"Flying mustache" Friedman getting roundly criticized (again)

[Iwillnevergiveup]

From Sunday's New York Times, he's hyping up online higher education. The readers' comments show much, much more creativity and critical thinking.


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/16/opinion/friedman-come-the-revolution.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

[Iwillnevergiveup]

1. Like this one

from Jonathan in Philadelphia:

"If we want to talk about leveling the social playing field, we need to face the fact that we are graduating many students from high school with a skill set that fails to match the pedagogical and curricular demands of higher ed. You can give those students access to a laptop and Coursera, but what good would it do them? And those are the kids that we need to have at the forefront of our thinking about education reform."

[n2doc]

2. Many, if not most, students are unprepared for the mental rigor it takes to work online

It is not like playing 'angry birds'. You have to set aside the time, and be prepared to concentrate, in an environment with no incentive to do so (other that what you yourself can muster). In a good classroom environment, you face pressure to pay attention to the lecture, ask questions, listen to others. Sure, some huge lecture halls provide the opportunity to sleep through the lecture, and you do still need to attend the lecture if you are going to school. But in my experience, and I have taught both on line and in person, students respond much more actively to face to face lecturing.
Don't even get me started on the bs about "star" lecturers. Most of these so called 'stars' are no better than cut rate b movie actors. Making students 'feel good' isn't the best sign of learning, but it is what gets good evaluations.