Can journalism be taught online?
(We might find out soon)
Higher education is planning for the possibility of a Fall semester being taught exclusively remotely. The teaching of journalism might be ready for this anyway, but some adaptation will be needed.
The first time I was invited to Stanford to deliver a lecture at the Computer Science Department back in 2013, I was disappointed to see only a handful of people in the room. “Don’t worry about it”, my host said nicely, “You will have your audience. As you see, the class is recorded, and many students will look at it later, from their dorm room, I can assure you.” I then asked, “You mean that they are paying a hundred grand a year to be at Stanford to watch classes on their computer?” “Actually they do, not always, but yeah… Some faculty members have some difficulties admitting that”, he said with a quip. The room, in the basement of the Bill Gates Building, was indeed well equipped with perfect audio and video gear, with multiple angle cameras, and so on (I went backstage to look at the technical setup).
Later, I had a chat with John Hennessy, then Stanford president (now chairman of Alphabet). He told me that integrating online teaching was a crucial evolution for the university, given the global competition the institution was facing, both in terms of attracting the best students and the best professors from all over the world as well as the wealthiest donors.
Not all physical classes at Stanford are deserted, of course. In 2018, I attended the deep learning class at Stanford that filled up with 600 students (I was able to grasp only parts of the lectures, but Deepnews.ai — at the time News Quality Scoring — was one of the sponsors of the class). And when you have the chance to attend a lecture by Francis Fukuyama withLarry Diamond as a guest speaker in his course about democracy, you won’t miss it for the world.
Today, 18 percent of US higher education students have learned exclusively online. This might change considerably due to the COVID-19 crisis. Most universities are planning for the entire Fall semester and maybe beyond to be taught without students on campuses.
By nature, journalism might be well-positioned to deal with the situation. After all, students are supposed to be proficient in the use of online tools and able to improvise. As for the instructors, the new constraints might be a good opportunity to make some Darwinian adjustments, unless schools take advantage of the Summer break to organize crash-course sessions on how to teach online efficiently (I think all of them should, actually).
In spite of that, repurposing an entire journalism curriculum doesn’t go without challenges. Let me mention just a few.
Reformatting the classes. Let’s first make the distinction between an online class and a remote class. The first one is from the outset designed to be taught online. It doesn’t have to be live since it mostly involves lectures on a computer to be consumed by the student. A remote class is the improvised online version of a class usually given in person. That is where the difficulties start.
A great deal of journalism training involves workshops and seminars. Interactions and group discussions are essential. Depending on the headcount of a class, it might be necessary to break it down to groups of no more than 15 people. Beyond that, there is a risk of leaving the least active students by the wayside. In fact, formats will have to adjust to the subject. Reviewing a video segment or a long-form article will have to be done in a different way than teaching the economics of platforms, for example.
Top-class material. I have always been flabbergasted by the gap between the standards of quality for slides aimed at business presentations and the visuals used as teaching support (including at Stanford!). The latter is up for a long-overdue upgrade, and instructors should take a look at Nancy Duarte’s precepts (she used to be the goddess of slide deck design, but now, there are plenty of inexpensive templates available to accommodate any topic).
Transposed online, a two-hours lecture involving 50 students can no longer rely on the presumed charisma of the teacher. To be delivered remotely, the session has to be scripted and crafted, including with some narrative structure. Otherwise, the bulk on the audience will be lost (meaning: students going mute, camera off, and doing something else). That skill won’t be easy to acquire for many instructors. Again: I think some training will be needed. In a recent note, McKinsey’s recommendations are clear:
Universities could consider holding remote-learning “bootcamps” and hiring more online curriculum designers. In addition, universities can use summer months to explore and test new technologies to meet specialized needs, such as simulation software to mimic a lab experience or accessibility options to better serve students with disabilities.
Tools improvement. The bad news: right now, a lot of the tools suck. The good news: technology is on the right side. Today, the best class taught remotely can be ruined by a poor connection, or more frequently bad audio or image quality. The next six months should see better telepresence tools that are able to cancel unwanted noise, allow clean simultaneous conversations, etc. But it will require some investments on behalf of J-schools that will be financially strained: to extend a previous Monday Note on the cost of J-schools, I wonder how Columbia or USC Annenberg will justify bills of $65,000 or $80,000 for the academic year 2020–2021 if courses will be taught mostly (if not entirely) online.
Aside from the likely switch to remote teaching, the COVID-19 crisis might accelerate the shift in student’s expectations: higher education was aimed at providing knowledge. But now, students also want “actionable skills” that will increase their value and employability, and help them with specific projects.
We’ll talk about it in a future Monday Note.
— frederic.filloux@mondaynote.com
(All my stories are here: mondaynote.com/@filloux ; if you want the Monday Note delivered in your mailbox, do not hesitate to subscribe)
