Thought this article on the chronicle was pretty much spot on. Very good piece:<\/p>\n
Source: http:\/\/chronicle.com\/article\/Who-Is-Driving-the-Online\/140505\/<\/a><\/p>\n “Proponents of online learning often use train metaphors to describe its growing impact on the educational landscape. Those of us who teach at two-year colleges, especially, are constantly encouraged, prodded, hectored, cajoled\u2014and sometimes even ordered\u2014to get on board. Otherwise, we’re told, we’re likely to be run over.<\/em><\/p>\n As one who is skeptical regarding the long-term benefits of online learning, I would attest that the train metaphor is pretty apt. I sometimes feel as though I’m standing on the tracks, signaling “proceed with caution,” while the online locomotive bears down on me, air horn reverberating.<\/em><\/p>\n I suspect others share that vivid nightmare. But what makes it especially sobering now is that, with the advent of MOOCs, the train is picking up steam and we’re no longer alone in its destructive path. These days entire departments, disciplines, and even institutions potentially stand in the way, at risk of being pulverized along with the rest of us.<\/em><\/p>\n Thinking about that phenomenon has led me to wonder, lately, just who is at the throttle. I think that’s a question well worth asking, and the answer ought to inform our response as faculty members. It seems to me that there are only a handful of possibilities:<\/em><\/p>\n Students.<\/strong> Supposedly everything we do in higher education is for the students, and we tend to be especially insistent on that point whenever we fear people might question our motives. Online learning is a perfect example. The reason we keep offering more and more classes online is that students are demanding them. Right?<\/em><\/p>\n Well, maybe. It’s true that during the past decade, the number of students enrolled in online courses grew at a significant rate. But according to a recent study,<\/a> that growth started leveling off in the fall of 2010, when about 31 percent of all postsecondary students were taking at least one online class. Researchers concluded that “the slower rate of growth … compared to previous years may be the first sign that the upward rise in online enrollments is approaching a plateau.”<\/em><\/p>\n Moreover, a survey<\/a> conducted this year by the Community College Research Center at Columbia University found that students at two-year campuses, in particular, prefer face-to-face over online instruction, especially for courses they deem difficult.<\/em><\/p>\n So while some students want, need, and benefit from online classes, the argument that students in general are clamoring for them doesn’t exactly hold up.<\/em><\/p>\n Faculty members.<\/strong> Are they driving the train by demanding to teach more and more classes online? After all, faculty members are often faulted for putting their own scheduling preferences ahead of students’ needs and desires. Is this simply another case of professorial self-centeredness?<\/em><\/p>\n I don’t think so. Speaking anecdotally for a moment, I’ve talked to literally scores of people who teach online, at my institution and others. Hardly any of them prefer it. Oh, they might prefer it in the sense that teaching online allows them more flexibility or reduces their commute. But the overwhelming majority of them tell me that, all things being equal, they would much prefer to teach in a traditional classroom, because they enjoy the personal interaction with students.<\/em><\/p>\n According to a 2009 report by the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, only about 36 percent of faculty members have any experience developing or teaching an online course\u2014a number that conforms closely to the roughly one-third of students who take classes online. Moreover, according to The Chronicle’s report, the study also found that professors’ general attitude toward online courses remains unfavorable\u2014even among those who teach online: “70 percent of all faculty members believe the learning outcomes of online courses to be either inferior or somewhat inferior, compared with face-to-face instruction.”<\/em><\/p>\n When it comes to MOOCs, even fewer faculty members are on board. In fact, as we saw during the recent exchange<\/a> between San Jose State University’s philosophy department and the Harvard professor Michael Sandel, for every faculty member developing a MOOC, there appear to be dozens who object to using such courses in lieu of more traditional offerings.<\/em><\/p>\n More telling, perhaps, is the recent Chronicle survey<\/a> that found that 72 percent of faculty members who teach MOOCs don’t believe their students should receive college credit. In other words, even supporters of MOOCs don’t think they’re as good as face-to-face instruction.<\/em><\/p>\n So it’s not our colleagues at the throttle of the monstrous locomotive threatening to squash the rest of us.<\/em><\/p>\n Employers.<\/strong> Maybe it’s the end users, the companies that hire our graduates, who insist on more and more\u2014and bigger and bigger\u2014online offerings. Certainly, if you listen to the administrators and politicians (and yes, I’ll get to them in a moment), that would seem to be the case.<\/em><\/p>\n Unfortunately, that theory doesn’t wash, either. Another recent survey<\/a> conducted for The Chronicle found that employers have a favorable impression of all types of colleges and universities\u2014except for online institutions. And while there’s certainly a difference between students who complete their entire degrees online and those who just take a few online courses, the findings clearly suggest that employers don’t trust online instruction as much as traditional methods.<\/em><\/p>\n