A FIRST-YEAR M.B.A. student is having trouble understanding today’s
lecture in his statistics course. After class, he logs onto the
GSB’s online education system from his off-campus apartment and
brings up the supplemental remediation module for statistics.
Based on the errors he made in a recent online quiz, the system
already detects the areas in which he would benefit from online
remediation. Through a series of interactive prompts, the program
automatically adjusts to the modes of learning best suited to
his learning style. First he reviews key segments of the day’s
lecture on video clips. Then he watches–and listens to–step-by-step
explanations of various interactive applied examples. The module
guides him through a series of customized problems, automatically
adjusting them to his previous performance, either increasing
or decreasing difficulty or pausing for explanation based on his
responses. Working at his own pace, he continues through a personalized
sequence until he is up to speed with the rest of the class.
Though it may seem like science fiction, educational technology
could make a scenario like this reality for Chicago students within
the next decade. Already technology has reshaped many aspects
of the student experience. The school’s Web site is increasingly
a student’s first contact with Chicago. Paper GMATs are being
phased out: prospective students now take the Graduate Management
Admission Test online. Paper applications to the GSB are disappearing,
too. In the new crop of students, electronic applications–whether
through services like Multiapp or CollegeEdge or direct via the
Internet–are becoming the new standard. While the number of applicants
last year posted double-digit gains, the number of applications
mailed actually dropped.
Letters of admission include a password that new admits can use
to gain access to online information on faculty, classes, fellow
students, campus organizations, and housing. Searchable online
databases put students’ academic backgrounds and interests, hobbies,
work experience, family configurations, and addresses at the requestor’s
fingertips, creating a virtual community before the school year
even begins. Registration–the bane of students from time in memoriam–has
joined interview bidding as an online activity. And the technology
connection continues when classes start.
Email communication is routine between students and professors.
Wired classrooms allow multimedia presentations to supplement
traditional instruction. Students use CD-ROM and Internet resources
to complete vast amounts of library research without ever leaving
their rooms. "Five years ago, the capability of a student to download
a data set or homework assignment was barely in the consciousness
of students or faculty," said Steve Stern, director of computing
services at the GSB. "Now it’s the first place they look; they
expect to find it all on the Web."And this is just the beginning.
Maximizing learning
In every case, the point of new technology is to maximize learning
efficiency. For example, allowing students access to interactive
problem sets online, with immediate feedback and remediation,
helps eliminate classroom paper shuffle and keep the focus on
the delivery of knowledge. "The GSB is about face-time with faculty,"
Stern said. "We want to take the best technology available and
use it to enhance what we teach, to enhance the classroom experience."
The latest advances go beyond enhancement: today’s technology
is transforming education. "The main reason technology will change
the delivery of education is because [new educational technology]
will be able to identify the learning style of the student and
determine who the student is," explained Mark Zmijewski, deputy
dean for full-time programs at the GSB. How quickly can he or
she process information? How dense can that information be? Does
the student prefer equations or text? Charts, diagrams, or video?
Tools such as intelligent tutoring, continuous assessment, multiuser
cooperation, interactive simulation, and other advanced Web functions
will offer a customized learning environment for each user, discerning
when the student is stuck and selecting the best method of remediation.
In the future, students will expect to be able to access this
type of learning module anywhere, at any time, including through
portable, wireless devices that Greg Jackson, the university’s
associate provost for networking and instructional technology,
predicts will become common in the near future. "Over the last
few years, cellular phones went from something people used once
in awhile to a constant thing," Jackson said. "We’re going to
see the same thing with a wireless, high performance communication
device. It’s going to be some hybrid of the palm pilot, small
computer, and cellular transmitter. All it really needs at this
point is battery technology."
‘We need the classroom’
Jackson readily admits that technological advances often raise
the question: Is the classroom still necessary?
"I’m a firm believer that we need the classroom," Jackson said.
"No technology will replace it. For one, there is a certain magic
about being in the presence of a wonderful lecturer. It’s just
different being there, and nothing changes that."
In addition, he said, professors can better interact with students
in person. "Reading student faces is important if you want to
teach in a way that is responsive," he said. "It’s very hard to
do technologically, to have everyone looking at the camera at
once. There’s no way to make it work well."
Finally, prestigious schools offer more than instruction. "If
you look at what universities such as ours offer students, part
of it is four years in the presence of people like themselves."
Socializing over the network, he said, is not the same as an hour
debating and drinking with fellow students at the Pub.
