Rewarding Teachers as Well as Pupils
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The July 25 front-page article "The Odd World of E-School Teachers; Distance From Students Alters Exchange of Ideas" painted a vivid picture of the growing field of adults who teach children remotely via the Internet.
Online teachers will become increasingly common as the number of online courses continues to expand. In our book about the future of education, "Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns," we calculate that online courses will account for half of all courses in high schools by 2019, up from the million or so enrollments that account for a mere 1 percent of high school courses today.
As this shift takes place, the teacher's role will transform into a "guide on the side, not the sage on the stage." As mentors, motivators and coaches, teachers will use dramatically different skills from the ones they use today, as they will work one-on-one with different types of learners. This means teacher training programs will have to change radically.
This is a challenge, but it is also an exciting opportunity to make teaching far more rewarding. With online courses, teachers will be able to customize learning opportunities for individual students in far more meaningful ways than the traditional classroom allows.
CLAYTON M. CHRISTENSEN
MICHAEL B. HORN
CURTIS W. JOHNSON
Watertown, Mass.
