Terry Anderson also mentions in his book “The Theory and Practice of Online Learning” that we might want to look at a new instructional design/course structure model of education and revisit ‘one faculty member to a few students’ especially with online courses. Again, the cost of labour is high but it seems student still want instruction. Working on new ways to sustain quality learning experience yet maintaining costs is important.

You are right – the most radical and difficult part of my vision is the concept of peer learning and student teaching. However, I cannot see how we can maintain a 1:20 ratio of tenured professors to students for all classes in all institutions. The system already in North America is highly dependent on contract or adjunct instructors who are poorly paid and poorly trained (in terms of teaching methodology).

At the moment, some classes get to see their tenured research professor for one to three hours a week – along with 200 others in a large lecture class. In my scheme, tenured research professors would meet regularly with classes of 20 students or so, but mainly at graduate level, and more occasionally in the final year of an undergraduate program, but their main job at undergraduate level would be course design and course management (especially supervising assessment). I think this would be the best way to use a very scarce resource.

I agree though that this will not be possible to ’sell’ in most conventional universities, which is why I think we need new universities that start from scratch.

Tony

However, one idea I am not sure would satisfy learners (graduate learners in this case, per my doctoral research) is not having the attention, feedback, and communication with the main instructor. Per my study, I wonder if this need is due to generational traits as older students learned differently placing a lot of emphasis on the teacher and his/her expertise. I wonder then, in your vision, if somehow the teaching team would need to be introduced differently to ensure their commitment, expertise, and value. This in turn might satisfy, at least the older learner, that they are being taught by qualified and recognized instructors.

What do you think?

Kelly