouble with the instruction from the human instructor on the dissection of the baby pig – I now wonder how I would have done with computer directions to guide me…. sort of like operating long distance via video hookups which are now done…..
and thank heavesn for Wikipedia. — there are some good people out there.
One problem with saying that students in online classes do slightly better than students in traditional classes goes back to the old comparing apples and oranges thing. Online classes have their own assessments that may not parallel traditional assessments. The very technology tends to skew what can and cannot be assessed. Was there any standardization in the compared assessments, I wonder?
I’m halfway through an online master’s program with SJSU’s SLIS. It’s incredibly individualist, timely, and convenient. While the difference between an instructor that can effectively utilize the technology and also bridge the gap of disconnect between students and one who cannot is literally the difference between day and night, I think that the future of education is not as “scary” as it used to be.
p.s. I assure you Hetty, that it costs much more than you think to run these types of programs well.
I wonder to what degree the comparisons are skewed because online learners tend to have more access to technology etc in general. There could be a real effect, but dubious about the magnitude.
Isn’t it a self-selecting group that would want to learn online? Could this be a reason why those taking online courses do better? There’s a certain drive and motivation necessary to force yourself to learn something you don’t have to.
Perhaps by giving business, civics, math and the sciences over to online learning, truly significant time in the classroom can be given over to the arts and humanities.
Fascinating. When it came to college instruction, did the study consider whether older learners did better than traditional college students?
In my experience, on-line learning can work with motivated adults who already possess the BA or BS and take on-line classes to get a credential or a salary boost at work.
Traditional-age college students need the classroom interaction. For that matter, college-level learning is NOT an individual experience. It’s totally dependent upon dialogue and discussion. Otherwise, we might as well say that all we ever need to know we can get by gazing at our navels.
I’m very disturbed by Hetty Greene’s comment. Wikipedia may provide answers, but a college education is designed to help people ask questions and to analyze. The internet is a wonderful tool, but it does not teach analytical or critical thinking. If you don’t want those things, don’t go to college. And if you want a good lawyer, you best make sure he or she does not see the world in terms of answers and quick facts rather than in terms of questions and analysis.
College students, especially those aged 18-24, need to be challenged by the professor and fellow students in person, because they are far too sheltered and naive to seek challenges to what they already think to be true. Those over the age of 24 are not much better, but if they’ve already gone to college they know to ask questions. Young people, now raised in Hetty Greene’s world in which answers and not questions are touted as the end all and be all, are especially in need of the critical thinking skills that a college education provides.
For that matter, most of my on-line students failed their courses and the university knew they’d fail. On-line courses are cash cows *designed* to take advantage of irresponsible, parent-shielded child-adults who, while by no means dumb, are too lazy to drop courses in which they lose interest. Students in my classroom rarely fail because they stop attending class. Students on-line, however, quickly lose interest and are so enamored of their new independence that they forget to drop the course. The F stays on their record and the university gets the cash.
I have personally been the student in a variety of settings, including online, traditional college, foreign universities, community college, etc. What I have found is 1 year later, my retention rate of the material I learned is about the same, irrespective of the delivery method.
That said, I found the online learning drudgery. No live interaction with students & teachers, no debates, etc. No camaraderie, no life-long friendships formed, etc. Not good for extroverts. Living on campus with fellow students is more valuable, and leaves greater impressions, than what you learn in the classroom, particularly 30 years later. So for young people, I definitely recommend the college campus experience, living away from home starting at 18. What you learn about life & getting along with other people will never be reproduced online.
On the plus side, driving to class after work to listen to a bored adjunct for 90 minutes, then driving home is a waste of time. I could read that material myself in 20 minutes in the comfort of my home AND get a higher score on the test. You can move at your own speed and don’t waste time doing stuff that’s redundant. You can do assignments at 2 a.m. if you want – it’s your schedule. In these regards, online learning is superior. Much better for working stiffs trying to get ahead.
The subject matter is also important. Much easier to learn computer programming online than brain surgery. Anything involving people, like physical therapy, needs a large “live” component. OTH, accounting can likely be done easily online.
Bottom line is the motivated learner or student can do well in a variety of settings. As #3 pointed out, it’s cheaper to do online. Just record the professor’s lecture one time, and you’re done, even if s/he dies.
It’s also good for people who live in Timbuktu. You can still have access to the famous professor from home, something that was impossible before.
From this overview that has been presented, it would appear that the research has discovered a correlation rather than a causation in their results.
More bluntly, people taking online courses are a self selected group of people who want to learn. In a regular college environment, that just isn’t there – there are plenty of deadbeats who get weeded out, or people who realize that this isn’t for them, or people who were pushed into college by mom and dad and just aren’t too terribly bright.
Comparison of test scores doesn’t validate the results that Ms. Means and her team has drawn from their research. Their results are interesting, but the essential point still stands; they’ll need more data on the students themselves to draw any form of conclusion about the real efficacy of online teaching.
