Will Robots and Online Courses Replace Professors?

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Last week, Harvard University and MIT announced that they are joining together to create a new online platform to host courses for free. Those who take a course from the new venture, edX, will not receive university credit but certificates. Each university has committed $30 million to the project, which will be overseen by a nonprofit equally governed by both schools.

A few weeks prior, a report revealed that machines — basically, robots — grade student essays about the same as human graders.

Is the mechanization and the webication of higher education inevitable?

As everyone is too aware, college is expensive and debt on student loans now exceeds a trillion dollars. With free lectures available from professors at Ivy League universities that students around the world clamor to get into, and with robots able to take over some of the functions of human instructors, might not administrators — watching the bottom line of their budgets — conclude there is less and less a need for faculty, for professors who need health benefits, office space, sabbaticals and so forth?

Big Changes Ahead For Higher Ed

In an article by Ken Auletta in The New Yorker, the president of Stanford, John Hennessy, says that there is nothing less than a “tsunami coming” in higher ed.

Writing in the New York Times, David Brooks describes a “rescrambling around the Web” of higher education, similar to that which has already happened to the newspaper and magazine business. Harvard and MIT aren’t the only Ivy League schools making aggressive inroads into online education: Stanford University professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller have started Coursera, a company that plans to offer “interactive courses” in the humanities, social sciences, mathematics and engineering, while partnering with other elites both public (the University of Michigan) and private (the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton University).

Brooks lists the positives of such a change: Millions of people will now have access to lectures by world-class faculty and the influence of American universities will only spread. Research into online learning, says Brooks, “suggests that it is roughly as effective as classroom learning” and especially for “language and remedial education.” Students can learn at their own pace and when they have time.

But of course just listening to lectures, whether you’re in an actual lecture hall or relaxing on your couch with your laptop, isn’t all there is to learning. Brooks cites Richard A. DeMillo of Georgia Tech who has argued that the “webification” of education “turns transmitting knowledge into a commodity that is cheap and globally available.”

How Can We Blend Online and Traditional Models of Higher Ed?

Rather than playing the curmudgeon and decrying the potential innovations endeavors like edX can offer, Brooks suggests that online education means that colleges will have “to focus on the rest of the learning process, which is where the real value lies.”

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Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
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Duane B.

8:20AM PST on Nov 4, 2012

Thank you for sharing.

November 4
send a green star

devon l.

3:33PM PDT on Jul 5, 2012

It is unimaginable not to have human connection..and this includes all types of teachers..!

July 5
send a green star

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May 14
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7:03AM PDT on May 14, 2012

Sue H.

4:49PM PDT on May 7, 2012

How will students learn to interact with others on a personal level if they are simply plugged in??

May 7
send a green star

Jane B.

1:28PM PDT on May 7, 2012

Robots already have, they are Romney.

Brenda T.

3:58AM PDT on May 7, 2012

Students need tutors too!

Danuta W.

2:26AM PDT on May 7, 2012

thanks for sharing

Will R.

2:24AM PDT on May 7, 2012

Fantastic! Access to the best lectures and teachers in the world! Probably not for all lessons, but most, education without all the petty prejudices of teachers and the accompanying institutional racism and classism. Kids already know that the Internet is smarter than their teachers, a lot of children go to schools where the class sizes exceed 30 students. Out of an hours class, the teacher may provide a minute or two of one- on-one teaching per class...if they can be bothered to.
This program gives everyone with access the same standard of education, democratises it.
This is not about if it is going to happen or not. It is and no-one can stop it. It's about if you are going to be on that train or not? Thomas Ludd would love this site full of whingers and Fuddy duddies. Fuddy luddy duddies...