Information Technology

From the Issue dated December 10, 1999

A Distance Learning Forecast Calls for Megaclasses

Within 20 years, on-line classes with as many as 1,000 students will replace traditional lecture courses on campus, according to a new forecast for the future of the distance-learning industry.

The author of the forecast, William A. Draves, says that students will benefit from the development of large classes, because each student will have the opportunity to interact with many more classmates.

“The more people who contribute, the more you learn,” says Mr. Draves, president of the Learning Resources Network, a distance-learning industry group (http://www.lern.org). His predictions were to be released in Washington last weekend at the group’s annual conference.

Teaching a large on-line class should not be difficult, Mr. Draves says. Questions from students can be posed to the entire class, so that others may suggest answers. Any questions the professor does respond to can be answered once and for all the class to see, he says.

Instructors for large on-line classes probably could rely heavily on multiple-choice examinations that can be graded by a computer, because grading essay tests would be time consuming, Mr. Draves says.

But Jean McGrath, director of student services at Penn State World Campus, the distance-education arm of Pennsylvania State University, says having such large classes on line would be difficult for both the professors and the students.

Penn State World Campus enrolls no more than 30 to 40 students in most classes. “The faculty wants to give the students the attention,” Ms. McGrath says. “It takes a lot longer to respond by e-mail.”

She adds, however, that it might be possible to handle a class of more than 40 students by relying on teaching assistants.

Larger class sizes will be a result of businesses’ increasing demand for an educated work force, Mr. Draves predicts. About 25 per cent of Americans seek to continue their education after college, he says, but that will increase to 50 per cent in the next 20 years, he predicts.

Mr. Draves says universities should slash tuition for on-line courses to about $100 so that more people could afford them. With 1,000 students, that would still earn a college $100,000 for a single course.

He doesn’t believe that on-line education will drive traditional education out of business. But he does believe that on-line classes will replace most lecture-based courses on campus, while in-person classes will specialize in small-group discussions.

He believes colleges will begin sharing on-line courses, either because of star professors or a new course design. That way, he says, institutions could specialize in certain areas and carve out niches that could benefit other universities and other students as well.