Online Education
在線教育
Good morning, everybody.
大家早上好。
In today's lecture, we will talk about online education.
今天的講座,我們要談一談在線教育。
You know, in some parts of the world, it is not that easy for people to receive education.
大家都知道,在有些地方,受教育仍然不是件容易的事。
And even in the United States where education is available, it might not be within reach.
即使在美國這樣的教育大國,受教育可能也有困難。
Thus, online courses provided by those world-famous universities can bring the best quality education to as many people as we could around the world, and for free.
因此,世界知名大學提供的在線課程,就可以為世界上許許多多的人帶來優質教育,而且是免費的。
First, let's talk a little bit about some of the components that go into online education.
首先,我們談一下在線教育的幾個特點。
The first component is that when you move away from the constraints of a physical classroom and design content for an online format, you can break away from, for example, the one-hour lecture format.
第一個特點就是在線教育打破了實體課堂的限制。設計在線課程內容的時候,教師可以拋開很多限制,比如一小時的課程時長。
You can break up the material, for example, into short, modular units of 8 to 12 minutes, and each of the short units introduces a coherent concept.
舉個例子,你可以將授課材料分成8到12分鐘的小單元,每個單元介紹一個完整的概念。
Students can deal with this material in different ways, depending on their backgrounds, their skills or their interests.
學生可以根據自身背景、技能和興趣,以不同的方式學習材料。
So, for example, some students might benefit from a little bit of preparatory material that other students might already have.
比如,有些學生可能會從準備材料中學到東西,而這些材料其他同學早就有了。
Other students might be interested in a particular topic that they want to pursue individually.
其他同學可能會對他們自己喜歡探究的具體話題感興趣。
So this format allows students to break away from the one-size-fits-all model of education, and allows students to follow a much more personalized curriculum.
所以,這種形式將學生從“一刀切”式的教育中解放出來,學生們得以學習個性化的課程。
Second and perhaps one of the biggest components of our online education is that when we need to have students who practice with the material in order to really understand it.
第二個,也是在線教育最大的一個特點,就是我們需要讓學生有材料練習,這樣才能確保他們真正理解了所學內容。
There's been a range of studies that demonstrate the importance of this.
許多研究顯示了這一點的重要性。
A study in Science last year, for example, demonstrates that even simple retrieval practice, where students are just supposed to repeat what they've already learned, gives considerably improved results on various achievement tests.
比如,去年《科學》雜志的一項研究顯示,就連只要求學生復述所學內容的簡單檢索訓練,都提高了許多成績測驗中學生的成績。
So, we need to build in much more meaningful practice questions.
所以,我們需要編制更有意義的練習題目。
Now, fortunately, technology has helped us to provide the students with feedback on those questions.
幸運的是,現在技術進步了,我們可以就問題向學生反饋。
We can now grade a range of interesting types of homework online.
現在還可以給許多有趣的在線家庭作業打分。
The third component is what is called collaborative learning.
第三點是合作學習。
Students could collaborate in different online courses in a variety of ways.
學生可以以各種方式在不同的在線課程中合作。
First of all, there was a question and answer forum, where students could pose questions, and other students could answer those questions.
首先,在線課程會有一個問答論壇,學生可以在論壇上提問題,其他學生回答。
And what is really amazing is that, because there were so many students, it means that even if a student posed a question at 3 o'clock in the morning, somewhere around the world there would be somebody who was awake and working on the same problem.
最奇妙的是,因為學生很多,即使有人凌晨三點提出問題,世界上另一個角落也會有還沒睡的學生,一起解決這個問題。
And he might answer that question.
可能他就能回答那個問題。
And so, in many of the online courses, the median response time for a question on the question and answer forum was 22 minutes.
因此,許多在線課程中,問答論壇上問題的響應時間多數在22分鐘。
So in a word, if we wanted to offer top quality education to everyone around the world for free, what would that affect us?
總而言之,如果為全人類免費提供高質量教育,將有哪些影響?
Three things.
我認為有以下三點。
First, it would establish education as a fundamental human right, where anyone around the world with the ability and the motivation could get the skills they need.
首先,在線教育將教育作為基本人權,全世界能夠而且想要學技能的人都能學到所需技能。
Second, it would enable lifelong learning.
第二,在線教育使得終身學習成為可能。
It's a shame that for so many of us, learning stops when we finish high school or when we finish college.
我們當中很多人高中畢業或者大學畢業之后就不再學習了,真是令人汗顏。
By making this amazing content available, we would be able to learn something new every time we wanted, whether it's just to expand our minds or it's to change our lives.
有了在線教育這個奇妙的東西,我們想學新東西就可以學到,可以開闊視野,也可以改變人生。
And finally, this would make a wave of innovation possible, because amazing talent can be found everywhere.
最后,在線教育也鼓勵了新一輪創新浪潮,因為杰出人才將隨處可見。
To sum up today, we have talked about some features of online education and it's benefits.
今天的演講,我們主要討論了在線教育的許多特點和好處。
We are sure that online education will have a promising future.
在線教育一定前途光明。
In the next lecture, we're going to learn how online education has changed people around the world.
下次講座我們會講到在線教育是如何改變世人生活的。