Just throwing online tools at people does not mean they will engage in meaningful learning. And many course management systems — Blackboard is the notorious biggest offender — are closed, proprietary, and their online media are decades behind the curve.
It’s free and open source software and all the curricular materials are free for others to use.
Yes, I strongly agree. As a teacher, I want students to have individualized learning experiences, especially students who are already 2-3 years behind.
Right now in Florida we actually have a state law that says students who have already been retained “2 or more years” in public schools are required to be in an “alternative placement” — but no one bothered to fund any alternative placement settings for those students already left back 2 or more years who are not eligible for special ed because they do not score low enough to qualify.
What these kids need is an online alternative placement classroom; one like the online classrooms now being used in NYC over the summer to teach math as recently profiled in the NY Times.
By offering students an online alternative, in school, the school still gets the money to educate the student, and the student has a chance for an individual online experience that may even enable the student to catch up.
And, the student could still attend music, art and PE classes with their actual age peers, which is not what happens now.
This is not a good situation for that student, or for the other students who are actually only 10 years old.
And the larger student does not like taking 4th grade art, music and PE three years in a row either.
So, I am looking forward to more online learning in schools, especially for situations like the above. This would really be a tremendous help to all students and teachers.
While enrolled in a mixed media course, where lectures were delivered online through Blackboard with weekly discussion/quiz sessions in a classroom, we quickly found that the best way for many of us to watch the lectures was, in fact, together. This gave everyone a chance to ask questions in the middle of the lecture, and have a possible answer. However, having the ability to go straight to lectures during review helped in studying for finals, or doing homework. Nonetheless, given the complex content of the course, I feel that at least some human interaction was necessary for conceptual comprehension.
On the contrary, Buzz, I think most people can rearrange their lives to allow their kids the best education. There’s no law, biological or otherwise, that says kids can only learn between 9 and 3 or between September and June. Teenagers in particular are more awake in the afternoon and evening than they are at 7am. Why not allow them to adjust their educational schedule to fit their circadian rhythm by implementing more asynchronous learning?
Being in a doctorate program at Boston University, I can certainly attest to the rigor and depth of the educational experience. I have degrees and certification from several prominent institutions (Kenyon College, University of Colorado – Boulder, University of TN – Knoxville, University of Memphis), and would put my on-line experience at BU against any of my excellent live classroom experiences. Being able to continue to work while attending graduate school has been a major plus. I am able to remain in my house, no travel time, and can archive lectures and classes.
On the down side, one misses the informal exchanges of student-to-student and student to faculty personal contacts.
I agree with the last paragraph completely. I have studied in online only, classroom only, and an online/classroom hybrid. While I learned a lot from all of them, logic in online classes and political science and all the drama that entails in classroom classes, I did like the hybrids. Sharing thoughts online and then meeting in person.
I completed an accredited online graduate course in the Humanities at the age is 83! Independent study is the way we all learn, and through the graded discussions and a good professor, it is the only way of the future for working people who cannot travel for their studies, and saves the enormous expense of dormitory life.
It is truly astounding that schools do not offer more online courses..
JS17 seems to have more varied experiences than I have; and seems to capture several facets of the argument. I think certain subjects and basic disciplines could be taught on-line; but others wouldn’t lend themselves to it. Hetty Green thinks one could become a lawyer for $100. Good luck with that. How is one going to participate in a Socratic dialogue amongst ones peers? Maybe when videoconferencing improves and becomes cheaper.
I wonder if what could also be happening, with regards to college students participating in online courses, is that those people voluntarily taking these courses are self-selected to be students with more tenacity and self-discipline than students who would not be able to make that commitment. Just a thought. I could be way off-base here.
Math *is* a humanity. It is not a science. It is an art in itself, not a tool, although it can be used as a tool, much as the English language can be used as a tool though it is not *merely* a tool.
And the best way to learn it is through wide ranging mathematical conversation with an actual mathematician, as opposed to “problem sets”. Unfortunately there is little to no math (proofs, methods of proof etc), and next to no mathematicians, below university level in this country so most people are not exposed to this fact.. Perhaps an inherent flaw of forced “education”.
As to the original article, I suspect again that, because correllation is not equal to causation, there is quite a bit of self-selection in the study. Whether this be true or not, however, the lower cost of online instruction will drive increased use of online education systems in the future.
animation clips, virtual field trips, QTVRs, sound clips to help convey information and concepts. Much better for teachers to SHOW & TELL rather than to just TELLl information to students like our ancestors did in the Bronze Age…and assume the students know what you’re talking/telling about.
chalkTALK to them in an attempt to convey information.
students for the early 1900s?
YouTube, Toyota etc. say we should be teaching our kids to prepare them for the workplace of 2015-2050? Or should we teach them to farm using electric tractors and combines?
online eSchool. And provide free “brick & mortar” preschools for all 3 and 4 year-olds who live below the poverty line.