Tom, where do you see the major problems in today's higher education?


Thomas C. Reeves: We have detected declining levels of academic engagement. According to a recent study, in 700 colleges and universities, the average professor expects full-time students to spend approximately 45 hours per week for learning - 15 hours in classes and ideally at least 2 hours for each hour in class. But only about 7 percent of the students meet these expectations; most students skip classes, do not read the textbooks and other materials, or fail to spend sufficient time on their assignments.

So they are lazy?


Thomas C. Reeves: No, not at all, but they are distracted by other things. Many of today's students have to work in order to pay their tuition; others spend more time with new media like videogames and music than with their homework - even those who are on scholarship. Our task is to create learning environments that will engage them in meaningful learning.

But students have access to content via Internet.


Thomas C. Reeves: The problem is that most professors just take the same old class material and put it online. Most of the time they just change the delivery system by transferring traditional methods to the web without changing the instructional design to take advantage of new learning theories or technological affordances.


As a result, at least 75 percent of the online material is lousy. And bad teachers in class don't become good teachers just because they offer online courses. Instead we have to offer high-quality simulations and interactive online courses. This requires a good instructional design, quality content, dedicated teachers, and appropriate technology.

And what about didactics in Web 2.0 learning?


Thomas C. Reeves: Didactic approaches are still evolving; we haven't got a compendium of strategies, templates, and ideas for effective online teaching. Most of what we know is at the levels of teaching tips rather than research-based principles. I am very excited about what is going on in Germany: In the USA we tend to put technology and curricula first; instructional design and pedagogy come a distant second.


For example, some universities give an iPod to everybody and presume that education will automatically be enhanced. In Germany, on the contrary, teachers appear to pay more attention to the learning problems and then attempt to find the appropriate technology for creative teaching in order to solve them.

What would good education look like?


Thomas C. Reeves: Students should be involved in solving concrete problems. We have to engage them in real projects and encourage them to gather practical experience in companies, government agencies, institutes, and non-governmental organizations. One of the most important elements is teamwork. While they are only responsible for themselves when they visit lectures, in a team assignment everybody has to stay up to date.


There is a lot of pressure by peers in the group to prepare themselves adequately. If they make mistakes, they hold up the whole team. On the other hand, the team can help when somebody has severe problems. One of our students had a death in her family, and the team took over her work for the time of her absence. By working in teams to complete authentic tasks, students can develop skills they will later need in real life.

Can you give an example?


Thomas C. Reeves: A journalism professor could ask students to do research on NASA at the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary and to add or edit information about NASA in Wikipedia. For example, the students could try to find out the total cost of the agency, consider the benefits of that expenditure as well as what could have been financed with these billions of dollars instead, and offer their critical analysis of NASA to readers around the globe via the Internet. Collaborative content of the kind offered via Wikipedia has an enormous potential, but the students should also be able to judge the quality of information they find online.

And you think this will increase their engagement in studies?


Thomas C. Reeves: Definitely. Our experience has shown that students are much more serious when they work to complete real projects. When they sit in a lecture hall with 300 other students, they don't see the relevance of what they have to learn. But once they are involved in a real context, they see the necessity. This type of learning can be accomplished in the real world or through a simulation.

What are your personal experiences with online teaching?


Thomas C. Reeves: In my graduate courses, I teach instructional design and evaluation for eLearning developers, HR experts, and trainers. I have been offering such courses for more than twenty years now, but last year I went online because in the real world people now design eLearning in virtual teams. The typical project would be a client in New York, a subject matter expert in California, an instructional designer in Atlanta, and developers in India. So we have to replicate the virtual work environment online.

This sounds like a lot of additional work for professors and students.


Thomas C. Reeves: Indeed. As to the professors, they have to be available all the time because the students are always online, and there are constantly questions to answer. I enjoy it a lot, but I have colleagues who don't like it at all. Unfortunately the reward systems at our universities are set up to encourage other activities like publishing. But I also know teachers who lead five or six online courses, and I wonder how they manage to do it.


Students have told me they find online courses based on authentic tasks very demanding, but they also say that it is their favorite type of course. And they retain knowledge much longer than if they just study to pass a test.