A recent report on online education, made by SRI International for the Department of Education, has a serious academic (学术的) title, but a most interesting conclusion: “ Students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.”
The report examined the research on online and traditional classroom teaching from 1996 to 2008. Some of it was in K-12 settings, but most of the studies were in colleges and adult continuing education programs.
Over the 12 years, the report found 99 studies in which there were comparisons of online and classroom performance for the same courses. The result of the Department of Education’ s research showed that usually, students doing some or all of the course online would rank a little higher than the classroom students with little but meaningful difference.
“The importance of the study lies in showing that online learning today is not just better than nothing — it actually tends to be better than traditional instruction.” said Barbara Means, the study’ s lead author and an educational psychologist at SRI International.
This hardly means that we’ll be saying goodbye to classrooms. But the report does suggest that online education could be set to develop sharply over the next few years.
Until fairly recently, online education totaled to little. That has really changed with the arrival of webbased video, instant (即时的) messaging and teamwork tools.
The real promise of online education, experts say, is providing learning experiences that are more suitable for individual (个体的) students than is possible in classrooms. That allows more “learning by doing,” which many students find more attractive and useful.
“We are at a turning point in online education,” said Philip R. Regier, the leader of Arizona State University’ s Online and Extended Campus program.
The biggest near-term growth, Mr. Regier predicts, will be in continuing education programs.
小题1:What do we know from the passage?
Most of the studies were done in high schools.
The report was based on more than 100 studies.
The studies were carried out for more than 20 years.
The difference between online and traditional teaching is not big.
小题2:We can learn from the passage that __________.
traditional education will come to an end
traditional education is not popular any longer
online education didn’ t develop rapidly until recently
middle schools are facing the choice between online and traditional teaching
小题3:Which is NOT the reason why many students prefer online learning?
Online teaching is more suitable for individuals.
Classroom teaching is not practical and useful.
Students can learn by doing in online courses.
Online teaching is more interesting.
小题4:Which do you think is the best title for the passage?
Study finds that online education beats the classroom
Why is online education on the rise?
A report on online education
Classroom teaching is out
