Wednesday, May 10, 2000

Congressman Worries Aloud: Is Online Education Any Good? By DAN CARNEVALE Washington The chairman of the House of Representatives science subcommittee on basic research expressed deep concerns Tuesday about the quality of online courses. Rep. Nick Smith, a Republican from Michigan, said during a hearing that students who take courses online don't interact as much as their peers in traditional courses, and that they may walk away with knowledge but not with an understanding of how to think for themselves. "That brings up the question of socialization," Mr. Smith said. "Do we need to protect against the lack of socialization that's bound to come up with the new technology?" However, Representative Smith cited no evidence for his criticism of online education, and a panel of experts tried to assure the subcommittee that the quality of online courses often matches and at times exceeds that of classroom-based courses. "The community aspect of the classroom can be reproduced at a distance," said James J. Duderstadt, president emeritus and a professor of science and engineering at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Mr. Duderstadt said students often participate more in courses being held online than they do in the classroom, because online technology allows for more interaction and permits students to reach their professors more easily. "One learns how to think by interacting and being challenged by colleagues," he said. Richard C. Larson, director of the Center for Advanced Educational Services and a professor of electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said technology had enhanced interaction in his own courses. "I've found that e-mail alone has gotten me much closer to my students than I was before," he said. The subcommittee met to examine the impact of online learning and to gauge how the federal government should respond. After the hearing, Mr. Smith said he remained skeptical of the quality of online learning even after listening to the experts' testimony. "Interaction in person is a little different than interaction over e-mail," he said. Mr. Smith said he hoped that the National Science Foundation would play a role in assessing the quality of online education by improving the understanding of how the brain works and figuring out how humans learn. Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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