Future of Higher Education

Ann Kirschner, Founder of Comma Internation, wrote this in a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education:

I predict that the day will come wihen the commitment to a four-year residential program will seem arachronisitic to students, and certainly to their tuition-weary parents. The most competetive students will veer away from the sychronized long march to graduation, in favor of more individualized and creative learning experiences that weave a tapestry of classroom, independent-study, distance-learning, internship, and other educational elements. Chronicle of Higher Education, Dec 9, 2005, p. B6.

In this quote Kirschner reminds us that the learners that may be most underserved by much of today's higher education programs are those students who can move past the basic course material and seek additional learning opportunities. At least in part our efforts at elearning should especially focus on developing learning environments that engage these self-directed, self-motivated learners.