Classes at liberal arts colleges bring to mind small groups of students bunched around a long wooden table, batting around big ideas with a professor.
That tradition would seem at odds with the new trend in higher education, opening courses to the masses via the Internet. But now a new partnership involving Wellesley College is seeking to bridge these two worlds, in a test of how humanities classes will translate into the growing online arena.
Comments
This fits well with a mission of educating women in areas of the world in which they may have access to internet but not to schools. However, getting people to sign up for free courses is not the same as getting them to pay $250k, or even a lesser amount, for a Wellesley College education.
We have a number of issues to solve in education. Let's harness technology to solve them but let's not be distracted by the technology as opportunity. It may be the root cause of why so many high school students are falling behind. Deep thought and multi-tasking are probably in conflict.