During the 1960s I taught two courses at the Ryerson Polytechnic Institute, now Ryerson University. One was Introduction to Business and the other was Business Finance.
Today, both of my courses would be taught via an online learning course and I would spend my time giving one-on-one guidance in a large lab-like room.
Not scary, but much more economical for the university. I could handle twice the teaching load which would be like eliminating one business teacher from the Finance and Accounting department.
I know there are post-secondary institutions in which all their courses are taught online. Athabasca University is one of them. And they do not relinquish quality. Several small business certificate management courses developed by Vubiz at vubiz.com are accredited by them.
I have grandchildren who have had online courses as part of their high school education and a daughter Kelly, now over 50 years of age, taking a graduate level course online. So, this technology is all through the education system in North America.
The photo is one of my proudest moments when my daughter received her honour business degree from Ryerson. As a former staff member, I wore a graduation gown and sat on the platform with my former colleagues. I gave the Certificate to my daughter personally.
At the time online learning was introduced, we knew its introduction would be slow but at some point the demand would explode. The economics are just too powerful.
During my teaching years I was also the elected president of the Ryerson Faculty Association, so I can envisage today the union pressures with jobs being replaced by online learning.
The courses I taught were basic business courses that would be taught in colleges across Canada. So, it is easy to imagine the quality of the online courseware that schools would be able to acquire.
Naturally some of the more specialized business courses taught in the third or fourth year like Mergers and Acquisitions are probably still taught by a regular classroom teacher.
With my experience as a teacher and someone in the online learning business, it would be my judgement call that the best education experience would come when students get a good blend of class room teaching and online learning.
My teaching experience was loaded with stories of the family business which was located just blocks from Ryerson. They were personal and emotional stories. Something that would not work teaching online to a national audience.
I told my students that my father worked for “Eatons” as the Timothy Eaton Company department store was called in those days. And he started his own business when he was told that if he married my mother, who was Jewish, he would never get a promotion.
And then I explained that 2/3rds of all new ventures start because of something negative that happens to the entrepreneur. My students never forgot that story.
Emotion, stories and lessons based on solving problems of local businesses are hard to reproduce using online learning.
I would send students out to meet local business people to discuss the most difficult problems they faced and how they solved them. I was teaching that a lot of creativity in business comes from solving problems.
But there is some real wonder in taking online courses, because your fellow students can be from anywhere in the world. And working on projects with students from other cultures can be a huge education experience.
A bit like travelling around the world and trying to adapt to all the different ways people live and deal with problems.
I will never forget working on an MBA project with a fellow student from India. On his business card he had BA (failed) after his name. Even going to school and failing was to be admired back home.
Today online learning is doing more than making the educational system more productive. It is bringing so many more students into the educational system, many of them while handling a full-time job.
Yes, I believe in “edumacation”.