by Jason Snell, TechHive
At its simplest form, technology needs to find ways to make education more efficient. That means serving more students, but also teaching them more effectively. “Large lectures don’t work—nobody is engaging,” Hennessy said. “So that’s what we started with—the ‘flipped classroom.’ You don’t use the classroom for the lecture, you do that online.” Instead, the classroom becomes the place with more interactivity with small groups. It sounds great, but there’s one big problem: A 45-minute-long lecture is going to bore people whether you’re sitting in a stuffy lecture hall or listening to it on your iPhone while sunning yourself on the quad. Even lecture content needs more interactivity and the opportunity for students to pace themselves and make sure they’ve understood the concepts. Another advantage of this kind of online learning environment is that some students can ask questions and their peers can answer them. Very rapidly, Hennessy said, the class has compiled a set of frequently-asked questions that are pretty solid, though “occasionally a [teaching assistant] has to come in and tinker a little bit” to make sure everything’s right.
http://www.techhive.com/article/2000127/d10-stanford-khan-academy-and-the-future-of-higher-ed.html
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