viernes, 5 de noviembre de 2010

No hay nada como the “real thing” (por ahora)

The educational value of online courses has been debated for years, based on a large but uneven body of research. An analysis of 99 studies by the federal Department of Education concluded last year that online instruction, on average, was more effective than face-to-face learning by a modest amount.
But that analysis has been challenged because so few of the underlying studies include apples-to-apples comparisons. Mark Rush of the University of Florida and colleagues tried to do just that by contrasting grades of students who sat through a semester of his live microeconomics lectures with those who watched online.
Their conclusion, reported in June by the National Bureau of Economic Research: some groups of online students did notably worse. Hispanic students watching online earned a full grade lower, on average, than Hispanics who attended class, and all male students who watched online were about a half-grade lower
De todas formas, sería bueno que las clases que impartimos en la Universidad se “retransmitieran” en la web “en directo” y quedaran almacenadas. Tendríamos un mecanismo de supervisión de lo que hacemos los profesores en clase semejante al que ahora tienen los Jueces. Y, de lo que podríamos estar seguros es de que los profesores serían, en media, más educados y correctos de lo que lo sean ahora. Puede que, incluso, se preparasen más las clases. Y los alumnos podrían elegir con más información a qué clases asistir. ¿Quizá las chicas aprovechen más el on-line?

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