Michael Horn compares two online learning experiences from twenty years ago to show that putting content online isn't enough. Design, pedagogy, and human interaction still matter. He argues online education works best when it's tailored to each student's needs, not measured by one-size-fits-all metrics.
So my first experience with online Learning came almost 20 years ago, before I started the Harvard Business School. And I remember one of the courses that I took was super engaging. It was well designed, it was interactive, great storyline, and it was extremely effective. And the other, it was painful. It was like dense text isolating. It was like extremely hard to get through. And the contrast has stuck with me because it taught me something important, which is that just using technology, just putting something online, just making it digital, it doesn't make it good, nor does it necessarily make it bad. The design matters quite a bit and the pedagogy matters. And for most students, teachers and peers still matter deeply. And so over the last two decades, as online learning has grown, obviously dramatically, it obviously hasn't been perfect, but it is interesting that it has given millions of students something quite powerful, which is choice. It's been an option when traditional K12 schools couldn't meet their needs because of health, safety, flexibility, or just needing certain opportunities that they couldn't get elsewhere. And too often, it seems to me, we judge these models with one size fits all metrics, and we miss the circumstances of the individual student in question. What job is that student trying to do? What's the progress that they're needing to make at this moment in their life? What's the struggling moment? And if we understand that, then we can really, finally design learning online and offline that helps students move at the pace suitable for them to gain real mastery, to go deeper into subject material when they're ready, and to connect the learning that they're doing to the world around them. So my hope is that the future of education isn't about screens versus classrooms. As an increasing number of works are showing simply layering technology over traditional classrooms, it's not going to bring about transformational changes, and it may make things worse. Instead, the question should be about how we rethink what's possible for every learner to help them thrive and reach their potential.
