We all remember the horrors of freshman year.
Well, at least I do.
It mainly consisted of feeling overwhelmed with course requirements and prerequisites and having to pick a major that would lead to a sensible career path.
Looking back, I think part of it had a lot to do with the general university setting.
It intimidated me — having to think about how the next four years of my life would be, on the same campus, in similar buildings, finding the intellectual topics I want to commit to for who knows how long. But guess what?
Arizona State University has recently announced its plans to offer its freshman year online through the nonprofit website edX.
Though I’m all for in-class learning, I think the online format will ease some freshman anxieties and solve problems with large college courses.
But before we go into that, there are other benefits to the program, too. It seems to take a more open approach to education. “Leave your GPA, your SATs, your recommendations at home,” said Anant Agarwal, chief executive of edX. “If you have the will to learn, just bring your Internet connection and yourself, and you can get a year of ?college credit.”
If this doesn’t sound appealing, consider the affordability of the program: a year of credit will cost less ?than $6,000.
To qualify, students only need to pay a $45 fee to ?verify their identity.
A tuition of about $200 per credit is charged only after passing a proctored ?final exam.
But some remain skeptical of the online approach.
Many argue these massive open online courses are more about advertising brands than offering ?an education.
These skeptics believe the online format fails to deliver the student-professor interaction required in ?college education.
Yet most large freshman lectures already lack ?student-professor interaction.
I’m willing to bet that everyone in college has had more than one large lecture course in which little student-professor interaction took place.
There’s the big lecture room, the professor in the front and the students on their laptops who are aimlessly scrolling through social media accounts or ?doing who knows what.
In those cases, who is ?to blame?
Professors worry about giving meaningless, boring lectures and yapping away about something their students could fall asleep to, while students worry about their limited attention spans and how rude and stupid they are for not finding ?anything interesting.
I think these scenarios make both parties uncomfortable, and people are ?often dismissive.
“My professor sucked,” students complain.
“The students don’t care,” professors say with a sigh.
But maybe it’s none ?of that.
Maybe it’s the format of the large lecture room with many chairs and the lone professor in the front who is trying to out-voice the divergent chatter from many ?feet away.
In these cases, maybe online education is, in fact, a better approach.
It offers a more interactive way of learning where at least students need to be actively on their computers to progress through ?the course.
Though it might not be all that much, it’s at least a little more personal and interactive than the dreaded large lectures three times a week, filled with the occasional snoring and the ever-so-determined professor, continuing on, pretending not to hear it, pretending not ?to know.
nywu@indiana.edu
