互聯網教育興起 能否令商學院消亡

At 12:01 a.m. on August 1, 1981, MTV began its first broadcast by playing a video for the hit Buggles song, “Video Killed the Radio Star.” It was an opening salvo for a revolution in the music industry, which caused no small amount of anxiety for many who foresaw a future of music via television. Of course, MTV has since given way to YouTube, which will make musicians famous far quicker than a DJ will. But video has not killed radio—multiple surveys show that more than 90% of Americans still listen to radio every week. That is hardly the sign of a dead industry. A revolution may have happened, but it did not have the destructive effect a lot of people thought it would.

1981年8月1日12點01分，MTV頻道開始第一次播放節目，播放的是巴吉斯樂隊（Buggles）的名曲《錄像帶殺死廣播歌星》（Video Killed the Radio Star）。音樂行業革命的大幕由此拉開，許多人通過電視預測到了音樂行業的未來，這引起了他們相當大的擔憂。當然，如今MTV已經讓位於YouTube，因爲和DJ相比，YouTube可以讓音樂家更快成名。但錄像帶並未殺死廣播——多項調查顯示，超過90%的美國人仍會每週聽廣播。這可不是一個窮途末路的行業該有的跡象。革命或許確實發生了，但是並未產生許多人預想的那種破壞性後果。

There is now similar anxiety about a revolution in higher education, as massive open online courses, or MOOCs, proliferate. Since the first such course appeared in 2008, people have asked whether we still need traditional classrooms. Why attend expensive colleges and universities—where costs have far outpaced inflation—when you can receive an education from world-class professors for the cost of an Internet connection? Popular free MOOC providers, like Khan Academy and EdX, have prompted many a headline of this variety.

如今，隨着大規模在線公開課程（MOOC）的激增，高等教育界也出現了類似的擔憂。從2008年第一節在線公開課程出現至今，人們一直在問，我們是否還需要傳統課堂？既然只需要連接互聯網就能聽到最優秀的大學教授授課，我們爲什麼還要上昂貴的大學？畢竟大學學費的增速遠遠超過了通脹速度。著名的免費MOOC提供商可汗學院（Khan Academy）和EdX等，都曾多次引發媒體類似的發問。

To worry about the fate of universities, however, you have to overlook the unique advantages of the traditional classroom—advantages that have allowed residential education to withstand numerous innovations in the past, from correspondence courses to television academies. After all, it has long been the case that you could receive a free education from a world-class professor by borrowing his or her textbook from a library, but that free and easy access has not lessened the volume of university applications. Clearly, being physically in a classroom, interacting with a professor and other students, is an irreplaceable component of effective learning. Professors can better assess a student’s learning in person, and adapt their in-class strategies based on immediate, non-verbal feedback. They can also create a comfortable but challenging environment where students will make the leaps that lead to intellectual breakthroughs.

然而，在擔心大學命運的時候，我們不能忽視傳統課堂的獨特優勢——正是這些優勢，使得課堂教育抵擋住了歷史上的無數次創新，例如函授課程或電視大學等。畢竟，人們在很久以前就可以從圖書館裏借閱知名教授的教科書，免費汲取知識，但這種免費的、易於獲得的教育，並未減少大學申請人數。很顯然，坐在課堂裏與教授和其他學生互動，是有效學習的一個不可替代的部分。在真實課堂教學中，教授也可以更有效地評估學生的學習，根據直接的、非語言反饋對課堂策略進行調整。他們還可以創造一種很舒適但具有挑戰性的環境，讓學生實現知識上的突破。

Too much and too little is being made of disruptive forces from technology shaping higher education.

高科技帶給高等教育的衝擊力既可以說太多，也可以說太少。

Business schools can serve as a case study. Online courses can meet a demand for certification (i.e., do you know how to do a particular thing?), and even an online degree can be a potentially lower-cost alternative to classroom experience—if that classroom experience does not offer a rich exchange of knowledge, information, and perspectives with fellow students and faculty.

商學院本身可以作爲一個研究案例。在線課程便可以滿足人們對證書的需求（例如，你知道如何做某件事情嗎？），甚至成本更低的在線學位，有可能取代課堂體驗——前提是這種課堂體驗無法帶來學生之間、師生之間豐富的知識、信息與觀念交流。

That competition is much less for the best business schools, in which so much of the academic benefit reflects physical connections among students, faculty, and the schools’ practitioner networks. In that sense, the disruption from online education for top schools is likely smaller than many commentators think.

而商學院所面臨的在線課堂的競爭，並沒有那麼激烈，因爲在商學院，學術效益主要取決於學生、教師和商學院從業者網絡之間的有形聯繫。因此，在線教育對優秀商學院造成的破壞，遠遠低於評論家們的預測。

But in an important respect, disruptive forces are larger than many academic leaders imagine. If the Internet is causing a revolution in higher education, and in business schools in particular, it’s in prompting a discussion about how we use classrooms, not whether we need classrooms. Until recently, classroom time could be used to provide a lecture meant to elucidate the readings students would have done beforehand. With the ability to upload that same lecture to the Internet for pre-class viewing, the question of how to use classroom time is forcing faculty members to engage in a deep examination of pedagogy. The trend is toward allowing the classroom to be a space for collaboration, but as faculties engage more with the learning sciences, I expect that a rich array of models for classroom learning will emerge. At Columbia, the guiding principle is to use online capabilities to complement in-class teaching with integrated case discussions, not replace it.

但在線教育在另外一個重要方面的破壞性，可能超過了許多學術領導者的想象。如果說互聯網正在引發一場高等教育革命尤其是商學院的革命，那就應該是迫使人們思考如何使用課堂，而非是否需要課堂。到目前爲止，課堂時間都被用於講座，對教學讀物進行闡述說明，但學生本來可以提前完成這項工作。如今，同樣的講座可以提前上傳到互聯網上供學生課前觀看，而如何使用課堂時間的問題將迫使教師們深入研究教學法。未來的發展趨勢可能是將課堂變成一個師生協作的空間，而隨着教學人員對教學法的研究日益深入，未來將會出現豐富多彩的課堂學習模式。哥倫比亞商學院（Columbia Business School）的指導原則是，將在線技術作爲課堂教學的補充，在課堂上進行綜合案例討論，而不是取代課堂教學。

So the online revolution in higher education will be both bigger and smaller than people think: big as a driver of new teaching methodology; small as an existential crisis for the best business schools and universities. Just as people still listen to the radio in a YouTube age, there is much value in obtaining an MBA in the classrooms of the best schools, even as information becomes more accessible outside of the ivory tower than at any time in history. And after all of the hype and anxiety, we will see that the Internet did not kill the B-school classroom.

因此，與許多人的預測不同，高等教育在線革命的影響力或許更大，但也可能更小：作爲新教學法誕生的推動力量，它將產生巨大的影響；而將它作爲頂級商學院和大學的存在危機，它的破壞力又要小得多。正如在YouTube時代人們依舊在聽廣播一樣，通過頂級商學院的課堂獲得MBA仍有極高的價值，儘管人們在象牙塔外獲取信息的能力，要遠遠超過史上任何時候。而在天花亂墜的宣傳與焦慮過後，我們會發現，互聯網並沒有殺死商學院課堂。

Glenn Hubbard is Dean of Columbia Business School. Previously, he was Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush.

本文作者格倫o哈伯德是哥倫比亞商學院院長。他之前曾任喬治oWo布什總統的經濟顧問委員會（Council of Economic Advisers）主席。