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Many persons including myself have said that universityteaching is the most old fashioned method of instruction that saw little changein hundreds of years. Indeed if an eighteenth century scholar walked into atypical 21^st century classroom, s/he will feel very much at homewith a professor lecturing to a roomful of student in front of a blackboardusing chalk.

However, this situation is rapidly changing due to theInternet and technological advances. Earlier I have written about my preferredmethod of instruction which emphasizes teacher-student interaction anddiscussion (On Research and Education #6 See particular Item #5-6 of thearticle http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1565-3859.html)Others have tried to take advantage of technology and improve lecture styleteaching in large classes (http://mazur.harvard.edu/research/detailspage.php?rowid=8.)

More recently, MIT, Harvard, Stanford and others have allannounced that they will be putting their course material on line free foreveryone in the world to use http://www.edxonline.org/; http://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/profiles/john-l-hennessy-risk-takerIn fact the second reference about Stanford has a very nice discussion aboutthe pros and cons of on line teaching well worth reading.

To me, the purpose of education and in particular universityand graduate education is associated with the implementation of the“Data->Information->Knowledge->Wisdom” Paradigm. In the pre-Internetage and for hundreds of years, scholars collect DATA and codify them intoINFORMATION in the form of books and articles. Professors using lectures andpersonal instructions teach students such information in order they may becomeKNOWLEGEABLE persons. In graduate school we attempt to further impart WISDOM tothese knowledgeable students through intensive one-on-one interactions. Butwith the coming of age of the Internet, information becomes almost freelyavailable. Gradual availability of these on-line course content from greatuniversities will have serious implications on undergraduate teaching – thestep from “information to knowledge”. One can easily imagine the emergence of anew industry which will provide guidance and help for anyone interested ingetting an equivalent MIT/Harvard education on line without ever actuallypaying the expansive tuition and spending four or more years. Of course,MIT/Harvard will argue that there are a lot more than pure knowledge transferin physically attending college. They are not really worried about giving awaysuch course content free otherwise they would not be doing it. But such impacton the rest of the higher education establishment will be huge. What willhappen to many of the perfectly good teaching colleges and their faculties?Will they survive twenty or thirty years from now? Even if they do and in whatform?

As for the last step of transforming knowledge to wisdom –the province of graduate ph.d education-, on line learning will have lessimpact. It is difficult for me to imagine anything to replace the one-on-oneintensive Socratic form of instruction that is at the heart of the productionof a true scholar which is another reason in my opinion as to whyMIT/Harvard/Stanford feel they can afford to freely give away such coursecontents (see also On Research and Ph.DEducation #5 http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1565-2950.html ) . Research and advancement of knowledge are stillthe main Raison d'être  for great universities. Time will tell

Note added 7/23/2102. It was reported in newspaper today that U. of California Berkeley will join edX which is the MIT/Harvard on line course offering discussed here. Now all BIG FOUR on two coasts (MIT/Harvard, Stanford/Berkeley) are in the on line business!

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