Disclosure: I am the Director of Technology at Oplerno
I could work from anywhere in the world if I wanted to. I usually choose to work from home, at the kitchen table with children running around. Most of the time it’s great, and sometimes I move to an office I created in a storage space or to a shared office space at the other side of town. And sometimes I’ll even work from an espresso bar, or on a camping trip. I think it has really allowed me to work when I work most efficient (when I’m at my peak) and take downtime when I need it. The company I work for is based in Vermont — USA, and I am based in Amsterdam — NL.
This is nothing special. The book Remote by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson describes it in detail. There are lots of examples of companies that have chosen to have their employees distributed over the globe. Rather than limiting themselves to personnel people who live in their city or county, or people willing to relocate to their location, they have the whole world to choose from. They can choose employees that have the skill and fit best, and don’t have to worry about their location. And on top of that there are also financial, physical and mental health benefits, which I won’t address here.
When you start think of it, it’s a very simple solution to a very simple problem.
So why do we do the opposite in our universities?
If college is supposed to be the best time of our lives, why are so many students unhappy?
You might be familiar with the well-honed cliché “college was the best time of my life.”
Even if we ignore the whole panoply of psychiatric disorders that arise when people are in their twenties we still have homesickness, relationship disappointments, financial worries and losses or conflicts at home.
There are … millions [of students] throughout the country — high-achieving students from low-income families who want desperately to earn a four-year degree but who run into trouble along the way.
And there is a growing group of students who are forgoing “the student life” and packing a 4 year degree into 3 years to lessen the financial burden of college on themselves and their families.
On the other side of the coin are the professors, instructors and teachers. Many may have chosen to work for this institute because they studied there, it was close to where they wanted to live, or it was the best place they could work at the time they applied there. And many may not even have applied to pass on their knowledge to the fresh young minds who fill their halls. They might have been far more interested in the research aspect, and see passing on their knowledge to doe-eyed youth as a necessary evil to be able to pursue their Nobel prize. And the adjuncts who do the bulk of the teaching are over burdened and overworked, and working for an employer who doesn’t appreciate them enough to give them medical coverage.
Would students benefit from remote working?
Yes, I believe that there is a lot to be gained by removing students from the university environment. Based on some of the preliminary research, done on MOOCs, many are well equipped to study without setting foot in a university. So obviously it is possible for a minority of the students who sign up for MOOCs.
Why would they drop out?
Size
There is a correlation between the size of a class and the completion rate. Oversized classes, over 5000, seem to have a higher rate of students who abandon the course, or at leasts fail to complete it.
Course Length
Course length seems to play a role, students in courses shorter that 8 weeks seem to be able to complete them with a success rate higher than longer courses. This is probably due to the time commitment involved, apart from the hour(s) of video many assigned readings and tests can amount to over 8 hours every week, and students may only be taking a certain amount of time away from their regular tasks.
Motivation
Motivation also plays a huge part too, many students sign up and don’t even watch the first lecture. As Nir Eyal and BJ Fogg explain in their books: it’s difficult to change behavior and stay motivated. Two of the first MOOCs on artificial intelligence and machine learning from 2011 were outliers, each it had over 20000 and 13000 students out of approximately 160000 and 104000 complete the course respectively, a meager 12.5% completion rate.
Addressing these issues might make it possible for over 50% of students to complete a MOOC, although most of these would take the Massive out of MOOC.
There are many other reasons people dropped out of MOOCs; for example students do not receive academic credit from the universities as a result of completing a MOOC. The completion rates for paid online education is much higher, these come with academic credit and often cost the same amount as the offline program which means that it’s not affordable to many people.
Conclusion
Is it too early to start thinking about the conclusions? For students it isn’t, it’s clear from MOOCs and other online learning programs that online learning really works for many of the people who can participate.
For those who can’t participate there is still some way to go to ensure that they will be able to get an education which matches their intellectual and budgetary needs, in time and money.
By Daniël W. Crompton (@webhat), Director of Technology at Oplerno — a global institution empowering real-world practitioners, adjunct lecturers, professors, and aspiring instructors to offer affordable, accessible, high-quality education to students from all corners of the globe.
