Regular classroom teachers don’t often understand the world of online learning. The technology itself is a disturbance to traditional lecture-based learning and represents a paradigm shift in the delivery of school-based lessons. I’ve repeatedly heard from brick-and-mortar teachers that there is no way online learning could ever replace an actual educator in the classroom. At the crux of such an argument is the deep held belief that, #1, students need teachers to learn, #2, that all teachers provide a service that cannot be effectively replaced by technology. Both arguments are false.

As a foreword, I completed my final three years of high school at Surrey Connect, the district’s online learning school. It wasn’t easy, by any means, and it was only after graduation that I finally grasped how to effectively plan out my coursework and manage my time effectively. I’ve since completed my first year of university through Thomson Rivers OL (formerly BCOU), and just recently transferred to SFU for my second year. My experience back in a classroom has revealed how truly wasteful and inefficient our post-secondary education system is, elements of which do translate to the K-12 levels as well.

I’m taking five classes this semester, only one of which has a tutorial. The class sizes vary, anywhere from 300 students in a Stats class, to about 40 in a First Nations course. They are all based on the lecture format, which at its heart is perhaps the easiest learning method to digitize and replace.

First off, there is little to no interaction between the prof and the students during a lecture. Students listen and take notes from what amounts to a basic audio track, sometimes supplemented by a Powerpoint presentation. Face-to-face instruction or facilitation with a teacher cannot easily be digitized. Lectures, however, can, and as I will argue, should.

A second point to note however is the truly inept public speaking skills of some professors. One of my profs is absolutely terrible at organizing his material and spends at least twice as long talking as he actually needs to. Two others simply utilize the pre-made presentations included with the textbook and thus are quite literally giving an oral repetition of the book – such duplication is inefficient and ultimately a waste of time. My two other profs are engaging for different reasons. The first, in my Logic class, has a tremendous baritone voice, is an excellent speaker all around, throws in a dash of personality, and helps explain the material far better than the way it is presented in the heavy text. The other prof, from my Geography class, actually makes the lecture worth going to. He adds in a ton of tangents, talking about his own university experience back in the day, is quite personable and funny, enjoys making jabs at America whenever he gets the chance, and is genuinely excited when talking about spatial relationships.

These five profs represent a continuum of lecturing ability. At one end, the prof shouldn’t even be teaching, and at the other, one is so enthused and enjoyable to listen to that I actually stay awake during the class and have fun by the end of it (I tend to learn something too!). The bad and simply adequate lecturers provide me as a student with no actual reason to attend their classes. Reading the textbook allows me to learn more in depth and on my own schedule than listening to the lecture. Again, as was noted above, why do both if not necessary?

This learning strategy is simply a matter of effectiveness and efficiency. If a lecture does not add to the ultimate material learnt, it is actually a drain on a student’s resources. For example, I have an Anthropology class on Tuesday mornings, from 10:30 to 11:30am. That’s the only class for the whole day. That prof repeats, practically word for word, what is in the text. To attend this lecture, I must wake up at 8, pack some food, ride a bus for about an hour and 20 mins, sit in class for an hour, and go all the way back home. I’ve just spent about five hours total to sit in an hour long lecture where, at best, some of the material will be repeated and perhaps more firmly cemented in my brain, or, at worst, I’ll doze off because the lecture is not engaging.

When a professor and his or her lectures are nothing more than an oral repetition of the textbook, there is absolutely no reason why they shouldn’t be replaced by an online class.

In the online world, a university can effectively choose from its most well-spoken and engaging faculty, or perhaps even from professors across the country or world. It can videotape their lectures, and host them through the online content management system. Students are then guaranteed that they will be receiving the most interesting and captivating lectures available.

In addition, they now have greater flexibility in moving through the coursework – if they already have a broad background knowledge or are keen students, they can move through the class in no time at all; for those that need to slow down at one stage or balance school with other life commitments, they have the ability to pause, rewind, and re-watch this material anytime, anywhere. With such a system, students would reduce their required trips to campus, ultimately saving their own time, as well as resources on the transportation network and university facility management.

As I noted above, one of my classes has a tutorial session, which is a small hands-on class with about 15 students to one TA. This is an excellent opportunity to get the help required if necessary. These online university courses could easily be supplemented with drop-in tutorial sessions on-campus for those students who need a little extra face-to-face help.

Would this result in a small faculty? Potentially. But if a teacher is so easily replaced by technology that actually results in a more effective and efficient learning environment for students, then perhaps that person is in the wrong profession.

Online learning, or distance education, already exists in universities. What I am proposing is a complete reform of the university lecture hall format. Online learning should not longer exist in a silo, separate from “real university classes”. Online learning should be embraced exactly for what it is, a technology that enables new and more efficient forms of engaged learning, anytime, any place, and any pace.