Improving Learning and Reducing Costs for Online Learning

Abstract

Every college and university in the United States (US) is discovering exciting new ways of using information technology to enhance the process of teaching and learning, and to extend access to new populations of students. For most institutions, however, new technologies represent a black hole of additional expense. Most campuses have simply bolted new technologies onto a fixed plant, a fixed faculty and a fixed notion of classroom instruction. Under these circumstances, technology becomes part of the problem of rising costs rather than part of the solution. In addition, comparative research studies show that rather than improving quality, most technology-based courses produce learning outcomes that are simply “as good as” their traditional counterparts — what often is referred to as the “no significant difference” phenomenon. By and large, colleges and universities have not yet begun to realize the promise of technology to improve the quality of student learning and reduce the costs of instruction.