Question:
Here are four reasons why people who are more than 5 years out of high schoolmight be interested in alternative post-secondary education (I’ll bet you cancome up with lots more).
1 - Get that degree (BX, MX, Ed, Phd). This seems to be the motivation fornewbies to this NG to post here. I had no idea there were so many ways to do adegree before I started reading this NG.
2 - As a refresher. Someone returning to an activity after a significantabsence or someone who finds that once learned but long unused skills are nowneeded.
3 - Update knowledge. Continuing Professional Education or less formal, butprobably more useful, courses of study used to stay current about something.Courses like CPA review and LSAT prep fit here also.
4 - Enrichment. Just a fancy way of saying “taking courses for fun.” Yep,here is where I am.
There has been a lot of discussion about accreditation here lately. One mightthink that accreditation would be least important for someone like me who isonly doing formal education for fun. Not so! It has been my experience thatcourses offered by RA schools have the discipline necessary to give the studentthe most benefit for the student’s investment of time. I said, and meant, the_schools_ have the discipline. The students don’t need discipline they arehaving fun. There are some good people working for non-accredited programs butit is hard for them to maintain a standard of instruction that gives theirstudents the satisfaction of leaning something well.
Any one else like to share their experiences with doing DL for fun?
Answer:
Last year I enrolled in a DL graduate-level course in ancient Greek and Romanhistory offered by Mirus University, an offshoot of the The Teaching Company,which produces video and audio tape courses on liberal arts topics, "taught" byleading professors. Mirus utilized these tapes in fashioning a Master ofLiberal Arts program emphasizing the great ideas and great books of WesternCivilization.
I didn't get to finish the course. Just as I realized that the workload wasway too heavy given my own schedule (viewing lots of tapes, fairly heavyreading, short written assignments, term paper, mid-term and final exams for atypical course), Mirus announced that it was closing its operations due to lackof students.
I was very enthusiastic when I embarked upon the course, but I found the workto be a chore. The reason, I think, is that this would've been a great courseto take in a residential adult ed setting, but on a DL basis there was noopportunity talk about these interesting events and ideas with fellowclassmates.
To me, adult ed "for fun" means that the experience of learning something newis as important as how much you learn. In other words, the learning process isboth a means and an end. If discussion and student interaction is an integralpartof that learning process, then DL doesn't facilitate that so well, evenwith the Internet. As I see it, DL works better when it is more vocationallyoriented, esp. when it comes to either gaining knowledge and/or earningcredentials.
But adult ed "for fun" is best done in person.
