THE CLASSROOM AND THE COMPUTER SCREEN Online Education | Page 13

worksheets—might play a peripheral courses to operate this way. They
role in a decent education, but no capture a seasoned scholar on video,
sound education features them as a add tasks for students to complete, and
mainstay. Wherever canned lessons then hand over all human interaction
play a central role, they push sympathy to a teaching assistant (or to a team of
and fellowship out to the margins. assistants). Such courses, like assembly
Thus teaching and learning are lines, can be efficient to manage and
compromised. yet they make poor settings for the
Another way online educators
cultivation of sympathy and fellowship.
inhibit sympathy and fellowship is by The value of these courses varies
relegating the interactive elements of a widely; they should not be measured
course to a hireling. Such a course by the mastery of the teacher who
might feature a master
Some manifestations
whose teaching
performance has been
of online education
genuinely succeed in
captured on video. (The
fostering sympathy
higher the master’s
and fellowship.
celebrity profile, the more
appears on video, but
rather by the competence
of the course assistant
along with the regularity
and quality of his
interaction with students.
useful he is for marketing the course).
Some manifestations of online
Yet students never interact with education genuinely succeed in
moving images of this master; they fostering sympathy and fellowship.
deal instead with a faceless course These principles are active wherever
administrator or a hired grader, teachers and students actually engage
someone tasked to mark and tally the one another—where students react to
students’ submissions. Too often these teachers, teachers react to students,
administrators are interchangeable and students react to one another.
employees, and they act less like Today’s communication technology
teachers and more like semi-skilled facilitates such interaction using video
laborers on a factory assembly line. feeds, voice connections, chat boxes
Many online schools, including and discussion boards. Effective
colleges and universities, design teachers know how to utilize this
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