Living in the Past Instead of Embracing the Future

I woke up this morning to a TV broadcast on distance ed. that hit on many of the topics I wanted to address in this blog. The program was on "UCSD TV" and was a symposium of leading UC faculty from Berkeley, UC Irvine, and UCLA and was attended by other profit, and non-profit institutions. They discussed the growing distanced learning movement and its implications for the UC system.

It was funny (and a little sad) listening to various "higher ups" explain why d.e. doesn't work very well at "research-oriented" institutions. Funny because they really painted themselves into a corner with their arguments, and sad to me since I attended UC San Diego and could relate to the picture they painted across nine, "top tier" campuses.

They talked about how a "canned curriculum" doesn't work in higher education, and while their professors loved to share best practices, they needed to retain their academic freedom. They made it sound as if UC professors literally opened their students' brains and scooped in the knowledge. As a product of the UC system, and a former teacher, I can say with a certain level of confidence that the average professor at UCSD can't teach his/her way out of a paper bag. They primarily hire researchers (big names in the field) and these researchers typically rely on teaching assistants (who also possess no teacher training) to meet with students and keep office hours.

To me, they sounded scared... Scared that the elite system that they are perched atop could be threatened by education "for the masses." I remember thinking of a statement made by LaTour at the California Professional Learning Community summit a couple of weeks ago. He said, "There is absolutely no data proving that teachers independently developing, implementing, and assessing their individual programs leads to gains in student achievement on a broad scale." I know he said it better than that, but his point was that the tenets of professional learning communities in action (collaboratively developing common instructional programs, building ongoing, formative assessments, etc.) lead to systematic improvements in student achievement. It appears to me that UC professors are simply not willing to let go of their "sage on the stage" status yet and were trying to justify it without any real data.

The broadcast ended with one of the heads of the University of Phoenix getting up from his seat and explaining to the audience that there is a demand for, and benefits to, distance instruction. He asked them to quit feeling threatened by the emergence of d.e. and embrace the components that would improve their own instructional programs.

I was interested if anyone keeps track of the state of distance education in his or her previous universities. Do you hear of resistance to implementation as well?