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I wrote a column about what this grand experiment in online learning means for the future: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/09/business/online-learning-virus.html 1/x
Coronavirus will accelerate the use of high-quality online lecture material. Online instruction will eventually substitute for most in-person lectures 2/x
Since lectures are non-rival goods, the best lectures can be enjoyed by everyone at the same time, so the “economics of superstars” applies and most of us will be on the losing side 3/x
If all we did was lecture, this trend would be really bad for teachers! But the important work of teaching involves personalization – tutoring, feedback, mentoring. That doesn’t scale up so easily 4/x
I believe that online learning technology will generate some productivity growth in education. 5/x
But the income elasticity of demand for education is high – we want more of it when we get richer – so we’ll want more learning for the same price rather than cost-cutting. The hype cycle of MOOCs is instructive here 6/x
Education is a bundled product. We’ll see productivity growth in lectures, but not in personalization. So resources in education will increasingly shift toward tutoring/mentoring. This is unbalanced growth, where lectures are manufacturing and the personal stuff is services 7/x
Teachers are mentors and role models (I’m linking to lots of work by folks in the twittersphere here) @SethGershenson @NWPapageorge @mikekofoed , LMK if I missed some.. 8/x
Unbalanced growth and the importance of personal services in education means that as online instruction gets better, the price of a close relationship with a teacher will rise rapidly. Baumol’s cost disease strikes again. 9/x
If we aren’t careful, a high-quality on-campus education will become an unaffordable luxury for all but the wealthiest families. In some ways, we are already there. 10/x
Deep, personal engagement with students is will be the source of our value-added as teachers in the long-run. Personally, I plan to spend less time “on stage” in my classes going forward. 11/x
And at the college level, we should make sure that online tools are not just a means of cost-cutting, but instead are used to free up class time for the important work of connecting with our students. 12/12
