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The open university in the UK was founded in 1969 and has been offering full distance learning degrees ever since in large numbers of subjects. It uses a mix of professionally produced video content (so usually not just a video of a lecturer standing in front of a blackboard), textbooks, in person or remote small group seminars (you used to phone in, now online video chat), forums, chat groups, personal support by email or post (in case you're in prison or living really remotely) and online libraries / inter library loans and occasional residential weekends / weeks. Mastery is tested in the usual ways, essays, projects and tests, but also "in class" contributions during seminars, which is a good way of motivating people to actually attend and ask questions. It works really well but it's taken fifty years of practice, experimentation and investment to get there and it involves a lot of contact between tutors and students and as a student you need to be more motivated than attending a bricks and mortar university (I've done both). The fact of the matter is that most online learning created over the last year is pretty terrible because it's been created on the hoof by teachers with no experience of delivering learning in this way so they've mostly tried to reproduce the classroom but online, which doesn't work. Most existing online material out there is intended to be supplemental to traditional bricks and mortar learning or used in a "flipped" classroom like Khan Academy where there is still pupil teacher contact, rather than replace it, or is aimed at professional / personal development rather than teaching academic subjects or the core curriculum. Honestly if you want to improve your kids learning and can afford one get them a tutor who will work with them one to one or in small groups and can identify what the gaps in their knowledge are and ensure they are keeping pace of where they should be curriculum wise so when they do go back to school they won't be behind their peers. Don't expect a magic tech bullet. |
A huge amount of work is put into making the modules high quality. Modules are written by teams not individuals and there is a specific process with reviewing etc involved which includes modules going through 'developmental testing' where they basically pilot the whole module with students (who I believe do the module for free) before releasing it properly. Having worked at traditional universities, the different in effort involved is orders of magnitude.
The modules generally use the 'flipped classroom' model to some extent. Students have a tutor who supports them and there are tutorials (all online at the moment obviously) and although there is teaching in tutorials, they is an expectation that they support the course content - perhaps explaining key ideas or addressing common misconceptions - rather than being the central means of delivering course content.
Also worth mentioning that the OU has invested hugely over the years into research into what works and doesn't work in terms of remote education and compared with traditional universities where I have worked, teaching is more valued.