Learning Replaces Teaching

Shaun, your humble servant here took his first training course - six weeks - for how to teach online in 1999. Since then, he has completed three more six-week online training courses as a requirement to teach online for three different online universities, of which JIU is one. This of course as you suggest is an ongoing challenge, for technology changes, students change, professional requirements change, etc. Yesterday, I visited with the director of online learning for a major University of Wisconsin branch campus, of 8,000 students, in his office on campus. We touched on the next loop in technology - Mobile learning - and how this will impact online learning. M-learning will require new course designs and learning techniques. The late Peter F. Drucker pointed out the difference between learning and teaching. Learning is what students do for themselves. Teaching is what instructors do for or to students. Drucker forecast- great word there - learning technologies would more and more put the responsibility for learning on the students, the learners, and away from the instructors. Think self-paced learning modules like the new Harvard business skill packs. Educators in this trend will become designers of content, with a focus on student learning, not instructor teaching, it. In fact, your humble servant here discovered a CD yesterday on how to learn the Battle of Gettysburg through gaming, which puts the responisibility for outcomes on the learner, provided the CD interaction, gaming, modeling, simulation design is solid. I am looking forward to reviewing it. As you can see, your professor here is busy trend forecasting to design his future options.