Zmijewski agrees that technology does not threaten traditional
teaching–or teaching institutions–but has thought long and hard
about how the business school, in particular, should keep pace
with technology.
"As a premier educational institution, we cannot ignore the impact
of technology on education," Zmijewski said. "We can’t sit back,
because it is the future."
Joining the race without breaking a sweat
Chicago administrators have been considering–and responding to–technological
advances in education for several years. In fall 1997, Dean Robert
S. Hamada created a formal committee to research educational technology
and provide recommendations.
The committee members–Zmijewski; William Kooser, associate dean
for the executive M.B.A. programs; and William Musil, associate
dean and director of the evening M.B.A. and weekend M.B.A. programs–were
approached by numerous firms developing educational technology.
They met with nearly a dozen companies, including Microsoft, Sylvan
Learning Systems, Financial Times, and Unext.com and researched
the technology, the firms, and the proposals. They considered
the culture at Chicago, the needs of faculty and students, and
how new technology could best be integrated into existing systems
of distributing knowledge. They determined what the competition
was doing and what type of arrangement would best serve the university.
Most importantly, they considered the question of how to balance
the risk of taking on new technology too soon with the risk of
being left behind.
After nearly two years of intensive research, the committee made
its recommendations, and in June the university signed a contract
with distance learning provider Unext.com. Chicago will gain the
educational technologies developed by Unext, and in exchange the
school will provide certain types of content for some courses
that will be part of the education program in business that Unext
will market to corporations internationally.
The school will realize three key benefits from its collaboration
with Unext:
*New teaching technology will be developed for Chicago’s use,
with out the considerable expense and resources required to develop
such technology. "We have great ideas and a great reputation,
but we do not have the technology," Zmijewski said. Collaborating
with Unext will provide the new technology that is needed to keep
Chicago’s learning environment state-of-the-art.
*Participating faculty will be able to explore new forms of delivery
and gain first-hand experience with them in a no-risk setting.
*Through Unext, Chicago will be able to observe and quantify the
successes and failures of these new technologies before implementing
them in its own curriculum.
By joining Unext’s roster of content providers–among them Carnegie,
Columbia, Stanford, and London School of Economics–Chicago will
also benefit from increased name recognition globally and from
the association with cutting-edge educational technology. Each
school will provide content for specific modules; Chicago will
likely provide content for finance and other academic areas.
Unext was selected for its ability to provide the latest and best
technology, its expert knowledge of educational psychology, and
its well-developed channels of marketing and distribution. It
also was selected for its compatibility with the school’s culture.
The firm has tapped some of Chicago’s best minds. Unext founder
Andrew Rosenfield is a university trustee and a 1978 graduate
of the Law School; board members include Nobel laureates Merton
Miller, Robert R. McCormick Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus,
and University Professor of Economics Gary Becker, as well as
former dean John P. Gould, Steven G. Rothmeier Professor and Distinguished
Service Professor of Economics.
The time required of faculty and administration will be minimal,
Zmijewski said, and Unext will reimburse the GSB up front for
this time and for all related development costs. In addition,
the contract requires certain levels of performance in product
development, delivery, and marketing, as well as the success of
the company itself. "This is a very low risk contract," Zmijewski
said. "If at any time we are at all dissatisfied, the contract
can be nullified and we can take our intellectual content and
go anywhere else." In addition, the GSB is not restricted from
working with other companies to develop courses in academic areas
other than those developed with Unext.
Extending Chicago’s mission
Collaborating with Unext is just one way Chicago is embracing
new educational technology and keeping ahead of the curve. Over
the past eighteen months, two positions dedicated to Web development
and instructional technology have been created at the GSB. Last
summer, a Web editor was hired to help maximize the communication
capabilities of the school’s Web pages. This spring, the school
announced a new position, manager of instructional technology.
The manager will evaluate existing technology, monitor developing
technology, determine how and when new applications can be integrated
into the GSB, and will help the school "move beyond PowerPoint
and videotapes in the classroom," Stern said. "We want to integrate
what are becoming fairly common technologies with our existing
instructional techniques."
Working with Unext will extend Chicago’s mission by bringing more
new technology to the Chicago campus and furthering the school’s
presence around the world, Zmijewski said. "As we’re able to deliver
academic content in new ways, that will allow us to take the creative
ideas and conceptual framework here at the U of C and distribute
it to more individuals. That’s our educational mission. We create
knowledge and communicate knowledge. Because of technology, we
can communicate our knowledge to a larger group of people."–M.M.B.