Roadblocks to progress

So what's standing in the way of more improved methods of teaching and learning? Resistance to change on the part of faculty and administrators? The cost of investing in development learning objectives and technology tools to improve learning outcomes? Fear of business process redesign in a risk adverse environment? Perhaps all of the above.

A primary obstacle to progress, says Allen, is belief in the outdated higher education paradigm that learning will naturally take place when the brightest students are put in a classroom with the best faculty, surrounded by ample resources. It's an approach that may work in some cases, he adds, but won't meet all the needs of the present century.

"The other problem for investing in learning outcomes is that it is complex and expensive to do," says Allen. "There are no silver bullets, no one size fits all, and there are costs. Institutions that are trying to do it are just now finding out how difficult it is. The culture shift necessary to do it in most higher education institutions alone is enormous. It requires getting traditional faculty to let go of cottage industry assessment practices to move to systems in which others may be involved in assessing how effective they have been as teachers. That hits raw emotions and causes much of the resistance."

Read adds that it may be more effective to use technology to remove, as much as possible, the administrative burden from teachers and allow them to do what they do best, which is help students overcome mental blocks, understand what they are learning, and become comfortable with the language and practices of the discipline or profession. These characteristics, he says, are what students value and Internet communications technology is generally not capable of providing.