What can online course components teach about improving instruction and learning?

Journal of Instructional Psychology, Sept, 2002 by Roy Schwartzman, Heath V. Tuttle

One unaffordable casualty of the drive toward greater instructional efficiency may be curiosity. Whitehead warns that an overly systematized curriculum with a definite place for everything is bound to fail. He observes: "No scheme for education, and least of all for scientific education, can be complete without some facility and encouragement for browsing" (Whitehead, 1965, p. 49). Investing in instructional technologies should allow instructors and students to explore more different modes of teaching and learning. Entrepreneurship has become the watchword of those who want to depart from accepted views of business conduct and opt for more creative experimentation. Expenditures for online educational components can represent investments in the spirit of entrepreneurism. We propose that judicious use of electronically enhanced course components can help passive consumers of education develop into adventurous, active learners. The potential for pedagogical promise or peril lies not in the technological tools, but in the hands of those who wield them.

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