At CSU, the beginning of the end for traditional lecture
classes?
By Katy Murphy Oakland Tribune San Jose Mercury News
SAN JOSE -- Students at San Jose State and other California
State universities might soon find themselves watching lectures at home and
doing their homework in the lecture hall as part of the system's latest
experiment with technology and free online courses.
Encouraged by unusually high student pass rates in a dreaded
electrical engineering course, nearly all CSU campuses with engineering
programs are expected to join SJSU in offering a partly online, partly
in-person course in the fall through a partnership with edX, a nonprofit online
education provider.
Proponents have billed the free online platform as a
powerful tool for professors, who will spend more time working with students
and assessing their progress instead of preparing and delivering long lectures.
"Five hundred years ago we gave them a textbook, and in
1862 we gave them chalk," said Anant Agarwal, president of edX. "What
tools have we given them since then? Please don't say PowerPoint."
San Jose State also plans to test the technological waters
in other disciplines, such as humanities, business and science. It is paying
edX nothing for the partnership, which gives participating professors special
access to the platform to add their own content and check their students'
online coursework.
Eighty SJSU students in EE098, an electrical circuit
analysis course that all engineering students must take, were the guinea pigs
for the new approach, which blends online quizzes and lectures from MIT with
in-class quizzes, tutoring and exams.
The results were astonishing, even for online education's
most ardent proponents: The pass rates for the two traditional sections of the
engineering course offered in the fall were 55 and 59 percent. In the revamped
version, in which randomly assigned students took the same final exam as the
others, 91 percent passed -- by far the highest that Professor Khosrow Ghadiri
had seen in his 22 years at the university.
The structure of the 80-student class, with its emphasis on
in-class problem solving, is simply more effective, said SJSU President Mo
Qayoumi, who noted another benefit: Only a handful of the students will have to
retake the class, reducing bottlenecks in the system.
But there's another factor, too: The online videos and
quizzes can take 10 to 12 hours a week to watch and complete, far more than
expected in the traditional format. In addition, Ghadiri said he and his
teaching assistants spend a combined 80 hours a week on the class, preparing
materials, checking students' progress and sending them emails when they fall behind.
"It does require a lot more time," said Marisa
Williams, a civil engineering major, taking a break from a group quiz on the
power generated from electrical circuits and each of their components.
Entering the large lecture room after a news conference,
Ghadiri stripped off his suit jacket and roved among groups of students,
answering questions about a quiz. The gregarious professor, brimming with
enthusiasm and information, knows not all of his students share his love for
the material -- especially non-electrical engineering majors forced to take the
time-consuming version of the class.
"They say, 'Why should I put so much time into
something that is not my field? This is a core course, and I have to take it.
Why do you make my life miserable?'" he said.
But chances are, at semester's end, they won't have to take
it again.
Follow Katy Murphy at Twitter.com/katymurphy.
Posted 04/11/2013
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