At present, higher education may face crisis of different performance worldwide.The efforts of the opening of educational resources in the US high education community reflect the sense of social responsibility of the high education community. In the case of unable to reverse the continuous rise in tuition fees, they are willing to allow communities outside the university to come into contact with university teaching and discussion content. This is worthy of appreciation.of.
The high and continued rise in studying and living costs in American universities has always been a matter of concern to American society.According to an authoritative statistics, the average tuition cost of the four -year -old university in the United States in 2022 was 23 times that of 1963. After deducting the price of prices, the tuition fee in 2023 also rose about 7.5 times compared with 1963, and it was still year by year by year.10%speed increase.On the other hand, the prices of American textbooks, especially the teaching materials of business, law and medicine, have a price of hundreds of dollars a hundred dollars, which also causes students to have a great economic burden.Some universities are purchased from school libraries to buy a expensive textbook for students to share.
Although some students and parents still believe that the university diploma will help improve the future economic and social status and quality of life of individuals and families and willing to loans to study. American universities have gradually begun to open educational resources to the society.Those who receive higher education but not allowed time and economic capabilities to obtain knowledge and skills that can only be obtained in college classrooms can only be obtained through "Open Education Resources".
The current status of high prices and strict copyright regulations for textbooks, some scholars have assumed the obligation of writing free open access textbooks and put into practice.The author spent a semester in 2023 to investigate some of the "open education resources" movement (let's call it a knowledge popularization movement) in the United States.How much is not satisfactory.
The participating in this movement is generally divided into two types of institutions -well -known universities and non -universities.The open educational resource websites established by colleges and universities and universities will integrate corresponding learning resources on a platform according to different disciplines, not college network institutions, and regularly send publicity emails to subscriber mailboxes.
Limited to open educational resources
The open resources directly provided by colleges and universities are further divided into several types: 1. On -site videos of famous teachers' lectures; 2. The syllabus and learning plan of a certain course; 3. Free textbooks and databases.
However, these models have their own limitations.Some famous professors' lectures will attract some audiences and learners to watch on social media platforms such as YouTube, but some trivial matters such as attendance, naming, scoring, etc., which belong to the school's class, have made some online learners feel that it has nothing to do with themselves.And impatient.In addition, the scene of lectures and lectures is actually very important. Even a famous teacher, if you only watch lectures through the screen, will always keep the listener a sense of gap. Listen to it with curiosity once or twice.Listening to a semester course, I am afraid it is very difficult to persist.
On the other hand, teaching is not the same as listening classes, but also involves a large number of homework, examinations, discussions, questioning, teacher -student interaction (the problems raised by students can greatly help teachers look at the lecture content from the perspective of students) and the classmatesinteractive.All of them need to be maintained by school discipline and certain punishment measures.It is difficult to imagine that only listening to lectures, and by the speaker uniform output, they can achieve substantial good teaching effects in learners.
Another open mode is to share detailed curriculum and teaching materials, but this model is essentially the same as self -study.Many of the curriculums of American university courses are announced on the Internet, and it is not a secret in itself. I have obtained the syllabus. I know which books should be read, what learning steps to complete, and which homework.Experience and effects learned in the environment.
The climax of"Open Education" may be around 2005, because many of the sorting information on the Internet stay in that period of time.It should be noted that the US scientific research and education are changing with each other, and not to mention that scientific and technological courses have been reborn after 20 years, it is a humanistic discipline. The professor also tracks and uses new works and new textbooks from time to time.Essence
After viewing some free, specially available for open education, after the Open TEXTBOOK, the author found that these textbooks newly edited by university professors can be downloaded freely and can be freely downloaded, which has realized openness and benefits the people to the people.The goal, but for the teaching materials that really pass the time and teaching test, sometimes the content is too wide, the time and geography are too large, not like a textbook used in a specific course in a real environment.In the test, learners could not see the evaluation of other users on the book purchase website.From the perspective of self -scholars, some books are actually worth buying, and they can buy second -hand books.I do n’t want to spend a penny, and it is not a serious attitude of a serious knowledgeable person.
Campaign to Learning Enthusiasm
Another major defect is technical problems in use.A set of lecture videos developed by disciplines involved in financial, commercial, media, and other disciplines at Stanford University have been almost unable to open, and users will be informed that the video does not exist or is in a "private" state.Many courses on the open education platform developed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology directly displayed 404, which may have been deleted.Judging from the content that these videos can be displayed, the upload date is from 2005 to around 2006.This may return to the old issue of copyright, but for some scholars, the frustration of this empty shell platform may be fatal.
At present, higher education may face different performances worldwide.The efforts of the opening of educational resources in the US high education community reflect the sense of social responsibility of the high education community. In the case of unable to reverse the continuous rise in tuition fees, they are willing to allow communities outside the university to come into contact with university teaching and discussion content. This is worthy of appreciation.of.However, lack of systemic, comprehensive, interactive, and no corresponding supervision education, the actual effect is quite suspicious.As far as historical disciplines are concerned, such "open education" learning effects will not be higher than free reading of history and watching the historical channel of TV stations, and these do not require high costs.
The library of the school who has been paying attention to educational resources and textbooks for a long time pointed out that there are surveys in the United States that even among Americans who pay for distance education, there are very few people who can really persist without halfway.Essence
The author believes that a compromise method may be a university development -oriented online course, and it must have a complete length, thorough and clear teaching goals, appropriate amount of homework and examination, and will be conducted by full -time teachers.Teaching and supervising the whole process.In the current remote teaching, the platforms and tools for teachers and students are very complete.Such an open teaching enables off -campus staff to systematically learn a course or a discipline, which can be guaranteed in terms of technical and personnel assistance, and does not cause the above -mentioned platform that the above platform has been abandoned and no one is responsible.Such courses should still be charged appropriately, because from the above -mentioned defects, it is a completely free "open" utopian, which makes it impossible to sustain and is not responsible.
The author is an associate professor at the Department of History of Alegani College, USA
