Higher Education

In my opinion, higher education in the U.S. has become an extension of public school education. The "university" I just left is the ultimate example of this for a wide variety of reasons. I found that the most important thing to students is the grade. Gaining knowledge is secondary at best. I realize that this is not true for all students, but for the majority it is true. This semester I offered all of my students the grade of their choice. I asked that they get knowledge and demonstrated learning at the end of the semester. All semester, I was asked, "what do I need to do to get an A in this class?" This concept was foreign to most of the students. Many students did finally get the idea and most received the grade they wanted. Many admitted that they came to class and learned the concepts I attempted to teach because they wanted to see how the semester was going to play out. My final was worth however many points the individual student wanted it to count. No one took the final. All set the value of the final at 0. It was an interesting experiment; one I would like to repeat.

I feel that the emphasis on grades is a result of the "No child left behind" policies of the federal government. The lack of emphasis on knowledge is shown in the results of the US standing in education among world countries, somewhere around 23rd of industrialized countries. I also put part of the blame on US universities and the accreditation bodies that have allowed the proliferation of for profit institutions of higher learning. The current online education standards appear to be lowering the face-to-face classroom quality.

Dr. Isenberg and my research joins many others in suggesting that current online education is inadequate for a variety of reasons. The suggested reasons online education is inadequate range from inadequate teacher preparation for teaching online to inadequate student preparation for learning online to online education platforms that do not support learner centered education.